Mums
An animated prologue shows the Creep planting some mysterious seeds in the dirt. When he waters them, they grow into flowers with skulls in their centers.
On an isolated farm in Kansas, gentle country boy Jack (Brayden Benson) lives a relatively simple life. The only major downside to Jack's daily routine is the fact that his parents, who have rivaling lifestyles and philosophies, are constantly feuding with one another. While slopping the pigs, Jack witnesses yet another argument between his peaceful, garden-loving, recovering alcoholic mom Bloom (Erin Beute), and his gun-toting, Confederate extremist dad Hank (Ethan Embry), watching as the latter loads his truck with assault weapons and drives off. Later that morning, Bloom invites Jack to travel with her up North to meet his mee-maw, claiming that she is about to turn 100. Bloom also seems to be in a suspicious rush to leave, telling Jack that she's already packed for the both of them and urging him to get out of the house. She also addresses her son's concerns about her precious garden by telling him that "Mother Earth has a way of taking care of her own kind".
As the two reach the front door, Hank, accompanied by his associates Beth and Connor (Malone Thomas and Lowrey Brown), blocks their path, revealing that the trip was a ruse for Bloom to take Jack and escape from his "terrorist" father. In the resulting struggle, Bloom's suitcase opens, revealing a money clip and a bottle of whiskey inside. Despite the fact that Bloom claims he planted the items, Hank forces her into the truck and vows to take her to the police, boasting that his status as a former Marine will give the cops incentive to believe him rather than Bloom. Before she is driven away, Bloom yells to Beth to take care of Jack. Once Jack is ushered inside the house, Beth attempts to calm him down, mentioning that his parents' cycle of abuse has basically become routine at this point. Jack, on the other hand, laments that the cycle will never end, and blames himself for being too scared to do something to stop his mom from being taken away.
Later that night, Hank is revealed to have killed Bloom during the drive to the police station, planning to tell Jack that there was a struggle, and Bloom died by jumping out of the truck and hitting the street at high speed. He and Connor proceed to bury Bloom's corpse out back, beneath the garden she would spend hours tending. Meanwhile, Jack finds a packet full of mysterious seeds that he believes his mom wanted to take to Mee-maw's house. He makes plans to plant the seeds in Bloom's garden, hoping to give his mother "something nice to come home to." As Beth reminisces on how she used to spend hours working in the garden with Bloom, Hank and Connor come inside the house. When Jack asks if Bloom is alright, Hank lies to his son that Bloom wanted to leave because she wanted to be free to drink and take her pills, mentioning that she would've chosen her addictions over her own son. He also tells Jack, not paying any attention to his sadness, that Bloom was taken to a halfway house after supposedly having a complete breakdown at the police station, and finishes his summation by telling Jack that his mother is getting the help she needs, then reminding him to stay strong and stand tall. While out in the garden, Jack pricks his finger on one of the seeds from the packet as he tries to plant them, with some of his blood dripping onto the soil. Beth witnesses this and offers to help Jack plant the seeds herself. Inside the house, Hank and Connor discuss their plans to blow up a nearby building that houses offices of several government agencies. It's during this time that Hank reveals that he is planning to have Jack read a manifesto entitled "The Pale Horse's Cookbook" in the hopes that the boy shares his father's separatist views.
The strange seeds begin to take root and sprout, growing all throughout the night. The next day, Jack discovers that his mother's garden has grown exponentially, and wishes that Bloom could see what has happened. He soon notices that peculiar flowers have bloomed; flowers which have pistils in the shape of skulls and what appears to be hair growing between their petals. Jack discovers that these mysterious flowers remind him of his mom, which triggers an emotional flashback of the day she was taken from him and killed. With his mind clouded by the trauma, an emotional Jack proceeds to grab and squeeze one of the flowers' thorny stems, his blood pooling onto the soil. A tearful Beth approaches Jack and claims that Bloom loved her too, more than she ever deserved, and vows that she'll be back soon. On the night before the planned bombing, Hank, Connor, and Beth discuss their plans for the attack. It is during this conversation that Hank states he threatened to kill Bloom himself if she told the authorities what he was planning (providing a possible explanation to her death at her husband's hands), and that Beth was the one who told Hank that Bloom was planning to take Jack away, since she has been having an affair with him. Jack, witnessing Beth's role in his mother's death, retreats to the backyard in sorrow. Suddenly, he hears the agonized squeal of a piglet, prompting him to discover one of them is restricted by animate vines. When he frees the pig, a hand-like root emerges from the soil, just as the vines grab his injured hand. The source of the vines is revealed to be Bloom, her dead body having been merged with (and presumably being reanimated by) the plants of her garden. Bloom squeezes Jack's injured hand to feed on his blood, but upon recognizing him, she regains some of her humanity and releases him. Giving him a kiss, Bloom whispers into Jack's ear about what actually happened to her.
Now knowing the entire story, Jack locates Beth and informs her that he "did something stupid", and needs her help to fix it. Being taken to the garden, Beth notices what appears to be a skeleton among the plants, whereupon Jack attacks her with a shovel. When Hank comes home, Jack begins to replay the ruse. When Hank approaches Bloom's garden, he sees Beth's corpse, animated roots embedded in her face. Jack then attacks Hank with the shovel, slicing his forehead open. As Hank reaches for his gun to kill Jack, the vines restrain his hands. Heads that resemble Bloom's proceed to sprout from underneath the soil as Bloom's main body recognizes her killer. She transforms her head into a gaping maw, which clamps onto Hank's face and pulls him into her grave, devouring him alive. Jack then enters the house and calls Connor, telling him that Hank urgently needs to meet with him, thereby subsequently tricking him into getting eaten as well. The next day, Jack takes Hank's truck and drives away from the farm to live with his mee-maw, taking Bloom's luggage and some of the mutated flowers (which may or may not Bloom herself) with him.
This episode contains examples of:
- Abusive Parents: Hank. Everything he does to his family is listed below.
- Actor Allusion: Ethan Embry once again plays an abusive husband who is also a survivalist, having previously done so in the Masters of Horror episode ''Incident On and Off a Mountain Road''.
- Ambiguously Human: Given the hints that Bloom drops about how Meemaw is older than the trees themselves, the fact that she was carrying an unknown packet of seeds to take with her to her house, and the reveal that she herself merges with the seeds to become a monstrous Plant Person, it's hinted that Bloom and her family may be something more than nature-loving hippies.
- Ambiguous Situation: Regarding the flowers Jack takes with him on his drive, are they actually his mother's reanimated body? Or just a souvenir she left him to remember her by?
- And the Adventure Continues: The segment ends with Jack, freed from his abusive father, taking his dad's truck and his mom (in the form of a bouquet) to his mee-maw's house, where he hopes to move in.
- Asshole Victim: Hank and Connor naturally. Beth also fits this trope for shamelessly lying to Jack about not having any involvement in Bloom's death.
- Be Careful What You Wish For: Hank hopes that Jack will become stronger, tougher, and more of a man with his wife out of the way. This comes back to bite him hard when Jack does indeed toughen himself up, doing so to lure Hank into the jaws of his reanimated wife.
- Beware the Nice Ones: In spite of his aggressive parents, Jack is gentle and considerate for most of the episode. After learning that Beth, who had spent all the time since Bloom was killed bonding with him, was actually the very person who set up his mother's murder in the first place, he quickly assaults her with a shovel and gives the body to his reanimated mother, then does the same to Hank and Connor afterwards, proving that he's got just enough of his father in him to stand up for himself.
- Bitch in Sheep's Clothing: Beth, at first, is a friend of Bloom who acts as a mother figure towards Jack after she dies, spending most of her screentime comforting and bonding with the kid. We later discover that she's been having sex with Hank behind Bloom's back, is implied to share his extremist views, and is also the person who ratted Bloom out when she tried to take Jack away, lying right to the kid's face about everything regarding his mother.
- Bittersweet Ending: Jack loses his mother, but he does get her back via reanimation and combination with her garden. With his mother's help, he also manages to stop Hank and Connor before they could carry out their planned attack on that government building, and ends the story by finally traveling to his mee-maw's house, eager to move in with her.
- Bookends: The story begins and ends with Jack attempting to travel up to his mee-maw's house. The only difference is that in the end, he succeeds.
- The same guitar music that opens the segment also closes it, and the opening shot of the farm is even repeated near the end.
- Botanical Abomination: Bloom's reanimated corpse merges with the roots of her garden, combining them into a monstrous combination of plant and human. Thankfully, she's still a good individual despite her newfound appearance.
- Bystander Syndrome: Fearing his father's wrath, Jack can only watch as his mother is ripped away from him and subsequently murdered. He blames himself for not doing anything to stop Hank from taking her away, and reveals to Beth that this isn't the first time this has happened.
- Call-Back:
- Hank and Connor are seen drinking bottles of Harrows Supreme while discussing their plan of attack on the government building.
- Connor is seen lighting one of his cigarettes with Norm's lighter from Public Television of the Dead.
- Catapult Nightmare: Jack has one after discovering the mystery seeds for the first time, where his bed turns into a plot of soil that houses an undead version of his mom, who stares at him and emits an unearthly screech while vomiting more soil.
- Defiant to the End: Hank's last words are a vulgar insult directed to his monstrous, reanimated wife, just before she eats him.
- Despair Event Horizon: Jack hits it when he learns that Beth, his surrogate mother figure, was the person who told Hank about Bloom's plan to run away with him and got her killed, prompting him to run to the backyard and cry.
- Disposing of a Body: Hank and Connor bury Bloom's corpse under her beloved garden, where she merges with her plants and returns to (semi-)life.
- The Dog Bites Back: Jack and Bloom exact revenge on the three people who were directly and indirectly responsible for the latter's death.
- Domestic Abuse: Bloom and Jack have had to put up with Hank's extremist dogma and his physical and verbal abuse for years, but in the end, they get to return the favor.
- Dragon-in-Chief: Connor, Hank's fellow Confederate.
- Earn Your Happy Ending: Twisted as it may seem, Bloom becomes one with nature, befitting her hippie ideals, and her son gets to escape his extremist father's abuse and travel to meet his Meemaw like they both wanted.
- Even Evil Has Standards: While Connor was just as gung-ho as Hank was about blowing up that government building, he is very clearly shaken by Hank murdering his wife in cold blood, telling Hank that things didn't have to go this way. He apparently gets over it by the time the duo bury Bloom in her garden.
- Exact Eavesdropping: Jack is seen eavesdropping on his father and his crew twice, first when Hank and Connor go over their plans to bomb the government building, and again when he learns that Hank has been cheating on Bloom with Beth, who was the one who ratted his mother out and let Hank kill her.
- Flat Character: Connor does not have as much of a personality as the other characters, mainly existing to serve as Hank's accomplice.
- Floral Theme Naming: Jack's mom, Bloom.
- Flower Motifs: All sorts of flower designs can be seen inside Jack's house.
- Flower Mouth: Bloom's head (the original head, that is) transforms into a gaping mouth as she devours Hank.
- Foreshadowing: While reminiscing about how anyone can plant anything, Beth tells Jack that someone can even "plant evidence to throw someone off the track", which hints that she's in cahoots with his extremist father.
- Foul Flower: The flowers that grow around Bloom's body have blood-red petals, human hair growing between said petals, stems covered in sharp thorns, and skull-shaped pistils. While they look deadly, they're simply part of Jack's reanimated mother, who proves to regain her kindly nature around her son.
- Frame-Up: Hank plants a bottle of whiskey and a money clip in his wife's luggage to make it seem like she's fallen off the wagon and robbed him, giving him an excuse to drag her to the police station.
- Garden of Evil: As her plants merge with her dead body, Bloom's garden appears to transform into one. It's subverted near the end, as she and the garden (having become one through the reanimation process) help Jack rid himself of his extremist father and his associates.
- Gaslighting: Hank and Beth continuously do this to Jack regarding where his mother went, hoping to throw him off their trail.
- Good Parents: Bloom is much kinder to Jack than her husband is, seeing him as their child instead of a fellow Confederate.
- Hate Sink: Hank, the abusive father, unfaithful husband, and domestic terrorist. He treats his wife like crap for being a "hippie-dippy tree-hugger", kills her when he hears that she was planning on running away with his son (and made active threats to kill her if she ever warned the Feds about what he was up to), shamelessly gaslights Jack by telling him that Bloom was thrown in a "halfway house" by wanting to choose drinking and pill-popping over him, and forcefully tries to indoctrinate the kid into his own Confederate extremist mindset, seeing him as a fellow soldier instead of a son. He and his friend Connor had also been plotting to blow up a local government building, and had it not been for Jack and the reanimated Bloom, they would have possibly succeeded.
- Hippie Parents: Bloom is strongly implied to come from a family of nature-loving hippies (if not something else). This is a pretty big reason why Hank grows to resent her, since her peaceful nature clashes with his extremist ideals.
- Hoist by His Own Petard: Hank getting together with Beth, who rats Bloom out when she tries to run off with Jack, gradually allows the kid to learn the truth and get revenge on Hank, Beth, and Connor.
- Hurricane of Puns: Beth and Jack trade a handful of plant-based puns as they plant the mysterious seeds in Bloom's garden:Jack: How long until you think they'll sprout?Beth: I don't know. "Lettuce" consider. Do you "carrot" all how long?Jack: I guess "weed" better get a move on, then.Beth: Now you're just beatin' around the bush.
- Implied Death Threat: Inverted. Hank tells Connor and Beth that he made active threats to kill Bloom if she ever told the authorities about what he was up to.
- Let's Get Dangerous!: Once Bloom comes back from the dead and tells Jack everything, he stops being a coward and comes up with a plan to lure Beth, Connor, and his abusive father Hank into her jaws.
- Make It Look Like an Accident: Before he came up with the "breakdown at the police station" excuse, Hank was planning to tell Jack that Bloom died when she jumped out of his truck and hit the street at high speed.
- Man-Eating Plant: Once she's transformed, Bloom initially feeds on blood to survive. As she grows, she's able to devour entire people.
- Meaningful Name: Jack's mom Bloom loves gardening, and when she is killed, she merges with her garden and "blooms" into a sort of monstrous plant hybrid.
- Similar to a classic fairy tale, Jack indirectly gives the mystery seeds what they need to grow, to the point where they merge with Bloom's dead body.
- Me's a Crowd: Bloom appears to produce clones of herself as she feeds on blood, the clones going from skeletons to active heads as she grows bigger.
- Middle-of-Nowhere Street: Hank's farm is shown to be pretty far from civilization, presumably to keep the government out of his illegal affairs.
- The Mole: Beth, who spends much of her time bonding with Jack, is revealed to be Hank's lover, and therefore was the one who tipped him off about Bloom's plan to run off with the boy.
- Monster Is a Mommy: Bloom was already a happy(ish) mother before she died. When she becomes merged with her garden, she initially was given the mindset of a hungry beast. When she discovers that the blood she's feeding on is Jack's, she regains her humanity and frees his injured hand, then gives him a kiss and tells him what truly happened on the night she was taken from him.
- My Greatest Failure: For Jack, it's his failure to stop Hank from killing his mother. He's given a second chance when he learns the truth, and this time he doesn't back down.
- Mythology Gag:
- The bottle of booze in Bloom's luggage is revealed to be a bottle of "Pappy Grantham's Straight Rye Whiskey", complete with a portrait of Nathan Grantham himself on the label. It's appropriate because Nathan was mentioned to be a bootlegger in both the original film and its comic book adaptation.
- The ashtray that was used to kill Nathan makes an appearance on the house's kitchen table, where Hank and Connor use it as they discuss their strategies for the government building.
- Nature Is Not Nice: Once Bloom merges with her garden and gains complete control of it, she uses it and herself to make quick work of her adulterous, murderous husband, as well as his lover and his associate.
- Nature Lover: Befitting her hippie nature, Bloom expresses love for all of Mother Earth's beloved plants, especially those in her garden.
- Nice Guy: While his mother and father are both plagued by respective mental anguish and unchecked aggression, Jack himself is a humble, good-hearted country boy who tries to hang on to his hopes that his mother comes back soon. He later toughens himself up to get revenge on his murderous father.
- Nothing Is Scarier: The nature of how Hank killed Bloom is unexplained. All we see of the result is Bloom's body, with only her hair showing, wrapped in the tarp Hank had been using to conceal his assault weapons.
- Offing the Offspring: Hank almost shoots Jack when he's smacked with a shovel, but Bloom stops him before he can even aim.
- Offscreen Teleportation: In the opening scene, Hank is seen driving his truck away. When Bloom opens the door to leave with Jack, Hank suddenly appears right in her path, Beth and Connor standing behind him.
- Our Zombies Are Different: Bloom's dead body technically reanimates into a zombie, but the corpse is merged with her garden. Instead of feasting on flesh or brains, she mainly feeds on blood, since it was what helped the strange seeds sprout. She also seems to be able to expand whenever she devours someone, as heads that resemble her own sprout up from the soil as she apprehends Hank.
- Parental Issues: Jack's parents have vastly conflicting lifestyles, and are always squabbling with one another because of that. With a peaceful hippie for a mother and a gun-toting extremist for a father, it's a miracle that Jack himself turned out as well-adjusted as he did... at least until the ending shows that he's got just enough of his father in him to get revenge.
- Plant Person: Bloom's dead body mutates into a sort of human/plant hybrid when Jack's blood comes into contact with the strange seeds she stored away.
- Pun-Based Title: "Mums" are a type of flower, and by the end of the story, Jack's mother ends up becoming a plant herself.
- Really 700 Years Old: Jack's meemaw, while stated to be turning 100, is hinted by Bloom to be older than TV, cars, horses, even trees. Given that Bloom's dead body is brought back to life by the seeds she was storing, this may also be the reason for Meemaw's prolonged life, as well as a hint that Bloom and her family may not be entirely human.
- Recovered Addict: Bloom is a recovering alcoholic, having taken up drinking because of Hank's extremist mindset. When spying a (planted) bottle of whiskey in her luggage, this makes Hank believe she's relapsed and stolen a money clip from him. He even says that Bloom's alcoholism has given her "an arrest record and a history of mental illness", but of course, that could just be him gaslighting again.
- Riddle for the Ages: The origins of the seeds Jack finds, as well as what Bloom originally wanted to use them for, remains unexplained.
- Right-Wing Militia Fanatic: Hank, Connor, and Beth are a trio of them, especially since the former two are actively planning to blow up a government building.
- Rule of Three: Jack feigns having done "something stupid" three separate times to lure Beth, Hank, and Connor to the house one by one, so Bloom can eat them.
- Self-Made Orphan: After finding out that Bloom was killed by Hank, Jack tricks his remaining parent into becoming plant food.
- Shout-Out:
- "The Pale Horse's Cookbook", the manifesto that Hank plans to have Jack read, is shown to be written by Denton Wilbury, the racist survivalist protagonist of the segment "The Bunker" from Tales from the Hood 3.
- The concept of Jack and Hank cutting their hands on thorns and Plant/Zombie!Bloom feeding and growing on their blood may easily bring Little Shop of Horrors to mind, especially when Bloom's head transforms into a gaping, Audrey II-esque maw.
- Sociopathic Soldier: Hank claims to have served in the Marines before he got married. He plans to brag about this to the cops as a reason to believe him instead of Bloom, but kills her before they even get to the station.
- Sole Survivor: Jack is the only character left truly alive by the episode's end.
- Time Lapse: A short montage of plants growing is used to illustrate the seeds Jack finds sprouting overnight.
- Transflormation: Bloom changes into a plant-based monster after the mysterious seeds Jack plants in her garden take root in her corpse.
- Trauma Button: Upon discovering the mysterious flowers for the first time and finding out that they remind him of his mom, Jack experiences a traumatic flashback to the moment she was taken from him, as well as his failure to intervene in the situation.
- Unwitting Instigator of Doom: Beth, who rats Bloom out and allows Hank to kill her, gradually causes her to return from the dead and eat Hank, Connor, and herself.
- Vine Tentacles: Once transformed, Bloom is able to utilize roots and vines as prehensile appendages to grab whatever she can find in her vicinity.
- What Does She See in Him?: For whatever reason, Bloom, a peaceful, nature-loving hippie, married Hank, a proud Confederate terrorist. She even brings it up during her confrontation with the man at their front door, admitting that their marriage was the worst mistake she ever made.
- With Friends Like These...: Bloom sees Beth as a close friend who she tells to look after Jack while she's gone. We later learn that she's been sleeping with her husband and ratted her out when she was planning to escape with Jack.
- Would Hurt a Child: When Jack whacks him in the head with a shovel, Hank goes for his gun in an attempt to kill the kid. Thankfully, Bloom makes short work of him.
