Velma season 1 episodes 5 and 6 recap & review

Open Go TV / January 27, 2023 / Reviews

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In episodes 5 and 6 of Velma, Velma reevaluates her friendship with Norville and later analyses her issues with her father the root cause of her hallucinations. The episodes are streaming on HBO Max.

Episode 5 recap: Marching Band Sleepover

Velma wants to continue investigating her mother’s disappearance but she keeps having hallucinations. She tries to contact Norville for help but he doesn’t answer and she doesn’t want to ask Daphne for help because of her conflicted emotions.

Her father says he’ll be at the hospital all night with Sophie as she’s coming back with the baby the next day and the mayor and sheriff announce that they will be enforcing a 9 p.m. curfew in town to ensure people’s safety.

Due to the curfew, the marching band sleepover at the school gym is canceled and Velma is pretty pleased about it. Daphne heads to the crystal mines and immediately gets nabbed by someone there.

Fred reaches out to Velma at school to find a way to win her over. She finds out from him that Norville has a new girlfriend so she goes to confront him about it. She sees Gigi, one of the hot girls she coached to become less attractive.

Gigi says that it helped her become artsy hot and that led her to Norville. She points out that Velma only reaches out to Norville when she needs him and he’s not going to be beholden to her anymore.

Fred says he found a clue and reveals to Velma that the previous owner of the house was Dr. Edna Purdue, a neurologist who died in the Crystal Cove insane asylum. She goes back to the historical society to find out more about Edna.

Daphne wakes up and sees two people in costume who claim to be her parents. They say that Donna and Linda stole her and she should look up the “crystal mine gang” online to find out more.

Velma learns that Edna left her journals at the society but when they check the box, it’s empty and the last person to see the box was Velma’s mom. She gets another hallucination and momentarily dies.

Velma looks for a way to get Norville to help her and decides to have the marching band sleepover at her place since she has it to herself. All the band kids show up at her house including Norville. Daphne learns that the crystal mine gang were the employees who worked there.

They turned to a life of crime after the mine shut down until they were captured by Donna and Linda. The information also included the fact that there was an infant in the gang, which Daphne concludes is her.

Daphne is excited to go back and meet her real parents but has no one to share her excitement with. Velma thinks she finally has Norville for herself but Gigi shows up and says that she signed up for band.

They begin vying for control over Norville while Fred goes out to get some food for the band kids who go feral if they don’t have their pills before eating. He’s trying to help Velma and endear himself to her.

Velma gets Gigi alone and finds out that Edna is Norville’s grandmother. Fred returns with pizzas but they get knocked over, leaving no food for the party. Velma, Gigi, Fred, and Norville head to Spooners in a cop car to get some food and calm everyone down.

On their way back, Sheriff Cogburn drives by and Velma distracts them so that the others can get back. She gets arrested for breaking the curfew and sees Norville’s parents there too.

She tries to take a picture of them but Blythe Rogers tells Velma that she’ll do anything in exchange for her not posting the picture. Daphne goes back to the mine and finally meets her parents who reveal themselves and their names, Carroll and Darren.

Darren was the thief who was arrested because of Norville and was Fred’s cellmate in prison. Velma leaves jail the next morning and Blythe agrees to tell her everything about her mother, Dr. Edna Purdue, and hold up her end of the bargain.

Episode 6 recap: The Sins of the Fathers and Some of the Mothers

Velma discusses how the reasons most teenagers are messed up are because of the faults of their parents. She has a complicated relationship with her own father that needs to be looked at.

She visits principal Rogers that morning who tells Velma all about Dr. Edna Purdue. Edna figured out how to keep a brain alive even after it was removed from the body but the army tried to recruit her and use her research to combat meddling kids and their ideologies.

They wanted to put the brains of soldiers into young kids and the program was called the Special Covert Operations Brain Initiative, or SCOOBI for short. However, Edna was never successful and as time passed, she grew more insane.

Ultimately, Edna closed up her lab in the basement, donated her journals to the historical society, and checked herself into the insane asylum. Blythe finally gives Velma a box with a major clue, but when Velma opens it, she passes out from a hallucination.

Daphne meets her parents and the rest of the gang as they literally mine crystals. They tell her that thanks to the rising popularity of crystals, they can make enough money to escape and start a new life with her joining them.

Blythe refuses to give Velma the evidence unless she cures her hallucinations so Norville helps her figure out why she’s having them. They deduce that the reason Velma has them is that her father doesn’t believe her when she says that Diya is missing.

While they’re talking about daddy issues, Velma mentions how Norville’s father is the reason he’s such a beta male. Norville denies that claim but soon realizes it’s true and begins to rebel and act like an alpha.

Velma tells her father that she wants to talk to him and convince him to believe her when she says that Diya is missing. Fred has been dealing with tough love from his father as he considers Fred’s open mindset a “weakness”.

Fred, Velma, Daphne, and Norville have varying experiences with their parents for the next couple of days. Velma thinks she’s improving her relationship with her father but learns that he’s using her as an excuse to skip his paternity leave and work more.

Velma finally thinks she’s overcome her hallucinations and asks Blythe for the evidence. All of it points to the fact that Diya was last in Fred’s mansion looking for Edna’s lab so she rushes there.

Daphne’s parents are done mining the crystals and getting ready to leave when Daphne shows up. Darren tells her that she deserves better and then holds her hostage as insurance to help them escape. Donna and Linda show up with the police and arrest Darren and the rest but Carroll manages to escape

They say that they always know what their daughter is up to and that’s how they knew she was down there. Aman is searching for his daughter just as Velma reaches Fred’s house.

They go down to the basement and find the bricked-off wall to the lab but Fred pushes against it and it collapses on top of them. In his bid to be a rebel alpha, Norville misses being by Gigi’s side after she had a serious allergic reaction indirectly caused by him and he reverts to normal.

Linda and Donna tell Daphne the truth about how she was adopted. She was abandoned by her parents, even as a child, while they were trying to escape all those years ago and Linda and Donna took it upon themselves to take her in.

Aman finds Velma and Fred and digs them out. They go down to the lab and Velma finds a note that says “Jinkies”. Suddenly, she begins to have another hallucination but Aman still refuses to believe his daughter until he sees the note himself.

He finally believes her and the hallucination disappears. He then explains that the word “Jinkies” is written in Diya’s handwriting which means that she has to be missing.

As they’re wondering who could be behind the murders, Carroll is running through the mines when she stops and finds a gold chain. She’s suddenly attacked by a masked figure with a knife.

Review

The “SCOOBI” joke is a clever bit of writing and a wonderful joke but unfortunately, those are few and far between. The script continues to be uncomfortable and raw.
The characters are also quite uneven and while in early episodes, Fred is the most unlikable of the bunch, the rest also exhibit behavior that sends them down the list. Velma’s treatment of Norville is despicable and she barely redeems herself by the end.
With too many flaws to count, the story trudges along, and there just isn’t enough excitement being raised about the mystery of Diya’s disappearance and while Velma is doing decent detective work, the culmination of the team feels like a good distance away.