LET US SING YOU THE SONG OF OUR PEOPLE

We turn our attention from Chandler Tsonda and Daytona Diamonds to another part of the Bridgestone Arena. There, we see that a makeshift karaoke booth has been built for four men, one intern, and… 

…I’m sorry, Joe Fontaine, what is that?

Joe Fontaine: It’s FLAMBERGE, dawg.

Ladies and gentlemen, if you’ve ever wanted to know what it means to truly “lose the plot”, such that the plot might not have ever existed in the first place and we’re all just drifting aimlessly through life as carefree as a piece of driftwood in a rushing river formed from Diet Pepsi and unicorn wishes, then may I present to you Joe Fontaine…

Joe Fontaine: Hey!

…for Joe Fontaine’s latest version of “FLAMBERGE” is a flamethrower. In a beret.

Look, I don’t want to mince words. This is a violation of the Geneva Convention. It’s been more than a year since the last one of those and we still let the Love Convoy hang out and do things and copyright a specific shade of color, so that’s pretty weird. Really, we should all be wrestling Joe Fontaine to the ground and taking it from him right now. Instead, we’re just going to sing and make merry and someone might win and hopefully no one gets to experience a full-on conflagration.

Sid Phillips: …I brought a lizard.

Oh, yes. Sid Phillips didn’t quite lose the plot. I mean, it’s still not quite FLAMBERGE, but it is a bearded lizard in a terrarium, and that’s definitely a lot closer to FLAMBERGE than a fucking flamethrower.

The Masters, meanwhile, are in absolute shock and disbelief over the fact a flamethrower has been brought into this affair. Had they known weapons were being brought into a karaoke contest, they would have pushed a little harder to keep their universe-hopping portal gun…but alas. Here they are now, staring at each other as Kenny’s confidence in his ability to carry a tune has started to drastic go down.

Joe Fontaine takes the microphone, though it takes him some effort because he has to juggle the microphone and the flamethrower at the same time. It’s hard. It might’ve been easier if he handed it off to Sid, but… well, Sid is only really trusted to do one thing really well, and “wielding a flamethrower safely” is not one of them. Because none of those words are “powerbomb”. He’d hand it off to Fabby, who’s standing nearby and waiting to be handed a flamethrower like it’s his life’s calling to one day hold a flamethrower, but… no. He’s going to tightly hold onto the flamethrower.

Joe Fontaine: Alright, guys! Let’s get this party started!

Sid Phillips: This is going to be a disaster. You’re going to hurt someone with that thing and I’m pretty sure you’re the odds-on-favorite for getting burned.

Joe Fontaine: It’ll be fine! I have a license and at least two relevant degrees for this thing!

Kenny Freeman: Where the hell did you even get that?

Joe Fontaine: Craig’s List. Not Craigslist, that’s a different thing. I went to a guy named Craig and he had a list and one of the items on the list, somewhere between smoke machines and red contact lenses, was a flamethrower. 

Joe proudly holds up FLAMBERGE the flamethrower in a way that the genuine article wouldn’t approve of, because it would involve Joe Fontaine making physical contact with him, and FLAMBERGE isn’t really down for that. Maybe if it were Sid.

Joe Fontaine: So, bammo! FLAMBERGE.

Sid Phillips: I shudder to think what the fine is going to be this week.

Randall Schwartz: Good thing your white, sticky friends are picking up the bill.

Joe, Sid, and Kenny just shoot a murder glare at Randall, who simply looks back at them in confusion.

Randall Schwartz: What? They’re glue boys, are they not?

Joe Fontaine: FLAMBERGE isn’t white, though.

Sid Phillips: You think he’s a fucking flamethrower right now, how would you know!?

Joe opens his mouth to respond… and finds that he has no counter-argument. Not that it matters, because it’s time to get our sing on! 

Joe and Sid spend some time discussing their song of choice. It’s a heated, hushed debate. At one point, the Fabulous Gold Mask leans in to chime in, but he doesn’t even get a word out before the Glues chase him away with flapping hands and screeches of “go away!” 

Finally, they launch into a rendition of OK Go’s “I Won’t Let You Down”.

It goes…

Okay. Have you ever seen a man try to perform karaoke with a microphone in one hand and a flamethrower in the other? Oh, you haven’t? Not since Pasadena? Yeah, sorry to dredge up such bad memories from the eldritch horrors of the mindscape, we try not to. We really do. 

Anyway, this goes about as well as you might expect when we have to invoke Pasadena. For starters, Joe Fontaine’s singing ability is… it’d probably be better if he didn’t try to over-exaggerate every vowel sound his vocal cords touch. He dances and sways to the music, threatening a lot of people with “FLAMBERGE” in the process.

As for Sid?

Sid sings in P minor.

If you have to ask what the “P” means, then you must be new here.

Joe Fontaine: AND IIIIIII! WOOOOOOON’T! LET YOU DOOOOWWWWNNNN!!! WON’T LET YOU DOWN! WON’T LET YOU DOWN!

Kenny and Randall react to this as though it’s torture. Fabby is already out of the room, and he is screaming. It’s bad, you guys. It’s so, so bad.

By the end of the session, Kenny and Randall look like they’ve just had a near-death experience. And the score for the karaoke session comes up, and…

Joe Fontaine: Huh. Pretty sure those aren’t actually numbers on the screen.

The screen suddenly becomes garbled and distorted. Nightmares from beyond the veil are being displayed, and one of them might be a minotaur. We can’t be sure. 

After the Masters take a moment to compose themselves, Kenny pulls out a CD jewel case. Upon closer inspection we see it’s a copy of Haylor Swift’s 1995 (Haylor’s Version), and he pops the CD out before putting it into the karaoke machine.

Shut up, we know how karaoke machines work, just go with it! Anyway…to Kenny’s surprise, the tune that plays is not a Haylor Swift jam, but an instrumental that sounds an awful lot like “Heaven is a Place on Earth” by Belinda Carlisle. Kenny stops the music, but we see Randall nodding with a smile.

Randall Schwartz: Aw yeah, that’s the stuff.

Randall takes the microphone and presses play on the machine, really getting into the song…with a twist, because of course.

Randall Schwartz: GLUUUE BOYS DOOOO YOU KNOW WHAT THAAAAT’S WORTH? OOOH MOSCOW IS A PLAAAACE ON EAAAAARTH…

This, naturally, leads into four minutes of pure, unadulterated Schwartz shenanigans…and since Kenny already has the nominations for Segment of the Year on lock, there is NO audio component this time around. Sorry, PRIMEates.

As the song fades, so too does Kenny’s hopes and dreams…until the score flashes on the karaoke machine. Not a number, but a message.

“BETTER THAN THE GLUEBOIS, YOU WIN!”

This causes Joe to be rather angry.

Joe Fontaine: Oh, come on!

Sid doesn’t say anything. He just calmly stands up and walks over to the karaoke machine, staring at it.

We won’t say what happens to the machine next, but let’s just say that there’s about to be some powerbomb-related property damage happening in the background.

Joe Fontaine: Dammit, dammit, dammit!

He’s saying “dammit” in tempo with the sounds of powerbombs. You could almost call it a “powerbomb symphony”, but that doesn’t exist in this part of the multiverse.

When Sid walks back onto the camera, he’s wearing bits and bobs of what’s left of the karaoke machine on his shoulders and looking nonplussed about the situation. He looks to Joe, then to Joe’s flamethrower (“FLAMBERGE”), then to Fabby who’s standing off in a corner eating Bret’s chips, and finally to the Masters.

Sid Phillips: Powerbomb contest. Round four. Get fucked.

Then he storms off, presumably to powerbomb someone or something else. Kenny and Randall look at each other, with the Entertainer grabbing his back in anticipation of being confined to a wheelchair once again before they walk off, leaving Joe alone with his thoughts and a fucking flamethrower before we cut elsewhere.