Season 2, Episode 8
White Trash
In a corridor on the Lexx, the hillbillies from the end of "Love Grows" descend on a screaming man dressed in a black outfit similar to that warn by officers of the Divine Order. On the bridge, Stan thinks that he heard a scream, and wonders if there might have been workers on board the Lexx when they took it. He wanders around looking for people, but doesn't find any. When he reaches the galley, he asks the Lexx if there are other people on board. The Lexx tells him that there are other people on board, in the galley; Stan, exasperated, tells the Lexx that that's him.
However, the Lexx turns out to have been correct, as the hillbillies emerge to greet Stan. They're the Gollean clan: Pa and his children, Sissy, Junior, and "a little kid." While they're loud and seem oblivious to personal space, they seem friendly enough. Stan takes them on a tour. They pass through the cryochamber, where they meet Xev. Pa and Junior admire Xev's appearance, although Pa seems more interested in Sissy, whom he describes as "creamy" and kisses on the mouth. The "little kid" wanders away from the others.
Pa is overjoyed to learn of the Divine Order's destruction and wants to return to his home planet, Vermal. After experimenting with the Lexx's controls, he passes out on the bridge, which his children seem to consider normal.
Xev flirts with Junior, but his intelligence is too low to sustain the conversation. He says that he wants to "do the humpy-jumpy" with her in front of a crowd at a party he expects to find on Vermal. Xev decides that she doesn't want to have sex with Junior, but she is intrigued by the idea of attending a party.
Meanwhile, Sissy comes onto Stan. She's asks if there's a place where she can rest, then invites Stan to join her. Stan takes her to the moth where he sleeps, and they have sex. She also tells him about how her father fatally hit her mother for "berry-picking": "Ma didn't move no more after that."
Still in the cryochamber, the youngest Gollean quarrels with 790. 790 calls him "inbred," and the child responds by disassembling and reassembling 790.
Pa wakes up and finds Sissy and Stan in bed. He's enraged that Stan was "dittling his little girl" and implies that he's about to kill Stan in some messy fashion. Sissy intervenes by declaring that she wants Stan to be her "one and only husband"; Pa, despite grumbling about Stan's age and subpar shoulders, agrees. Pa wants to perform the ceremony immediately, in part because, once Stan joins the clan, he'll be obliged to use the Lexx however Pa wants.
The Lexx approaches Vermal. Xev convinces Junior to sneak away in a moth with her so that they can attend the party. 790 becomes very worried about Xev and begs the kid to help him wake up Kai. The kid agrees to do so, in exchange for 790's assistance in repairing a spacecraft that the kid knows about on the planet's surface.
Pa tries to officiate Stan and Sissy's wedding. When Stan tries to back out, Pa threatens to club him with the bone. Sissy intervenes by getting between them and telling off Pa. Pa reacts by accusing Sissy of being like her mother, which she says is true: They were/are both too good for him. According to Sissy, Ma hated him ever after he "took her," and had a series of lovers before the pilot. She grabs Pa's bone and strikes him with it. Pa pushes Sissy over the edge of the bridge, then defends himself by saying that he had to do it.
Kai, 790, and the kid appear, en route to the moth bay. Pa mistakes Kai for "the law" and runs away, occasionally making goat sounds from hiding. Kai, 790, and the kid proceed to the planet.
The "party" that Xev attends proves to be full of the hostile and uncultured "Glollean" clan, led by Pa's cousin, Daddy. Members of the clan play a banjo-like instrument with little skill, leer at Xev, and use garbage-can fires for lighting. They take Xev and Junior captive.
The "little kid" leads Kai and 790 to a small vessel in an isolated area. The ship was left here by a foreign pilot whom Pa killed, along with Ma, when he caught them "berry-picking." The kid explains that Vermal used to be "full of clans," but now there are only a handful left. Kai speculates that the depopulation resulted from the Cleansing in ''Giga Shadow''. 790 views repairing the vehicle as a waste of time and wants Kai to torture the kid for the location of the party; Kai insists on 790 completing his agreement.
Pa reemerges and has Stan open a channel to the partiers on Vermal so that he can rant to Cousin Daddy about their feud. However, Cousin Daddy reveals that he has already captured Junior. Daddy orders Junior to be lowered into a garbage can full of "mine critters"; Junior dies screaming. The Glolleans describe their plans to gang-rape Xev. Kai flies overhead in a moth and lifts her out of the crowd. Stan uses Pa's distraction to try waking Lyekka with the promise of food.
Pa wants Stan to order the Lexx to blow up Vermal. Stan stalls for time by pointing out that the "little kid" is still on Vermal and is Pa's only remaining family. Just then, the kid transmits a signal from his newly-functional spacecraft. He tells Pa that his real father was the pilot, and that he's taking the pilot's name, Norb. Pa doubles down on his decision to destroy the planet. Before he can kill Stan for refusing, Kai and Xev signal that they're leaving the planet. Stan has it destroyed only seconds after their moth escapes. Norb escapes separately in his own shuttle.
Xev and Kai return to the bridge. At the sight of Kai, Pa shouts, "The law!" again and runs, bragging about how they'll never find him. The crew hears the squelch of Lyekka's pod as she drops down to lure in Pa with "a dance." Lyekka eats Pa.
Outside, Norb enjoys flying his shuttle just over the surface of the Lexx. He seems more relieved than distressed by the deaths of his family and destruction of his planet, shouting "Goodbye, Vermal!" as he plays with his new craft.
Tropes present in this episode include:
- Abduction Is Love: Deconstructed: Pa was able to "take" Ma, but he couldn't make her love him.
- Abusive Parents: Pa's children live in fear of him, for good reason.
- After the End: Vermal used to have far more clans on it.
- Anti-Villain: Despite hunting and eating other humans, the Gollean children get a mostly sympathetic treatment. They aren't malicious beyond ensuring their own survival, and Sissy even gets a few Pet the Dog moments protecting Stan from Pa.
- Arson, Murder, and Jaywalking: Pa wants to kill Daddy because Daddy turned the Golleans into the Divine Order, fed Junior to mine critters, and called Pa a "cockerwidder."
- Attempted Rape: The Glolleans plan to rape Xev.
- Auto Erotica: The Light Zone version— Sissy and Stan have sex in a (dead) moth.
- Bad with the Bone: Pa clubs people with a stock femur bone.
- Book Dumb: The Golleans are far from sophisticated, but they have the street smarts to escape the Divine Order's custody, reunite, and remain undetected on the Lexx.
- Cannibal Clan: The Golleans.
- Calling the Old Man Out: Sissy does this to Pa.
- Child Prodigy: Norb's understanding of mechanics is quite advanced for his age.
- Department of Redundancy Department: "I'm Pa, but you can call me Pa."
- Disney Villain Death: While not exactly a villain, Sissy meets her end in this fashion.
- Domestic Abuse: Pa murdered Ma.
- Eaten Alive: Junior, by mine critters.
- Fat, Sweaty Southerner in a White Suit: Daddy Glollean is a parody.
- Facial Markings: Pa, Sissy, and Junior each have an identical birthmark on one side of the face. The absence of one on Norb's face is one reason to suspect that he's not Pa's biological child.
- Hillbilly Horrors: Poverty, ignorance, feuds, cannibalism— the whole nine yards.
- Inbred and Evil: Averted. Although it's heavily implied (and stated, by 790) that they're inbred, the Gollean children aren't noticeably worse than most people in the setting.
- Insult Backfire: When Pa accuses Sissy of being just like her mother, she shoots back that it's true— they're both too good for him.
- Kids Are Cruel: Norb disassembles 790 without permission.
- Leonine Contract: Norb forges one with 790 when the latter panics over what might be happening to Xev.
- Lower-Class Lout: Pa.
- Mama's Baby, Papa's Maybe: Norb has figured out that he resulted from an affair.
- Mental Handicap, Moral Deficiency: Played with. The Golleans in general are not very educated and not very classy, and at times they seem related with Pa. However, the only unambiguously stupid member of the family is Junior, who, when not under his father's influence, seems like a well-meaning guy.
- Messy Hair: Sissy.
- Misplaced Retribution: Daddy kills Junior out of hatred for Pa.
- Offing the Offspring: Pa does this to Sissy.
- Overalls and Gingham: One look at the Golleans, and you know they're not from the city.
- Parental Incest: Sissy and Pa.
- Really Gets Around: Sissy claims to have always enjoyed sneaking into boys' bedrooms, and later alleges multiple affairs by her mother.
- Sexy Discretion Shot: For Sissy and Stan.
- Shotgun Wedding: Pa would've killed Stan, if Sissy hadn't suggested that they get married instead.
- Space Romans: Vermal is a very specific parody of Appalachia, IN SPACE.
- Surrounded by Idiots: Pa incorrectly believes he's by far the smartest member of the family.
- To Serve Man: Lyekka eats Pa.
- World Shapes: Stan accidentally blows up a doughnut-shaped planet early in the episode. Later, we see Vermal, which has far more elevated landmasses (relative to sea level) than Earth, and generally looks like it's covered in mold.
- Would Hurt a Child: Pa has no problem with the idea of killing Norb after he finds out that he's not the biological father. Then there's the question of how many other kids he had Stan kill on Vermal...
- 790 asks Kai to torture Norb for information. To be fair, Norb had mistreated him.
