By Brandon Nolta

Ever wonder where the hell Booger from REVENGE OF THE NERDS has been all these years? Well, besides making the occasional film appearance—he played Ahmet Ertegun in RAY—and becoming a recognized expert on the work of Harry Nilsson (and if you don’t know who that is, shame on you), he shows up for work at the Work Bench. Yes, Curtis Armstrong makes a guest appearance on REAPER this week, and he’s quite funny in that pathetic lonely way that he’s more or less patented.

Sam (Bret Harrison), Sock (Tyler Labine) and Ben (Rick Gonzalez) made quite an impression at the bar as the episode begins; they’ve entertained a bachelorette party quite well, to the point where one hot blonde hands Sam her number. He’s reluctant to do anything with it because he’s still pining for Andi (Missy Peregrym), but the Devil (Ray Wise) is right there egging him on, pushing for lust to take the day. Meanwhile, there’s a pair of souls running around, stealing muscle cars and crashing them in wild ways for fun and more fun. For help, the boys turn to Russ, a co-worker who is trapped in the glory days of 30 years past and hopelessly clueless about his social skills. Guess who plays him.

Anyway, Sam and the boys manage to capture one of the souls with a trap they set using Russ’ cherry 1970 Mustang, but the girl, a psycho named Holly (Mercedes McNab, finally growing into that weirdly attractive face she’s been sporting since BUFFY THE VAMPIRE SLAYER), is on the loose, and she’s the more dangerous of the two. Using the vessel, Sam figures out where to find Holly, but she gets there first, and she’s much handier with a blowtorch than the boys are with anything else. It’s not so much a question of will they catch her as how much damage will get done along the way. Eventually, one of the boys will get seriously hurt or killed doing these foolhardy jobs, but it ain’t happened yet.


Give the Devil his due; Wise isn’t in much of the episode, but his scenes all count, especially the poignant last shot where it becomes apparent that the Devil has experienced love once or twice in his life, no matter what he professes. Harrison continues to make Sam likable, and the character of Hell’s bounty hunter is definitely showing signs of maturing under the Devil’s tutelage, although how much of that tutelage is because of or in spite of Old Scratch’s guidance is still ambiguous. Just the way I like it, personally, but your mileage may vary. Peregrym, who was quite the evil hottie on HEROES last season, turns it around and becomes the sweet hottie next door for this show. While it’s easy to be frustrated with Sam’s continual inability to be honest and open with her, it’s just as easy to see why she might fluster the hell out of him. There probably won’t be too many Emmys in REAPER’s future, but it remains consistently entertaining, and if you’re home on Tuesday nights, spending an hour with these Hellish minions is a fine way to go.