While StuGo is a hilarious and absurdly wild sci-fi ride, this week’s episode of the new Disney Channel series proves that it also has a whole lot of heart too.
Finders Kelpers
It’s time for the island’s favorite game show – Finders Keepers. Hosted by Mr. Okay and mainly for a live crowd of mutants, this happens whenever the waters recede as a major storm approaches and a small coastal boardwalk village is exposed. Contestants are allowed to run through the village and find collectibles and goodies to bring back in their cart before Lullah does something or other when the game ends.
Curious about that part? Don’t worry, Pliny is too. But the game has started and the kids are the contestants this go-round. The tear through the kelp covering all the goods, throwing it to the sides or even popping the little seeds on it while ransicking the little village. Pliny gets a giant soggy carnival plushie to use as a pillow so she has to stop sleeping on an open book, others find shells, a junk pile, and more but it doesn’t matter. Now, it all belongs to Lullah. That’s the catch. Lullah gets to collect her take, which is 100% of the findings.
Pliny feels that this is unfair, but Lullah explains that she owns the entire island, so all of this stuff is hers anyways. Makes sense right? Eh, kinda.
The kids disappointedly retreat to their abandoned boat home and are greeted by warriors – who are a lot smaller than they seem. It’s mutant kelp, and the kids in their ransacking didn’t realize they were demolishing some of their population. Don’t worry, we get a flashback that gives another point of view on this situation.
As such, the kelp warriors have come for revenge, they just have to stay wet in the rain in order to actually be effective. However, Pliny and the others explain that it’s not their fault, it was Lullah’s. Together, they concoct a plan to get into her vault of trinkets from Finders Keepers, and execute the plan on the next go-round. Using a secret snowglobe, they manage to get a piece of living kelp into the vault, who then opens it from the inside to run out and open the roof of the lab, allowing the rain to get in and keep all the kelp wet. Once the roof is open, the colony of warriors rushes the lab to get all of their belongings back, and in doing so, floods the place.
As Lullah and Okay are quite literally flushed out, Pliny is at the bottom waiting to greet Lullah and show off her skills of getting revenge. Too bad Lullah is quite experienced in these matters and doesn’t expect them to just take their own things. And sure enough, she is right. Now fully flooded, the lab is filled with kelp who are explaining that they’re not leaving now.
Pliny, dejected, realizes Lullah was right, and worse off – now they are bunking with her AND Lullah is wearing her giant plushie as a onesie – which was HER idea. Back at the boat, the kids set up a TV with Lullah’s show while Pliny gets comfortable on her book bed, before Lullah tears off the head of the plushie and tosses it to Pliny so she can use it as a pillow.
See?! She does care about these kids! Right? Right.
Truck Everlasting
We love a good origin story, and finally we’re getting a bit of a peek into the past of Dr. Lullah and Mr. Okay. How? Well it all starts with a giant magnet. Chip has lost one of his thumbtacks and can’t seem to find it, so the gang is using the giant magnet attached to the back of the boat to sweep the island for it. While their attempt is just targeted near them, they are pulling up everything off the beach, including a diver. Up in Lullah’s lab, it’s time for Noontime Nachos, and Mr. Okay and Lullah are getting ready for their daily tradition…when everything metal starts sliding toward the window because of the kids’ giant magnet. This also includes Lullah herself thanks to her giant bracelets, and Mr. Okay, because he has a penchant for eating her necklaces.
As such, they go blasting through the window and joining the diver at the bottom of the magnet. As the magnet sweeps over a mudpit, a 4-wheelin’ truck starts to be unearthed. Mr. Okay and Lullah are happy to see the truck…before it starts hurtling toward them.
Now, the kids decide to relinquish control of the magnet, releasing everything. It’s then that we discover that Lullah and Mr. Okay used to tear through the island, muddin’ and 4-wheelin’ over every inch of the place, including a treacherous mountain peak. This was all back when Mr. Okay was still a puppy, Lullah’s “Mud Pup,” as it were. Their affinity for cruising around the island together is what solidified their lifelong bond, AND what got Lullah to give him legs.
Now that the truck is back, they can go cruising again! Mr. Okay’s old vest is still in the passenger seat, and he puts it on. It’s a bit tight, but it still fits. Upon their initial drive, Okay finds he might be a little too old for these adventures. His young puppy body could once handle all the bumps and spins and curves, but now he’s just getting nauseous during their adventure.
When they return and Lullah sees how the drive has affected him, she realizes he’s not the same puppy he was and decides to pick one of the kids to be her new Mud Pup, and it’s Sara. The rest of the kids jump into the back of the truck and go for the ride as well – leaving Mr. Okay hopeful that Lullah will return in time for their daily noontime nachos together.
You know who else didn’t go on the adventure? Francis. She has stayed behind too and now Mr. Okay – realizing she was the cool one of the group – enlists her to help get the noontime nachos ready for when Lullah gets back. What follows is a number of moments where we see Francis working with Okay to make the nachos, all while Okay gets increasingly paranoid that he is being replaced because he’s too old.
He takes his nap while the nachos bake, and has a nightmare about this very topic, and wakes up way past the time for noontime nachos. Luckily, Francis was still around and took care of them, but Lullah was not around. Okay asks if the nachos are fine and Francis says that they’re nice and cool. It’s around this point that Okay discovers she was using “cool” the entire time as a temperature – not the way he meant. Panicking, he says Lullah heading toward the treacherous mountain peak once again with the kids and takes off after her in his cart to make the same jump to prove that he is still cool.
Lullah makes the jump, but Okay (who is close behind) stops at the edge and wonders what and why he’s doing this. The time to think runs out when something startles him and triggers him to extend his feet and press the gas pedal, launching him over the edge.
No – he doesn’t clear the jump. As he falls over, he flashes back and we see when Lullah got the truck in the first place, long ago when she was younger. There, she found a scared puppy underneath who she calmed down by feeding nacho chips. This excitedly won the pup’s affection who was barking and sounded like he was saying “okay” with each bark. She threw him into the passenger seat and saw how much he enjoyed the ride thus becoming Lullah and the Mud Pup.
He wakes up to find the kids and Lullah surrounding him, where Lullah explains that he might not be able to go on the muddin’ trips anymore but he’s always her #1 pup. They venture out for a nice, slow, calm ride before finding Chip’s 50th thumbtack, closing out the episode in a nice heartfelt (and unexpectedly hilarious) moment.
This episode of StuGo is now available on Disney Channel and the DisneyNOW website. The series will arrive on Disney+ in the spring.