Help! I loved Nerdy Prudes Must Die and am curious about Nightmare Time but don't really have time to commit to watching it all... (a handy guide)
For those of you who don't know Nightmare Time was a series of Hatchetfield one shots that starkid wrote and recorded during lockdown, all of which are of course available for free on YouTube. They go a lot deeper into the lore than the 3 Hatchetfield musicals, including explaining and explore the characters we know and love in more detail, sometimes including shocking revelations.
They also introduce new characters to the Hatchetfield universe, including Stephanie Lauter, Grace Chasity and Pete Spankoffski, who we first met in a Nightmare Time episode.
As they were filmed in lockdown the recording quality is somewhat variable, but Season 2 has a much higher production value than Season 1, and in Season 1 Episode 1 in particular they were very clearly trying to find their feet with it. That being said the actual scripts and content of the episodes is solid throughout.
I've decided to put together this handy guide of which Nightmare Time episodes people might want to check out if they want to learn more about certain things we saw in NPMD.
1) Nibbly - Honey Queen (season 2 episode 1)
If you're curious to learn more about the Lords in Black each of them (bar Wiggly) have an episode of Nightmare Time devoted to them.
For Nibbly, Wiggly's hungriest and pinkest brother that episode is 'Honey Queen' in Season 2 Episode 1.
It explores a very entertaining rivalry between Linda Monroe (from Black Friday) and Zoey (the annoying barista from Beanie's in TGWDLM) that naturally turns very very dark. We also get to meet Linda's husband Gerald who she spends most of Black Friday on the phone to.
As a heads up Nibbly doesn't appear until, shall we say, the end of the episode (with Hatchetfield there's always a twist) and he's not in the super sexy form from NPMD but it's a very strong episode and does give a bit of background to Nibbly's deal.
2) Tinky - Time Bastard (season 1 episode 2 part 2)
If you're curious to learn more about this yellow motherfucker played by Curt then you're in luck because he's in my personal favourite episode and one with a lot of interesting lore surrounding it.
If you're curious about what he means when in NPMD he says 'I could add another Spankoffski to my set', Time Bastard is focused around Pete's brother Ted (from TGWDLM) and the dodgy dealings of CCRP.
It's an extremely clever episode, with lots of really fun twists. It's unfortunately season 1 so has slightly lower production quality, but in terms of raw scripting is just outstanding and has some really interesting reveals about people in the Hatchetfield universe who may not be who we think they are...
Also worth noting that this is in the same episode (Youtube video) as a different Nightmare Time episode 'Forever and Always'. Most episodes work like this where you have two different stories per episode, they absolutely can be watched independently but usually have some sort of thematic link (in this case it's the things we do for love and how they will inevitably be thwarted by CCRP being sketch).
3) Blinky - Watcher World (season 1 episode 1 part 2)
And if you're curious about the one who's always watching you, he's actually the first Lord in Black we meet through Nightmare Time, in the very first episode when Bill and Alice Woodward (TGWDLM) go on an ill fated trip to a spooky theme park.
Again this is from the first episode so production quality is low but it's a really solid episode and a very interesting look into these characters.
While this is our first meeting of a lord in black in Nightmare Time, I don't believe he's actually referred to as such, and the concept of the Lords in Blacks being introduced as Wiggly's brothers comes in at point 5 on this list.
4) Pokey - Yellow Jacket (season 2 episode 4)
You've already met Pokey through TGWDLM (yep that was his blue shit that destroyed the world!), but you won't truly realise how fucking scary he is until you meet his incarnation 'Otho' in Yellow Jacket.
A solid episode exploring Lex, Hannah and Ethan in a lot more detail, and in a world and lives where (at least at the start of the episode) things seem to be a lot more stable for them than in Black Friday.
And yeh as I've already mentioned Pokey is fucking s c a r y in it. Also you remember James Tolbert's character, Charles that gets a little cameo in Hatchetown? Well he's the main human antagonist of this episode!
We also learn a lot of lore about 'the gift', the thing that makes Hannah able to do magic.
5) The concept of the Lords in Black generally - The Witch in the Web (season 2 episode 3 part 2)
If you're curious about why everyone's been posting pictures of those evil teddy bears and now even more confused that you've met them all as fucked up high school students, the Witch in the Web is the episode where we're first introduced to the 'they don't care bears' as a set.
This is a really cool episode, again about Lex and Hannah, but it also exploring Uncle Wiley (from Black Friday) in a lot more detail.
We also first meet two characters called Duke and Miss Holloway who together form the ship Holloduke that if you were following any of Starkid tumblr during lockdown you will definitely have heard of. They're really cool!
Here we also meet Webby, Hannah's imaginary friend in Black Friday, who turns out to be the lord in black's sister: a queen in white. And she's dope.
6) Pete Spankoffski, Stephanie Lauter and Grace Chasity - Abstinence Camp (season 2 episode 2 part 2)
We first meet the now beloved characters of Pete and Steph and the slightly less beloved character of Grace in an evangelical abstinence only camp. The episode centers entirely around these characters and plays excellently with tropes of the horror genre.
It also has the best song in all of Nightmare Time and it's up to you to decide if I'm talking about 'oh my god it's the axe-man' or 'virginity rocks' (it's both, the answer is both).
That's pretty much it in terms of Nightmare Time episodes that cover things from NPMD, but in case you're curious here's a quick run down of what the rest are about:
- The Hatchetfield Ape Man - season 1 episode 1 part 1. Hidgens makes Ted pretend to be a Tarzan style half monkey, half man thing to con Angela Giarratanna out of her inheretence.
- Watcher World - season 1 episode 1 part 2. See bullet 3 above. Alice and Bill Woodward go to a theme park and shit hits the fan.
- Forever and Always - season 2 episode 2 part 1. Paul and Emma get married. Things are not as they seem (there are robots). One of my personal favourites.
- Time Bastard - season 2 episode 2 part 2. See bullet 2 above. Ted fucks with time travel and things end very badly for him. Best episode imo.
- Jane's a Car - season 2 episode 3 part 1. Turns out the soul of Tom Houston's ex-wife Jane, who died in a car crash, transferred into the car. This somewhat complicates his budding relationship with Becky Barnes.
- The Witch in the Web - season 2 episode 3 part 2. See bullet 5 above. Hannah Foster's having nightmares and somehow a witch and Uncle Wiley are involved. Luckily a good witch (Miss Holloway) is there to try and help.
- Honey Queen - season 2 episode 1. See bullet 1 above. Linda Monroe and Zoey Chambers compete to win the Hatchetfield honey queen beauty pageant and things spiral wildly out of control. My personal favourite episode from season 2.
- Perky's Buds - season 2 episode 2 part 1. Emma's finally achieved her dream of owning her own pot farm. Just her, her non-binary farm hand Ziggs and some very evil birds.
- Abstinence Camp - season 2 episode 2 part 2. See bullet 6 above. Pete, Steph and Grace go to a retreat in the very creepy woods to learn one way or another about the perils of pre-marital sex.
- Daddy - season 2 episode 3 part 1. Remember Sherman Young (Jamie's weird creepy guy from Black Friday)? Turns out there's something very weird going on with his mum. We also learn a lot about Frank Pricely (owner of toyzone from Black Friday) in this episode, who turns out to be a very interesting character.
- Killer Track - season 2 episode 3 part 2. Miss Holloway must take extreme action to save a young girl and then the whole world against an evil song that kills anyone who listens to it. We learn a lot more about Holloway as a character and she is soooo cool. Another favourite episode of mine.
- Yellow Jacket - season 2 episode 4. See bullet point 4. Hannah seeing her sister struggling to provide for them financially decides to find a way of using her power to earn some spare cash.
- Hey Melissa - episode aired only on a livestream, type it into youtube and it'll come up. If you've ever found yourself asking 'what if Mariah's secretary character from the start of TGWDLM was really into dom pup play and Paul Matthews was her little pup bitch and she was also a horrific out of control serial killer?' then a) are you Matt Lang because if not I'm concerned? and b) by god this is the episode for you!. I personally really enjoy it I think it's super funny, but obviously heavy trigger warnings for abuse and sexual content warnings (there's a reason they didn't put this in the real series). Fucking excellent tho.
