Final Pitch Ep 2: BeetleJuice, Beetlejuice

SQpodEP2

Starring: Michael Keaton, Wynona Ryder, Bradley Cooper and Billy Baldwin.

Plot: Lydia Deetz (Wynona Ryder) is 40, unemployed and moving back into the home of her deceased parents, which was once the sight of a haunting by a nice ghost couple, the Maitlands and a sleazy, supernatural huckster named Beetlejuice.

Lydia is feeling unsure as she contemplates life in a small town with no income, but has the promise of love with her longtime boyfriend, Michael (Billy Baldwin) gives her hope. That is until Mike calls to tell her he has been having an affair and is leaving Lydia for the other woman. Like the home she occupies, Lydia’s life is falling apart piece by piece.

As she slowly devolves back in to the depressed, Goth teenager she once was,  Lydia finds some solace during interactions with the attractive owner of the General Store (Bradley Cooper), from whom she buys the implements for her comical suicide attempts. At her wits end, Lydia comes upon her mother’s old sculptures, including a bust of her former tormentor, Beetlejuice.

Calling upon the ghoulish bio-exorcist as a last resort, Lydia find that life has not been kind to the “ghost with the most” over the last few decades. Beaten down, overweight and hardly the vivacious charlatan of the first film, Beetlejuice (Michael Keaton) tells Lydia about his many comically disastrous job attempts after the failed Bio-Exorcism of her family. At one point he was even a famous rock star in the afterlife, but is now destitute.

Starting to feel sorry for Beetlejuice, Lydia visits the land of the dead and runs into her friends the Maitlands who are now case workers for the recently deceased.  Looking to cheer up the downtrodden ghoul and get some sweet revenge for herself, Lydia conjures Beetlejuice back to the land of the living and sets him on a crash course for her ex..

Aside from various scares, Beetlejuice takes to possessing Mike during his business meetings and other formal events, causing him to perform “Never Gonna Give You Up” by Rick Astley. The uncontrollable Rick-Rolling costs Mike his job and his new woman, leaving him humbled and Lydia avenged.

The newly revived confidence causes Beetlejuice to feel empowered. He betrays Lydia, becoming the scoundrel he once was. But she has learned to be confident on her own again, and there is an implied mutual understanding that they are 2 different beings, never meant to be permanent friends.

Beetlejuice returns the afterlife and gets the band back together one more time, with everyone, including the Maitlands, Rick-Rolling into the credits.

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