Summary
“Who Ate Wally’s Waffles?” brutally riffs on Disney as Dusty sets about to revive a cancelled sitcom after the grown-up star is found in Paradise.
This recap of Paradise PD Season 2, Episode 4, “Who Ate Wally’s Waffles?”, contains spoilers. You can check out our thoughts on the previous episode by clicking these words.
The question of “Who Ate Wally’s Waffles?” isn’t particularly interesting or important to anyone in Paradise PD Season 2, Episode 4, except perhaps Dusty, who spends the opening scene with the skeleton of Mr Meowgi, binging old episodes of Wall-Eyed Wally on Disney+ and having a meltdown when he discovers that the show was cancelled on a cliffhanger. In his rage he cracks the screen and the title sequence plays behind the damage, which is fun. But other than that, nobody cares. It’s just an excuse to attack Disney’s history, characters, corporate policies and artistic output as savagely and relentlessly as possible.
Only a little time is spared for the on-going plot involving the Kingpin; he orders Thester to put a bomb under Randall’s car since the chief is getting too close to the truth. And the episode’s throwaway B-plot is Kevin being unable to empty his bowels at work — he disappears every day at 09:37 with lame excuses, and the truth of why devastates Randall, who sees pooping among your comrades as a matter of respect.
Neither of these two threads about to much, although they intertwine at one point. Kevin saves Randall from the car bomb, but all his father cares about is that he still can’t s**t at work. Eventually, Karen has to come in and coach Kevin through the process with a fun train song, complete with props; the experience is so awkward and uncomfortable that everyone is perfectly happy for Kevin to use the toilet at home in the future.
The rest of Paradise PD Season 2, Episode 4 is devoted to Dusty’s attempts to find out who ate Wally’s waffles, which begins with tracking down Wally himself, the cross-eyed child actor who starred in the show, who he learns was kidnapped in 1988. He uses an age-enhancement program on the police computer to see what he’d look like these days, and simulates years of malnourishment and abuse by adding the Paradise Public School filter. Suddenly there’s no mystery about where Wally might be — he’s quite clearly Delbert.
In flashbacks, we see how a spoiled Robby wanted a best friend and got one; Wally, soon rechristened as Delbert, was a birthday present. Now, he feels robbed. Dusty wants to use him to convince a Disney exec — who occupies the old office of Walt Disney, which has a “Jew alert” — to reboot the show. There are lots of jokes at Disney’s expense here, perhaps the best of which being that Dusty is immediately made the show’s creative executive while Delbert goes on an ill-advised publicity tour.
Before long, all Dusty’s writing staff have committed suicide. Robby, missing his best friend, tries to get his now big-time bestie to come home, but he’s knocking about with Tom Hanks now. The truth of his childhood is revealed to him by the smarmy exec, who locks him in a Disneyland dungeon and tells him he wasn’t born, he was imagineered. When he was dropped on the floor, causing his crossed eyes, he was consigned to a life of mediocre family programming on the Disney Channel. Delbert and Robby both sing a proper Disney-style duet about how much they miss each other and their crack-smoking redneck lifestyle.
Just when you thought Paradise PD Season 2, Episode 4 couldn’t get any more ridiculous, that’s when it does. Goofy is shot to death trying to escape the dungeon and tells Robby that they’re all prisoners in there. Wearing the now-dead Goofy’s skin, Robby infiltrates Disneyland to save Delbert, inadvertently freeing all Disney’s racist characters in the meantime. In desperation, the exec wakes up Walt Disney himself by pushing a button labeled “In Case of Jews” and warming his brain in a microwave, which is subsequently fitted into the Disneyland castle so it rises up on giant spider legs and sets off rampaging.
It’s probably fitting that this is all sorted out thanks to a legal technicality, with Robby’s heartfelt speech saving the day. It also makes sense that when Dusty finds out who ate Wally’s waffles, it’s the most obvious and least-interesting culprit. It might not have had much to do with the overarching plot, but this episode was Paradise PD proving how much it can get away with on Netflix rather than a traditional network. And it made its point.
