Killer Music
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"Killer Music" is the eighteenth episode of the French animated television series Code Lyoko. It premiered in France on December 31, 2003 and in the United States on May 12, 2004.
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[edit] Summary
When XANA creates a MP3 file that puts anyone who listens to it into a coma, Odd ends up being the first victim. Soon, the rest of the city begins to follow.
[edit] Recap
At the beginning of the story, a panorama of the city is seen with many lighted skyscrapers in the background and subrban homes equipped with television aerials in the foreground.
At Kadic Junior High School, the light in Odd and Ulrich's room is on. Ulrich can be seen at the desk pouring over a textbook. Odd, meanwhile, is in his pajamas and dancing around the room to a song playing on his Walkman. This annoys Ulrich, especially when Odd does the "King Tut" dance move right in Ulrich's face screaming, "YEAH!". Odd tells Ulrich that he is listening to "Glad When You're Bad," the newest hit to take the music industry by storm. Odd also claims nobody knows who wrote it. After Odd starts urging Ulrich to listen to the music too, Ulrich gets annoyed further, saying he urgently needs to study for a physics test. Odd asks why, considering that Ulrich will fail anyway. Thouroughly annoyed, Ulrich storms out of the room and heads for Jeremie'sdorm room, saying that at least that boy understands the value of study. Ulrich leaves and goes to Jeremie's room, where Jeremie is working on a robot. Odd continues listening to the music and jumps around on his bed. Suddenly, his eyes bulge out of his head and he collapses, a blissed-out grin on his face. Startled, Kiwi jumps around and barks, trying to revive his owner.
Ulrich ends up sleeping in Jeremie's room, but constantly wakes up during the night because Jeremie, it appears, talks in his sleep about Aelita, much to his embarrassment and Aelita's happiness. In the morning Ulrich and Jeremie attend class. Odd doesn't show up for the exam, however. When Ulrich and Jeremie go and try to figure out what happened to their friend, they find him grinning and yet comatose in his dorm. The song still playing on Odd's headphones. Ulrich and Jeremie rush Odd to the Infirmary.
Yolande Perraudin, the resident nurse, finds that Odd's pulse is dangerously low. In the next seen a EuroAmbulance chartered to SAMU (the French ambulance service) is parked outside of the Library with two paramedics transporting Odd on a stretcher into the mobile treatment compartment. Ulrich jumps into the back, saying he has to stay with Odd. Ulrich blames himself for not staying behind the previous night and helping Odd. Headmaster Delmas protests, saying he cannot let Ulrich off the campus. Eventually, he concedes and Jeremie hops aboard just before the ambulence takes off.
Outside on the Science Building's small plaza, Sissi is also listening to "Glad When You're Bad" on her Walkman. Yumi has just entered the campus via the nearby gate. Suddenly, Sissi collapses on the pavement, comatose. Yumi rushes over and hears the song through the headphones and suddenly feels a great pain in her head. Yumi yanks off the headphones and recovers, compartmentalizing the song for later. Yumi then rushes the distressed Sissi to the Infirmary.
In the school's medical center, Yolande Perraudin has just turned on the radio and has it tuned to a classical music station. Yumi drops Sissi there, much to Yolande's surprise. She says there's an epidemic going around and she admits Sissi next to Jim, also comatose. Suddenly, the Eye of XANA appears on the radio's tuner screen and "Glad When You're Bad" overrides the orchestral concerto, blaring into the room via the speakers. Yumi clasps her hands to her ears, screaming that she hates that song. Yolande collapses and Yumi runs out the door, heading for the Factory.
At Paul Doumer Hospital in the central city, the Cardiology Department has been overrun with new cases, as evidenced by an announcement on the intercom paging available cardiologists. Ulrich and Jeremie are visiting the comatose Odd, who is hooked up to a heart monitor and is still grinning. Outside in the hall the two boys overhear the nurses and hospital support staff frantically talking about being overrun with cases similar to Odd's and beds being filled up rapidly. Ulrich and Jeremie begin to suspect XANA involvement. While Ulrich gets a cola from the vending area, Jeremie contacts Aelita about activated Towers. One has been activated in the Mountain Sector. Jeremie concludes that XANA must have made this hit song and is using the media to distribute it worldwide, effectively turning the human race into comatose beings.
The boys run away from the Paul Doumer Hospital and through the central city's crossroads. As they run past the produce store, Jeremie calls Yumi and tells her to meet him at the Factory.
Jeremie and Ulrich make it over to the Factory and meet Yumi there. Ulrich and Yumi get transferred, scanned and virtualized to Lyoko to assist Aelita in the Mountains.
While those two are in Lyoko, Jeremie has linked to one of the nation's news media outlets. Ellen, the anchorwoman, is telling her viewers that there is a previously unknown disease passing through one of the nation's major cities. The picture changes to field reporter Bill Amster, who is standing at the same downtown intersection Ulrich and Jeremie were running through earlier. He says that a strange epidemic has infected all parts of the neighborhoods he's visited. While he talks, file footage of a street corner in one of the residential zones is shown. In it, two members of the HAZMAT squad are putting comatose victims on stretchers and loading them into decontamination trailers and SAMU ambulances. A police hatchback crusises down the street in the background while numerous comatose civilians are propped up against a property fence or lying on the sidewalk. Other camera shots show comatose shoppers in the downtown.
On Lyoko, the gang is attacked by a bunch of Bloks, who manage to freeze Ulrich. This puts Ulrich out of bounds for three minutes, leaving Yumi and Aelita on their own. Yumi survives the onslaught and destroys the Bloks with her metallic boomerang fans. She then races with Aelita to the Tower. Ulrich sacrifices himself for the two when another attacking wave of monsters arrives.
Suddenly, the killer music starts playing in the Factory. Jeremie cuts one of the communications wires lying on the floor with his jackknife, cutting off the music briefly. In seconds, the music starts emanating through wires in the pipes. Jeremie can't cut these wires, as they are protected by the pipes' thick metal casing. Jeremie passes out briefly, but manages to stagger back to the interface and punch in the coordinates for the return trip. He successfully completes his mission and then promptly falls into a coma.
After being devirtualized, Ulrich ends up in the Scanner Room. As he emerges from the Scanner, he hears the music blaring in the room. He tries to cover his ears, but to no avail. Within seconds Ulrich is twitching on the floor.
In the Paul Doumer Hospital (where the killer music is now playing over the intercom), Odd's heart monitor shows a the pateint is flatlining. Before death actually manages to claim anyone though, Aelita deactivates the Tower and everything goes back to the night before the exam.
This time, Odd is still playing his song. When he does the "King Tut" in front of Ulrich, the studying boy doesn't get annoyed. Instead he asks Odd if the wildcard student will help him study, pointing out that Odd is handy at physics. Ulrich makes a bargain, saying that if Odd helps him study he will listen to the song. Odd agrees, proudly claiming that, "The reincarnation of Einstein is prepared to pound some facts into a brain full of sawdust!" When Odd sits down, he tells Ulrich that the song is pretty mainstream. Odd then downloads a different tune called "Under My Cover" by R.U. Clegmatic, which he claims is a song like "she" would have written. Whom Odd is referring to is unknown.
[edit] Memorable Quotes
- Ulrich: I didn’t get a lot of sleep.
- Jeremie: How come?
- Ulrich: Well, I'll tell you how come. Oh Aelita, oh Aelita, you're in my dreams, I can't wait until--
- Jeremie: (blushing) Shhh! She'll hear you!
- Ulrich: Between you and Odd, I can't study or sleep.
- Jeremie: (still blushing) Hey you’re not gonna tell anybody, huh?
- Ulrich: Promise, Romeo.
- Yumi: You can't do it alone!
- Ulrich: Who said I would be alone? Triplicate! (edit)
[edit] Trivia
[edit] Cinematic Notes
- In this episode, the return trip energy seemed to spring from somewhere outside the Lab. But, in "Exporation" and all the episodes that followed, it would spring up from the Holosphere projector before expanding into its bubble form.
- Before Aelita deactivates the Tower, it is day at the Hospital and Lab, but the time abruptly changes to night as soon as the return trip takes place.
- When Ulrich is hit by a blok's freeze laser, Jeremie tells him he is "out of bounds" for 3 minutes after he is frozen. In "The Girl of the Dreams" getting hit by a freeze laser devirtualized a warrior.
[edit] Culture Notes
- Yolande dials "15" to get the Ambulence. Unlike in the United States where police, fire and medical are all networked into a single emergency number (911), in France there are separate numbers for police, fire and medical (last on includes emergency doctor and emergency dentist). "15" in France is equivalent of "911" in the United States.
- The Ambulence's siren went WOOEEEOOEE. In Europe, that is the kind of noise an Ambulence would make.
[edit] Allusions to the Real World
- Paul Doumer Memorial Hospital
The city's hospital is named in honor of Paul Doumer, a former president of France, according to the French script for this episode.
| Preceded by: "Amnesia" |
Code Lyoko episodes | Followed by: "Frontier" |
