Watchers

Live Stream #282: It's a beautiful day for a clip show

It's a few minutes to eight and everyone in the comment section is nervous about whether or not Elvis will show up. The screen remained black all day yesterday and no one was able to ferret out any information about what might have happened to her.

Some in the comments are sure that she'll be back today, and others have no reason to feel so hopeful.

A lot of them are speculating that she got detained by Watchers. When Dystopia Today was just a little show with a small audience, Elvis's subversive content wasn't such a big deal, but ever since she got famous, it has become more dangerous.

Think about it. How many Watchers would want to bag the person sharing all their dirty little secrets? That would be a big payday.

They could have been onto her for weeks, or even months.

She's careful, you guys. There's no way she'd do anything to expose herself.

We're talking about a person who wears an Elvis mask that only covers the top half of her face and considers it a good disguise. She could be found.

At 7:59 a.m., just on time, the screen switches over to the TV test pattern and everyone lets out a collective, if ethereal, sigh of relief in the comments section. It means there's someone there to push the button, and Elvis must be safe.

But when the clock ticks over to 8 a.m. and she should be switching the camera over to the comfortable, familiar shot of her messy desk and ironic movie posters, something else appears on the screen. It's a clip that they've all seen dozens of times before.

Bree Benson is standing at a podium while camera flashes go off all around her. The rest of the Benson horde is standing beside her, and she leans forward to speak into the microphone in a poised, matronly way.

"It is with great regret that we announce our intention to leave the country. This nation has become inhospitable and uninhabitable, and if you have the means to leave, I recommend that you do so as soon as possible, as we are."

It's a press conference, and it's at least two years old. Every major news station covered it, and Elvis likes to play it whenever she runs a new story about the Bensons just to remind everyone of their greatest trespasses against the country.

Of course, everyone in the viewing audience now knows exactly how the Benson exodus went, or rather, how it didn't.

What is this?

Where's Elvis?

Is she really going to subject us to a celebrity highlight reel the day after she no-showed?

Kendall puts her hand on the shoulder of her eldest son, Brody, and he stares somberly at the camera, his jaw turned ever so slightly to show off his good side.

"We want everyone to know that even though we are leaving, we stand by this great country," she says. "And of course, this will not disrupt the filming of our television shows."

This is one of her torture reels - the stuff she used to play when she needed to beg money out of us.

She doesn't need that now - she's flush.

How many McDonald's runs does she need in a day?

What's next, the old folks' home?

Rather than the Lower North Philadelphia Assisted Living Facility, the next footage is from the vantage point of cameras along the border wall to Mexico. This was not widely circulated by the media - it's more in keeping with Elvis's unique brand of stolen and highly sensitive video - but they've seen all this before. There's nothing new today, and still no Elvis.

There are two guards standing at the wall, rifles leaning against their shoulders, and in the distance, the dust begins to kick up as a fleet of Land Rovers approach. The Bensons arrive in flamboyant fashion and demand entry, pointing to their camera crew as evidence of their worthiness, but the guards don't care.

One of them steps up to the driver's side of the first car and says, "You got nothing we want, and you ain't bringing your American disease into our country."

Then he spits on the dirt and the look on Kylie's face says that she's never been turned away before, never been told that something was closed to her. It's a broken look.

We've seen all this before!

We want to know what's going on with Daniel and Sasha, for crying out loud.

Where did Elvis get this footage? Border security tapes can't be easy to hack into.

Elvis, we're worried about you.

The next video skips ahead a few months. After being turned away at the border, the Bensons discovered that no amount of money or fame could buy their safe passage into Mexico - or Canada, or anywhere else, for that matter. They were a contributing part of the American disease, as that border guard put it, and by making a public declaration of disloyalty, they quickly became an enemy to the Watchers as well.

They hired coyotes to help them sneak into Mexico, but after several failed attempts, they were finally captured several months ago. Everyone knew that they'd been heavily fined, were now almost penniless, and had no further hope of buying their way down the street in a cab, let alone into Mexico. But Brody managed to make himself a nice little deal out of it.

The camera switches to an interrogation room. He's sitting alone at a steel table, double-sided mirrors on two walls, and then a couple of agents come into the room.

They offer him an ultimatum.

Get fined into abject poverty like the rest of his family, or make an appearance on a reality television show called The Elimination Game.

"Are you kidding?" Brody asks. "Of course I'll be on TV. No brainer."

The first agent leans heavily against the table, hovering over Brody, and snarls, "They don't exactly publicize it, but the losers on that show don't exactly get to walk away from it."

He draws a finger dramatically across his throat.

Of course, everyone watching already knows that Brody chose The Elimination Game, and that he is holding on by the skin of his teeth for his fourth week. He's not doing great, but apparently it's better than being poor.

In the comments section, a new idea begins to take hold and more and more people are asking the same question.

Where does Elvis get these tapes?

What tricks does she have up her sleeve to get access to that kind of information?

She has eyes everywhere.

It's unlikely.

It's impossible.

Something's up.