The Vending Machine
Episode 6 of Monsters at Work begins with Tylor off at the vending machine. Or, well, Vendy as she likes to be known. She’s a MIFTer too and unfortunately Tylor breaks the machine. In fact, it’s so bad that the gang throw a funeral for her. Meanwhile, Sulley and Mike learn that Monsters Inc is not doing very well. Profits are way down and staff morale is awful. Even worse, Mike has to make a difficult decision to axe some of the staff by the end of the week. With Tylor struggling, he heads upstairs and discusses with Val what to do. Well, Mike comes up with a good idea – upgrades. And specifically, upgrading the vending machines. This simply softens the blow though as Fritz is forced to make the difficult decision of firing someone. However, there are bigger problems afoot. The new vendy starts malfunctioning, prompting Duncan to jump in and pull the plug… until he’s eaten. Eventually the threat is thwarted when Tylor jumps in and saves Duncan from his horrific ordeal. Thanks to Mike handing out free money and upgrading the gear, the budget cut deal is reversed. Hooray! Staff morale is sky high and that, in turn, allows laugh canisters to be filled much more effectively. Well, what better way to celebrate than with a brand new vending machine – and one that doesn’t malfunction too. During Mike’s comedy class, he teaches the class about clowns. Creepy, creepy clowns. But not a Pennywise in sight, thank goodness.
The Episode Review
The latest episode of Monsters at Work marches out with a really decent chapter. The self-contained story had some really nice beats, including Duncan’s heroic sacrifice and Fritz doing the same for the MIFTers. These two moments alone help to show how selfless these characters really are when it comes down to it – and that’s great to see. Elsewhere, there’s more Mike and Sulley here with their staff morale and budget cut issue reaching out to a much larger problem that companies have keeping their staff happy. Either way, this week’s chapter is another good one, with a satisfying episodic romp.
