The Haystack

 is the twelfth episode of the fifth season and the eighty-ninth overall.

Synopsis
Grif becomes progressively more phobic about bats in the cave, culminating in his playing off Simmons's fear of snakes to convince him to stand under a light.

Back at Blue Base, Doc returns from talking to Sheila with the unhelpful diagnosis that something is wrong. This leads Church and Tucker to criticize his medical skills, in response to which Doc reveals that he attended Jamaica State University. Church and Doc decide that the best method to fix Sheila would be to reboot her. However, this would require someone sneaky to deactivate her. Eventually, the Blues decide to fool Caboose into betraying Sheila.

Back down in the cave, Sarge and Donut locate the dead bodies. The two discuss the Blues and their methods of doing evil, but Sarge is distracted by something behind a rock, which he tries several times to surprise and capture, with no success. Over under the light, Grif and Simmons are wondering why there are lights in the cave when Simmons is shot by a pink, needle-like projectile which blurs his vision, slurs his speech and causes him to fall unconscious. Turning to see where the shot came from, Grif is struck by nearly a dozen such needles and sees some things which he believes to be "bat people" before he, too, falls unconscious.

Transcript
''Fade in to Grif and Simmons in the underground lair, muahahaha... sorry''

Grif: I heard something that time.

Simmons: You didn't hear anything.

Grif: There, did you hear that?

Simmons: Yes, I heard water dripping.

Grif: Sounds like bats!

Simmons: Bats, aren't made of liquid. Bats don't drip.

Grif: Bat-water!

Simmons: There are no bats!

Grif: You don't know, what if you're wrong?

Simmons: Okay, idiot, let's assume I'm wrong. Let's assume there are bats. So what? You're wearing state of the art, biomechanical body-armour. It's designed to deflect bullets, and absorb explosions. What can a five ounce flying rodent possibly do?

Grif: ...So basically you're saying that you think there's bats.

Simmons: Sure, why not.

Grif: I'm getting the fuck outta here.

Simmons: No you're not Grif, we're standing right here. I told Sarge we wouldn't move, and we're not moving.

Grif: At least let's go stand by the light.

Simmons: No, that would be moving, and thus would violate our strict "no moving" policy.

Grif: But the light-

Simmons: No.

Grif: -would help us see the bats!

Simmons: NO.

Grif: And their fangs!

Simmons: NO!

Grif: Hey, you know what else might be in the cave, Simmons? Snakes.

Simmons: You're an asshole Grif, why would you bring up snakes?

Grif: I'm just saying. I know you don't like Snakes, and snakes do live in caves, and we are in a cave, and snakes like to crawl right up next to people in caves, and then they-

Simmons: Alright, screw it, I'm gonna go stand by the light.

Cut to Blue Base, then to Doc approaching

Doc: Okay, I talked to Sheila, you guys were right: she definitely seems a little odd.

Church: Yup, so whaddaya think?

Doc: I, think she seems like there's something wrong.

Church: That's your diagnosis? That's why we sent you down there, man. Because we knew something was wrong.

Doc: I'm a medic, what do you want from me?

Church: How about fixing her?

Doc: Well surprisingly my medical training didn't cover internal combustion.

Church: What a shitty medical school.

Tucker: Yeah where'd you go, the University of Jamaica?

Doc: Oh please, I wouldn't be caught dead on that campus. I went to Jamaica State! Who's Jamaica State's Fighting Irish.

Church: That's Notre Dame.

Doc: Well since we're international, we don't really have to adhere to the stringent U.S. copyright laws. So-

Church: Never mind. Just go back down there, and see if you can reboot Sheila.

Doc: Reboot her?

Tucker: Yeah dude, that's how you fix broken stuff. You turn her off, and then you turn her back on again. She'll be fine.

Doc: I don't think that'll work.

Church: Uh, pardon me, it works great. We already rebooted the toaster, we rebooted the teleporter...

Tucker: Yeah, I still don't know if that thing has all the bugs worked out.

Church: We even rebooted Caboose's armour once. Although, that took a lot longer to come back online than we thought it would.

Caboose: It was dark and I got to hold my breath. I'm pretty sure there was no side-effects.

Doc: No, I mean I don't think it'll work because I'm not going back down there. She's not exactly in the best of moods.

As if on cue, Sheila fires a shell up in the general direction of the gathering

Doc: See?

Church: Yeah, we need to get someone sneaky down there who can turn her off.

Doc: How 'bout Tucker?

Tucker: Who me? No way! I'm a lover, not a sneaker.

Doc: Oh, that's your response to everything.

Tucker: What can I tell you? I'm a lover, not a thinker. ...How 'bout Tex?

Church: Yeah we couldn't afford it. If only we knew someone that Sheila trusted. And it would have to be someone kinda dumb, so that we could fool them in to betraying that trust, for our purposes...

Church and Tucker both look back at Caboose

Caboose: Hey... everyone is looking at me. ...I love when they do that- Hi everybody!

Cut back to the vast underground lair, and two bodies lying motionless on the ground

Donut: See? And these are the two bodies I was telling you about. At first I thought they were sleeping, but then I realised they were dead.

Sarge: Blues never sleep, they're too busy plotting to destroy our way of life! That's how you can always spot a Blue, Donut. They're always the ones conniving and scheming. Sometimes they do both! I call that "scheniving."

Donut: And you know what else? You can also tell they're blue because their blue armour.

Sarge: Yeah that too. You know at first I thought this cave was pretty dismal, but it's amazing how a couple o' Blue corpses can really spruce up the place, make it feel like home.

Donut: Yeah, we could hang a couple o' drapes, get some wicker chairs, oh, this place will be fantastic.

The camera angle changes to what you may see if some shifty guy were looking at them from behind a rock, which Sarge turns toward, and then the camera ducks behind the rock entirely

Donut: Everything okay Sarge?

Sarge: What? Oh yeah. It's just that I can't shake this feeling. The feeling that we're beinnnggg watched- ha, got ya! D'aw, son of a-

Donut: Um, that was pretty dramatic.

Sarge: Yeah, it usually works better if someone is standing there when I do that. ...Kind of like now- dammit. I'm normally not wrong about this kind of thing, hello- durka dur.

Donut: Oh, do you have a good sixth sense?

Sarge: No, stupid, motion-activated proximity radar. It's standard issue. I guess I need to get mine calibrated. Hey, what the heck is that thing?

''Cut to Simmons and Grif once more... crap, got enough scenes in there today Burns?''

Simmons: Sarge should be able to see us here, right?

Grif: Yeah, who cares. Hey Simmons I was thinking, if we're in a cave, why are there lights down here?

Simmons: That's a pretty good point... Grif...

Grif: What the- are you okay?

Simmons has been shot with a glowing purple dart of some kind

Simmons: Yeah, why do you ask?

Grif: Huh, you got a pink thing on you.

Simmons: Wha? Like a snake? Damn it all...

Simmons collapses

Grif: Simmons? Simmons? ...Huh?

Grif gets shot with a dart in the neck

Grif: Ow.

Nine more to various parts of his body

Grif: OW!

One more to his crotch for good measure

Grif: Oh wow hey look, bat-people. Please don't eat me bat-people.