Sleepover — clonehigh

Sleepover is the second episode of Season 2 of Clone High, and the fifteenth episode of the overall series.

Synopsis

Attempting to repress her feelings for Abe, Joan finds solace in Harriet and Frida. Meanwhile, Confucius teaches JFK about the internet.

Plot

In a cold open, Joan and JFK begin making out on a beach. This attempt at intercourse is ruined by JFK suddenly transforming into Abe. The preceding events are revealed to be a dream: Joan is moaning in her sleep during math class. Her dream progressively gets weirder as Abe turns into a disembodied head and later a lighthouse. She eventually wakes up to find most of the student populace staring at her, and hastily lies about the dream's contents before leaving.

Harriet and Frida conduct a Wiccan ritual while hiding behind shrubbery. This ritual is being conducted on the anniversary of "the Event". Their methods of paying tribute (involving blowing crushed-up Doritos) attract the attention of Joan, who reveals she has a passing interest in covens. Harriet plays the ritual off as something the two do to honor a life-changing secret that has bonded the two to death. Joan expresses a desire to learn about this secret, but Frida forbids her. She tells Joan that their secret is "dangerous", prompting Joan to mention that she wishes she had friends she could keep secrets with, but due to the social climate of 2003, she did not have many female friends (which prompts harassment from a nearby Cleopatra). Harriet and Frida find this unthinkable, and Joan continues by saying that she feels as if she is doomed to only have close friends who are male. Abe and Confucius, who are passing by, invite Joan to a "rock fight", where the two attempt to hit each other in the groin with a rock. The game swiftly ends with the duo reeled over in pain due to the rock ricocheting off Confucius.

Back at school, Joan sees JFK in the hall and is swiftly reminded of her dream. She attempts to get away from him by hiding in a trash can head-first. Harriet and Frida, who are also there, catch onto Joan's behavior and deduce that she has a secret of her own. They decide to invite her to a sleepover in order to extract this secret from her, and quickly rescue her from an awkward conversation with JFK, who is confused at the prospect of seeing his girlfriend hang out with someone else. Joan reassures him and tells him to have a sleepover with "the guys" instead, which sends JFK into a brief panic. He bids her goodbye, though not without telling her to "enjoy her sleepover". Abe suddenly shows up and asks Joan if she would like to see his lighthouse impression. She quickly rebuffs him and runs off. Just then, Topher appears and inquires further on Abe's lighthouse impression. He reveals that he does not like lighthouses after Abe asks him, and states that this interaction is merely occurring in order to prevent himself from being taken to an asylum. Topher also asks Abe if they could hang out tonight, to which he agrees. Abe leaves whilst performing his lighthouse impression.

Later on, Confucius walks in on JFK crying in the bathroom. When confronted, JFK dismisses his emotions as "letting his eyes pee", and later reveals that he has no real male friendships, despite what he told Joan earlier. Confucius offers to have a "bro night" with him, and JFK agrees. Later, Joan goes home only to find her new foster mother: Candide Sampson. Joan asks Candide if she could go to a sleepover tonight, and Candide gleefully accepts before hurrying out. Before eating, Joan wishes to herself that Toots had not died in a clarinet accident. At Scudworth's office, Candide reveals to the Secret Board of Shadowy Figures that Joan is attending a sleepover, and intends to drug her with truth serum. Scudworth, who is busy planning for a road trip with Mr. Butlertron, offers to help.

Meanwhile, Joan is introduced to her sleepover, courtesy of Harriet and Frida, who seem to have taken quite an interest in the "secret" aspect of sleepovers. The three instantly commence performing activities typically present within sleepovers - painting their nails, eating pizza, summoning Bloody Mary, and other such proclivities. At Confucius' manor, he introduces JFK to FlipFlop, a social media website. JFK is immediately enthralled by the amount of information he has gathered from the website, and Confucius, in return, introduces him to the comments section. While these two events happen, Abe arrives at Topher's house, and is greeted by his mother, Caitlyn. Her eccentric behavior unnerves Abe and enrages Topher, who takes Abe to his bedroom.

Back at Harriet's house, Joan, Harriet and Frida prepare to play "Never Have I Ever". While Joan and Harriet get into a meaningless conversation about the former's unfamiliarity with the game, Candide spies on them with a bugged teddy bear. She tells Scudworth and Mr. B of the three's plan, and announces that it is time to give them the truth-serum-laced alcohol. Scudworth, who is in charge of mixing these drinks, replies to Candide by telling her that their plan has gone so well that he has even made extra drinks, only for Mr. B to forget which cocktails contain the serum. Mr. B, Scudworth and Candide mutually decide that the wisest course of action is to test the drinks themselves. Returning to Joan and Harriet's conversation, Frida breaks the two up by pushing them aside and briskly telling Harriet that Joan has "never played the damn game". She receives instructions on how to play from Harriet and Frida, and is, above all else, told not to lie. She struggles with this info, knowing that the topic of her dream will eventually come up, but is told by Harriet to loosen up. The game starts with an easy statement - "never have I ever been attracted to Pinocchio", and Joan puts one finger down, causing the trio to laugh. Joan's attempt at creating an easy statement, however, does not go over so easily. She chooses "never have I ever murdered someone", causing Harriet and Frida to put their fingers down.

At the same time, JFK and Confucius are watching FlipFlop videos and commenting on them. In particular, JFK's comment relating to a woman who burns herself cooking earns praise from Confucius, who calls him a natural. This comment is witnessed by Topher, who takes offense to it, owing to his Italian heritage, and writes a degrading reply. JFK and Confucius are taken aback by his reply, and a flame war erupts. In Scudworth's mobile hideout, he, Candide and Mr. B are wasted, and incidentally reveal that they have drunk the liquor which contains the truth serum. Frida and Harriet begin to lay into Joan regarding how she guessed their secret on her first try. Joan is still taken aback by their admission of guilt, and similarly begins to question them. Harriet finally reveals the significance of "the Event": in 2014, she and Frida killed a man while tandem-biking. In return for revealing their secret, they inquire with Joan on what her secret is. Before she reveals it, she accuses the two of making up this shocking event in order to get her to fess up so they can blackmail her with it. The two decide to prove it to her by offering to take her to the man's grave.

JFK and Topher's flame war continues to escalate, with the two trading barbs and insults regarding numerous personal factoids. Enraged by JFK's comment on his genitalia, Topher does the unthinkable and activates Caps Lock. He writes out a devastating series of replies that concisely sums up every perceived flaw in JFK's life, even going so far as to hypothesize on the amount of people who will show up to his funeral. Coinciding with this, Harriet and Joan dig up Frederico's grave, only to come up empty. Just as Joan accuses the two of having lied to her, a mysterious man greets them by saying "I know what you did eight autumns ago." Similarly, JFK and Confucius are in hysterics over Topher's remarks, before Confucius notices a spelling error within one of his posts. As Topher gloats over his perceived victory, Abe alerts him to a new notification that states "you used the possessive 'YOUR' you idiot. It's 'RE!" Topher screams before being knocked unconscious. Abe swiftly leaves in response.

Meanwhile, the mysterious man continues to accost Harriet and Frida, before revealing himself to be Frederico, the man who Harriet and Frida allegedly killed. He states that they, on a technicality, succeeded by "killing" the old him, a misanthrope who was hell-bent on not revealing his secrets. As his grave was being filled, he realized that he wanted to live, and climbed out of the "emotional and literal hole" he was in and began to seek out the companionship of other people. He thanks Harriet and Frida, and Joan promptly apologizes to them for assuming that they were lying to her. Joan also finally reveals her secret, which pertains to her dream in math class; Harriet and Frida react with horror to this info, but swear to keep it private. Frederico takes offense to Harriet's over-explanation of sleepover rules, and accidentally kills himself by falling into his own grave.

Scudworth, Mr. B and Candide report back to the Board and tell them the mission was a success. Unbeknownst to the Board, they had consumed "lie serum" before reporting in. Joan, Harriet and Frida participate in another Wiccan ritual to commemorate their friendship and the death of Frederico, and Joan latches onto a passing JFK. Upon being asked on how her sleepover went, she replied that it "killed", causing the four to burst out laughing.

Characters

Major Roles

Minor Roles

Cleopatra
The Secret Board of Shadowy Figures
Bloody Mary
Caitlyn
Sacagawea (Cameo)
Genghis Khan (Non-Speaking Cameo)
Catherine the Great (Non-Speaking Cameo)
Paul Revere (Non-Speaking Cameo)
George Washington Carver (Non-Speaking Cameo)
George Washington (Non-Speaking Cameo)
Marie Curie (Non-Speaking Cameo)
Wally (Non-Speaking Cameo)
Cleo's Foster Mom (Mentioned)
Toots (Mentioned; Deceased)

Songs

Sleepover Baby

Trivia

Joan of Arc breaks the fourth wall to bring up how the original run of Clone High only had one female writer.
A running gag in this episode is for someone to overexplain the rules of sleepovers, much to the annoyance of the person they are talking to
Topher's FlipFlop account is "top-her69".
Principal Scudworth drunkenly reveals that he has an Oedipus complex, and admits that his crush on Candide Sampson is fueled solely by the fact that she reminds him of his mother.
Candide Sampson admits to having a dream about being pregnant with Mr. Butlertron's baby, and admits that she wants to be a mom.
Mr. Butlertron admits he "got freaky" with a coffee machine once and promptly broke it.
JFK struggles with autocorrect during his flame war with Topher Bus, typing "Duck off", "Fck*" and "FUNK*" at him.
Topher owns a guitar, but he does not play it. He got it as a present from his uncle.
Candide admits that Scudworth is really good at his job when he tells a lie to help get her out of trouble using a lie serum he invented. She is most likely not telling the truth, however, as she was also under the influence of said serum.

Continuity

Joan of Arc and JFK are still dating after "Let's Try This Again". However, Joan discovers via a dream that she is still somewhat in love with Abe.
Cleo's Foster Mom has apparently been mysteriously done away with and replaced by Candide Sampson, who is now posing as her to gather more information on Joan and Cleo.
- Similarly, Toots is also killed off the show, having died in a clarinet accident sometime while Joan was frozen.

Cultural References

Joan of Arc finds Doritos on the ground.
Topher Bus has a sticker in his locker that reads "KONY 2012".
The girls watch a movie called "The People Under The People Under The Stairs", which is a parody on the 1991 horror movie The People Under The Stairs.
Frida Kahlo addresses Joan as "Joanuary Joans", a pun on American actress January Jones.
The girls summon Bloody Mary to play with them at their sleepover.
A trio of teenagers are seen dabbing on FlipFlop.
Some FlipFlop accounts have referential names:
- "FeetDavidson6969" is a reference to American actor and comedian Pete Davidson, as well as the sexual act of 69ing.
- "G03RGIA_0QU33F" is a reference to American modernist artist, Georgia O'Keeffe. It's possible that this account belongs to the clone of Georgia O'Keeffe.
Several of the FlipFlop comments mention use stereotypical Gen Z terminology such as; "ok but", "Karen", and "TBH".
- There's also usage of the "No One: ... X: Y:" comment format.
Joan of Arc was once attracted to Pinocchio.
The sleepover story contains a parody of the movie I Know What You Did Last Summer, with even a direct reference to the line, instead being "I know what you did eight autumns ago."
Mr. Butlertron references to the 1988 Tom Cruise movie Cocktail, and also brings up the Beach Boys song, "Kokomo", which was featured in the movie.
Topher also has a poster of the iconic "Coexist" bumper sticker in his room.
Topher notes that JFK is "Rocky Balboa-dumb".
Joan of Arc references the Prince song "Purple Rain", but Frida and Harriet don't get the reference.
Frida uses the term "sus", an abbreviation of the word "suspicious", popularized by the online party games Trouble in Terrorist Town and Among Us.

Historical References

Joan's wet dream about Abe include many top hats making phallic symbolism. This is a reference to how a stovepipe top hat was the iconic hat of the Original Abraham Lincoln.
Also, during Joan's wet dream one of the images that flashes in the background is a painting of the Lincoln assassination.
Topher has a ship-in-a-bottle in his house right by the front door. The real Christopher Columbus was a sailor who travelled the world in ships such as the Nina, Pinta, and Santa Maria.
Caitlyn mistakes Abe for Benjamin Franklin as both of them are historical figures in American politics.
Topher Bus has a pear-shaped globe in his room, which could be referencing the myth that Christopher Columbus discovered the world was round during one of his sailing expeditions. However, in real life, Columbus was always aware the world was round and did not need a trip across the ocean to discover this.