Dumb...Huh? Episode 2 - Tealy and the Crew
The thumbnail was better this time.
Beric had made the thumbnail. It showed the new catapult — significantly larger than the first one, as promised, looming in the background like a medieval threat that had made some life choices — with the show's title in clean, readable text that was all the same size and did not use Comic Sans. There was no unidentified finger in the corner.
DumbDird had looked at it and said "DURR, PROFESSIONAL" with the reverence of someone seeing the Sistine Chapel.
Tealy had looked at it and felt something he could only describe as cautious optimism, which he immediately felt bad about.
The episode opened cleanly.
No three minutes of camera adjustment. No sideways footage. No mysterious floor content. Beric had simply cut straight to DumbDird on stage in the sequined jacket, microphone in hand, lights functioning at a normal and consistent level, catapult visible and fully framed in the background like the star it was.
It looked, genuinely and disturbingly, like a real show.
"DURR, WELCOME," DumbDird said, "TO DUMB... HUH? EPISODE TWO."
He pointed at the catapult.
"DURR, NEW CATAPULT."
The camera pushed in on the catapult slowly and deliberately, which was a Beric editorial decision that showed real cinematic instinct, and which Tealy watched with the quiet acknowledgment that Beric had understood the assignment completely.
The contestants this time were Blara, Beric again by personal choice because he wanted to study the new catapult's trajectory from the inside, Tealy who had been socially pressured into participating through a campaign of DumbDird messages that had lasted four days, and Bayla, who had shown up with a green smoothie and genuine excitement and had been visibly thrilled to be included.
The absence of Dird had been noted but not explained until halfway through the episode, which everyone watching now knew was coming but which still landed exactly as intended.
Round One: Bayla.
Bayla approached the podium with her smoothie, smiled warmly at DumbDird, and said "This is so fun, I'm so glad to be here!" with a sincerity so complete it briefly made the catapult look threatening in a way it hadn't before.
DumbDird smiled back. The lights flickered once.
"Huh?" said DumbDird.
"Dumb!" said Bayla, exactly on time, smoothie in hand, still smiling.
The taco arrived. Bayla accepted it graciously, said thank you to nobody in particular, and walked back to her spot. She took a sip of her smoothie. She seemed genuinely pleased.
"She just," Tealy said from the sideline.
"Durr, yeah," said DumbDird.
"First try."
"Durr, she's very calm, Tally."
Tealy watched Bayla take another sip of her smoothie and thought about the Minion meme and felt complicated about everything.
Round Two: Blara.
Blara had a bag of chips. She always had a bag of chips. The chips were non-negotiable.
She stood at the podium with the expression of someone who had done this before and found the experience acceptable enough to repeat but wasn't going to pretend to be excited about it.
"Huh?" said DumbDird.
"Dumb," said Blara, same as last time, flat and perfectly timed, like a metronome that resented being a metronome.
Taco. Caught. Assessed. Accepted. Chips resumed.
Beric, watching from the side, nodded. "Consistent," he said.
"Durr, she's really good," DumbDird said.
Blara heard this and did not react, which was its own kind of reaction.
Round Three: Beric.
Beric had, in the time since episode one, clearly thought about this.
He stood at the podium with the focused energy of someone who had replayed his previous loss and identified the specific variables that had caused it. He had studied DumbDird's timing during the warm-up. He had noted the micro-expression. He had, in the green room, been visibly running mental calculations.
The camera caught all of this in a clean medium shot because Beric had also set up the camera, so the framing was perfect, which was either professional dedication or a mild conflict of interest.
DumbDird stared at him.
Beric stared back.
The silence stretched.
And stretched.
It kept stretching.
DumbDird was going longer this time. He had adapted. He had, in his own DumbDird way, done the same thing Beric had done, which was watch the previous episode and notice what had almost worked.
Beric's eye twitched.
"Huh?" said DumbDird.
"Dumb," said Beric.
Late. Again. By almost the exact same margin as episode one.
The new catapult launched with a significantly more authoritative sound than its predecessor. Beric cleared the back wall by a considerably greater distance than before. The camera tracked him — this was a Beric pre-production decision, he had set up a second camera specifically for the catapult arc — and he sailed across the frame in a clean, well-lit, perfectly exposed shot before disappearing over the horizon.
A faint, professional "hm" echoed back.
The second camera footage was excellent.
Tealy watched from the sideline with his arms folded. "He set up a camera for his own launch."
"Durr, he said it was for coverage," DumbDird said.
"He knew he was going to get launched."
"Durr, yeah."
"And he set up a camera anyway."
"Durr, Tally, he really loves cameras."
Round Four: Tealy.
Tealy had not wanted to be here. He wanted that on the record. He had said no four times across four days of DumbDird messages and had eventually said yes not because he'd been convinced but because the messages had simply not stopped and continuing to say no felt like a full-time job.
He walked to the podium.
He looked at DumbDird.
DumbDird looked back with the pure, radiant excitement of someone who had been waiting for this specifically.
Tealy was not going to get launched. He was absolutely not getting launched. He had functioning object permanence and a working knowledge of DumbDird's behavioral patterns and he was going to say Dumb at the correct time and get a taco and walk back and that was the entire plan.
The silence began.
Tealy waited.
DumbDird waited.
The lights flickered.
Tealy waited.
DumbDird waited.
Bayla sipped her smoothie quietly in the background.
Tealy waited.
"Huh?" said DumbDird.
"Dumb," said Tealy.
On time.
Perfectly on time.
He caught the taco. Looked at it. Looked at DumbDird. Walked back to the sideline.
"DURR, TALLY—"
"Don't," said Tealy.
"DURR, YOU WERE SO GOOD—"
"I know."
"DURRR—"
"I said I know, DumbDird."
He ate the taco. It was a good taco. He wasn't going to say that out loud.
It was at the thirty-one minute mark of what was shaping up to be a significantly better-produced episode that the sound came from outside.
A faint mechanical hum.
Getting closer.
Everyone looked up.
Through the upper window of the set, visible in the wide shot because Beric had chosen that angle deliberately, a drone appeared.
It was flying steadily, with purpose, at a controlled altitude. Hanging below it, on a short length of string, was a balloon.
The balloon was printed with a single enormous 👍 emoji.
It crossed the entire width of the set window in a slow, even arc. Camera two caught it in profile. It was, from a production standpoint, a clean shot.
Then it was gone.
Silence.
"Was that," Tealy started.
"Durr, yeah," said DumbDird, completely unsurprised.
"Dird."
"Durr, he texted me this morning. Said he couldn't make it but durr, wanted to show support."
Tealy stared at the window where the drone had been.
Dird had not come to the show. Had not called. Had not sent a message to the group chat, which, to be fair, he never did verbally. Had not, by any observable metric, engaged with the production of episode two in any meaningful communicative way.
He had flown a drone over the set carrying a thumbs up emoji balloon.
It was the most Dird thing that had ever happened.
"He couldn't just text," Tealy said.
"Durr, he did text. To tell me about the drone."
"He couldn't just text a thumbs up."
"Durr, I think he wanted to do it properly, Tally."
Tealy looked at the window. At the empty sky where the drone had been. At DumbDird, who was smiling like the drone was the nicest thing anyone had ever done.
Somewhere outside, Dird was presumably retrieving his drone and his emoji balloon with the quiet satisfaction of someone who had expressed exactly the right amount of support in exactly the right way.
Bayla said "That's actually really sweet" and meant it completely.
Blara posted a photo of her taco in the group chat.
Dird reacted with 👍
The episode ran forty-four minutes after Beric's edit, which had added slow motion to the catapult launches, a clean title card, proper audio mixing, a dedicated credit sequence, and a brief post-credits scene of the empty set with the catapult sitting alone under one spotlight that was either accidental or genuinely cinematic and nobody could agree which.
It was uploaded at a reasonable hour. With a good thumbnail. With chapters marked in the timeline.
Within three days it had 340 views.
DumbDird posted the link in the group chat seven times.
Dird reacted to all seven with 👍
Blara posted cheese.
Tealy watched his own episode twice and told nobody.
The reapplication to Netflix was sent on a Friday.
This time DumbDird mentioned the drone.
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