Are You Afraid of the Dark: The Tale of Jake and the Leprechaun

The Tale of Jake and the Leprechaun is pretty much universally regarded as the worst episode of Are You Afraid of the Dark’s first season. I don’t disagree with that sentiment, but I am somewhat curious how it was received upon initial release, before the Tumble crowd was around to scream “cultural appropriation!” It reminds me of when Superfriends wanted to be more diverse, so they added on a Native American who spoke in grunts and dressed in stereotypical buckskins, because that was the only thing they knew about Native Americans.

In the same way, this is an episode about Irish folklore that knows nothing about Irish folklore except that leprechauns are a thing, and banshees are bad. I’m not an expert in Irish mythology, but even I know that banshee are female, and a “changeling” is a fairy child left in the place of a kidnapped human child. Here, we have a male banshee who keeps himself young by turning twelve-year-olds into “changelings” that eventually become animals.

All of this might have been explainable with the standard excuse that the narrator is a child just using a few Irish buzzwords to sound exotic, but Eric (Jacob Tierney) opens his first story by telling the Midnight Society that his Irish grandfather recently passed away, and this entire story was one his grandfather told him. I have no idea why an Irishman who was a grandfather in 1992 would tell a story set in the modern United States as a way of passing on his culture to his grandson. I guess you could say that Eric, being the Society’s goof, just made up the whole story about a dead grandfather, but then the whole episode is simply pointless.

I know I’m spending more time ranting about the awful set-up of this episode than I’ve spent ranting about entire episodes or films in the past, but this one really bugs me because it was such a great opportunity blown. They could have actually used this as a chance to film a real Irish folktale. Perhaps even get a few real elderly Irishmen in to tell stories until they hit on the most obscure one they can find, and film something truly original.

To deal with the story we do get, Jake (Benjamin Plener) wants to be an actor, and finds himself cast in the lead of a local play based on Irish folklore, written by a man named Erin (John Dunn-Hill), who we’re told is a genius (to be fair his play does seem better than this episode). Jake, however, feels that he’s not up to the challenge. Hoping to become more creative, Jake learns that Erin drinks specially brewed tea, and goes to a nearby herbalist to ingredients.

The herbalist, surprise-surprise, is an Irish little person names Sean O’Shaney (David Steinberg), who may or may not be an actual leprechaun (the episode never gives a definitive answer). Recognizing the herbs, he believes Jake to be evil, and chases him off. However, in the next rehearsal Jake is surprised to find his voice changing during a spell he recites with Erin, and returns to Sean for guidance.

Sean, realizing Jake is a harmless dupe, comes to watch the rehearsal, and disrupts it, realizing that Erin is a (*groan*) banshee trying to keep himself young by turning Jake into a frog. To prove this, Sean makes Jake look into the mirror to reveal pointed ears...despite the fact that he’s changing into an animal without external ears…

Jake, now being half changeling, will die if he stays in his current state. The only way to return to a full human is to outsmart the Banshee. This leads to a confrontation where Jake has to follow a series of rules (be fearless, keep his gaze...), and Sean shows up dressed in stereotypical leprechaun clothes.

Beyond these basic descriptions, I can’t tell you much about the battle, because I don’t really know what happens. Earlier in the episode we established that pixies can’t refuse a trade if you say “mine be yours, and yours be mine.” However, I have no idea how such a trade helps the situation. Erin turns Jake into a frog, Sean reveals that he has the Banshee’s tail, and trades it for Jake...and Erin disappears for some reason, leaving Sean to restore Jake. With that, the episode closes to the Midnight Society clapping, telling me how much I should like this story.

Seriously, what is this? Why did anyone think this episode was a good idea? We finally get a story from Eric, and this is what they give us? I don’t think I have ever seen a truly awesome opportunity blown so spectacularly.

Are You Afraid of the Dark: The Tale of the Sorcerer's Apprentice

Okay, finally a serious criticism to be leveled at this show: they really should have used some clear rotation of story-tellers. Perhaps it’s intended to highlight the personalities of the different characters by depicting some as more eager than others. However, this is Betty Ann’s (Raine Pare-Coull) second in a row, and third overall, while troublemaker Eric (Jacob Tierney) has told one brief fragment, and gets his first actual episode next week. It seems a bit unbalanced.

That said, however, I think this is another episode that hits it out of the park, to the point of being a viable season finale. One again, this story that affects me more now, as an adult, looking at it as a commentary on our educational system. While I’m certainly not in the crowd that cheers on Charter Schools, I do find myself nervous about the idea of bad information being inserted into our school systems by ideologues. I also constantly find myself horrified at the realization that much of the information I was taught as a student was, at best, wildly oversimplified.

In this story, that’s exactly what we see. Dean (Matthew MacKay) is a low-performing student who finds himself fascinated by a brief lecture given to his class by an archaeologist named Dr. Oliver (Emma Stevens). I’d say it was absurdly simple, but...no, this is the kind of watered-down understanding I received. “Many ancient civilizations believed some variation of x.” Information without context, designed only to convince school boards that their kids have been given a smidgen of culture.

In the lecture, Dr. Oliver tells the story of the ancient sorcerer Goth. She fails to tell anything about his historical context or the significance of his life, except that his followers gain good fortune. Just enough to intrigue a student desperate to feel special. Dean quickly finds himself meeting with her, and Dr. Oliver tips her obvious hand by saying she hopes she’s won “another convert.”

We’re told that Dean has only a single friend, Alix (Staci Smith), and as Dean falls to the dark side she becomes our viewpoint character. Dean begins hanging around with a strange group of students, and acting as their leader. He also somehow mesmerizes a jerk teacher (Jane Gilchrist) into giving him an A on a blank test. Finally, Alix follows him down into the school’s basement, and sees him using a staff from Dr. Oliver’s lecture to speak to the ghostly head of the mysterious sorcerer (Stephen Hart).

I’d say this episode has a peculiar way of using it’s short running time to it’s advantage. Obviously, we don’t have the time to tell Goth’s full history, nor would most of the viewers particularly care about his fanciful past. However, in this episode that’s part of the point: Dean has no idea who Goth is, how he was apparently trapped in another dimension, or the history of how he became a powerful sorcerer. Dean has been given just enough information to bring Goth back into our world, Goth’s apparent goal. He has to combine two simple ingredients: Belladonna and Mercuric Acid (I suspect the writers wanted to use a fictional “don’t try this at home kids” chemical, but according to Google they may have accidentally used a valid name for mercury mixed with any acid) to create the “mystic vapors.”

Goth is actually a perfect cult leader. His promises to Dean are vague (“all you desire”), and he uses the word “apprentice” to give a sense of commonality with the child he clearly doesn’t feel. We’re watching an angry adolescent being used by the first adult to show interest in him. Sincerity is not required.

The Midnight Society interruption in this episode is especially annoying because there are no major mysteries for them to speculate about in the episode. Instead, Alix gets captured, and they suggest that she’ll be boiled in the mercuric acid. Not only do Dean and his followers never attempt this, Dean has already been clear that he wants to convert Alix, so the suggestion seems silly.

The ending is a bit too convenient. Goth crosses over, attacks Alix, and Dean shakes off his control to protect his friend. He warns Alix to use chlorine to kill the Nightshade, thus forcing Goth back into the other dimension...he apparently concluded that vapors produced from belladonna could be stopped by the chemical because it kills bacteria, and “the leaves were organic...well, to be fair, it seems like the contrived ending a Middle Schooler trying to wrap up a story might use. My own head canon: They stopped Goth because chlorine is a base, and counteracted the acid. It’s not hard to imagine that was the original intention, and the “killed the leaves” was a way to dumb the episode down for the kiddies.

The ending revealed the painfully obvious: Dr. Oliver was a servant of Goth who goes High School to High School trying to recruit kids because...she can’t summon Goth herself for some reason. Well, we don’t know the reason, but it’s beside the point. She’s an authority figure corrupting young minds.

So, yes, for the most part it’s a strong episode. As cheesy and over the top as we’ve come to expect, but still a good time. And, it has some nice themes behind it.