The first thing that struck me about the episode “Soul Sucker” had nothing to do with the plot. Mark is trying to communicate with a robot who ejaculates on anything that moves. Everyone turns to the one other robot in their support group, who bitterly responds, “I love that everyone just ASSUMES I read punchcard.” It’s one of the oldest gags in the book (and I did see it coming), but the delivery of the line mixed with the ridiculously gross nature of the situation is kind of what I love about this show.
So we discover that the robot was programmed by a scientist in 1954 who predicted a series of dirigible wars for 1982 and the need for virile semen in a post-apocalyptic world. And Dr. Alan Boring was more than happy to supply the material (and expected to be thanked for his generosity). It’s kind of sad how radically different we think the future is going to be (ever read 1984? Hell, Back to the Future promised us flying cars this decade). The robot’s backstory is another small moment of the show that is so funny and says so much.
The main story was fun because it was kind of a mystery. Mark gets Callie a last minute gift for her 13th Zechalech Ceremony — and he discovers the gift has more significance than what he expected. First, we’re led to believe he accidentally proposed, but it isn’t directly confirmed. I had an idea of what it actually was, but it’s only towards the end of the episode that Callie explains she’s supposed to suck out his soul. I enjoyed figuring out just what was going on and was glad the writers were confident enough to let the truth go unanswered until the end. It made for a more enjoyable show.
There’s a good amount of gore and creepiness in this episode — Callie presents Mark the mangled corpses of her exes and makes him relive his most disturbing dreams as part of the ritual — but Mark convincing his girlfriend to ultimately keep her soul because he loves the part of her that is human was surprisingly touching. It’s still a comedy, but it was cool to see her embrace her humanity in front of the same demons who mocked her for it during puberty. Ugly Americans is adept at balancing genuinely moving character development and robots pumping the rotting corpse of their creator for more man juice.
It’s a fine line.
Clacked by Katie Schenkel 
on Nov 11, 2010 @ 08:25 EST5EDT
