Hell. Or the Underworld. Or, you know, that Storm-Blasted Soundstage From Sepulveda. Wherever. A black-clad Barbas blazes into the center of a wasted clearing in mid-lunge, the sleeve of his coat alight with an odd blue flame. Once he regains his bearings, he spots his flaming sleeve, grumbles, "Oh, give me a break!" and extinguishes the fire with a puff of breath. Snidely's disembodied voice taunts, "You're lucky. It could have been worse," and oh, Lord. A whole scene featuring these two overbearing hams? I can just hear Kern & Ko. screaming, "Squeal like a pig, Demian! Squeal like a pig!" Because, after all, this is all about me. In any event, Barbas instantly recognizes the voice, sneers something about "the peeping Elder," and comments on "how the mighty have fallen." Disembodied Snidely cuts through the crap to call for a truce, as he has a proposition he'd like to run by the Demon Of Fear. Barbas agrees, so Snidely uncloaks, and much tedious expository yammering follows, during which I find myself wondering how this shift has affected the Bizarro World, and wishing we got to see a bit of that during this hour. Unfortunately, we never do, so we have to listen to these two blather on endlessly about events we just witnessed ten minutes ago. The one good thing about all this, I suppose, is that it offers me an opportunity to appreciate the production design, the quality of which, as I've noted before, has only increased as this show's run has dragged on. This is one of the best Underworld sets I've ever seen, especially when compared to the anonymous series of papier-mâché caverns that dominated back in the days of the Colethazor. There's one nicely framed shot in particular that places the almighty hams in the background while the foreground's dominated by a frothing pond of bubbling acid, with an artful array of blazing branches dominating the left half of the screen. Oh, and whoops! Look at that -- I almost missed what will soon amount to a lapse in continuity. Snidely's explaining to Barbas that, by intervening in the natural balance between our world and Bizarroland, he's "allowed too much good to corrupt the other world." The only way to rectify that situation "is for a great evil to corrupt ours." While that latter line of reasoning certainly opens up a certain amount of justification for the Dolt's actions at the end of the evening, the premise will soon be contradicted by Phauxhawk and Baige. Then again, Snidely might be lying, but you'd think Barbas would pick up on that. Oh, whatever. I hate this show. And now the scene's over. Sayonara, boys! You go right ahead and stay away for as long as you like, you hear?