Z.O.I.N.C.S.
It's Halloween night and Stan is missing, so the Smith gang heads to the spooky, abandoned CIA headquarters to investigate.
Season: 18 Episode: 15
Total Episode Count: 359
Prod. no.: HAJN07
First Aired: October 30, 2023
Featuring: Francine, Jeff, Steve, Hayley, Klaus
Also Appearing: Stan, Roger, Avery Bullock, Jackson, Dr. Weitzman, Reginald Koala, Eric, Lorraine, Marcus, Javonn, Osmand, Harlem Globetrotters
Director: Shawn Murray
Writers: Jeff Kauffmann
Storyboarders: Jonah Cohen, Chris Toms, Bruna White
Roger's Disguise: Non-Standard Opening
Plot:
As the family dresses as the Scooby gang to attend Danuta's Halloween party, Klaus is forced to play Scooby under protest as Roger is in London. But when they can't find Stan to give them a ride to the party, they head to CIA headquarters, which they find abandoned and spookier than usual. Initial jokes about monsters soon turn to suspecting the real thing as they find Bullock hiding. He reveals that he initiated an investigation by Stan after finding that someone had used his private toilet and Stan discovered that it was a supernatural creature known as the "Soul Snatcher". As a result, Stan was placed in charge of a special section for supernatural creatures known as Z.O.I.N.C.S., also known as the monster squad for short. Bullock attributes the building being deserted to the creature getting loose as well as being sprayed for termites.
Splitting up to search for clues, Klaus and Jeff, whom the latter is convinced has been pigeonholed into the 'useless stoner' role, stop for a snack and bump into a scary figure that they take for the soul snatcher, but is just one of the exterminators bent on killing termites. Meanwhile, The others stumble onto Z.O.I.N.C.S. secret office where the find Jackson and agent Wolfman hiding after a seance orchestrated by Stan resulted in his soul being devoured by the monster. At that moment, the monster appears but is moved out of the room after Jackson activates a hidden wall switch. Taking a moment in a restroom, Jeff and Klaus encounter the monster that results in a Scooby-style chase, leading him into a trap set by the others. Before unmasking the monster, everyone has a theory on who it could be but Klaus has a compelling argument of it being Stan, only for them to discover it's agent Wolfman just as Stan messages that he's already at the party. Not finding a pulse, they believe they have killed agent Wolfman and flee when Jackson tries to enter the room, intending for the latter to believe he has been killed by the monster.
The next morning as Stan tells about the great time he had at the party, Jeff blurts out about killing a man but it goes over Stan's head. After he leaves, the family confronts Jeff and tries to compel his silence. That night, he has a dream of being killed by Wolfman and sees him outside of his window after waking up. He tells Klaus who later suggests to the family that they kill Jeff, until the latter arrives with a letter threatening them, as well as a postcard from Roger. The family eventually all get messages threatening them, and Wolfman breaks through the kitchen window as they run for the nearby woods with Wolfman in pursuit. He catches them when Steve trips, but is wrapped up in a bolero by Klaus, and revealed to be Jeff in disguise. Confused, the pull a mask off of the Jeff that accompanied them and reveal Bullock. He tells of putting Stan in charge and wearing his Wolfman disguise to make sure they didn't find out there wasn't any monster. He took further advantage of Stan's seance to become the monster and to scare everyone from using his personal toilet. When he saw the family's treatment of Jeff, they teamed up to change their perception of him. They apologize to him, leaving the latter to get stoned with Klaus.
Roger is shown during the reading of his postcard to the family hanging out with his theater friends in London, where he is in a revival of Cats, trying to make one of the Royal Guards smile and when that fails, tries to take his gun and is deported. Still in his Cats costume, he is mistaken for a pet and placed in the cargo hold.
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