"Jimmy" is the 11th and final episode of the second season of Static Shock. It premiered on May 4, 2002. It is a "very special episode", focusing on children and guns, and also on bullying.
Plot[]
The episode opens with a crowd gathered around the entrance of the community center. Along with an ambulance, the EMTs are shown loading Richie who is injured onto the ambulance with Mr. Hawkins riding along. Virgil tries to get on the ambulance with them, but his father tells him to go home. Then the scene flashes to the high school with Virgil looking out the window worried about Richie.
Virgil is revealed to be talking to Dr. Franklin, a psychiatrist, telling her everything that happened up until a week ago. He had met and befriended a shrewd, timid boy named Jimmy Osgood, who preferred to type up journals and surf the Internet on his laptop rather than engage in leisure activities with other kids. He is regularly bullied by Nick Connor and his best friends Kevin and Ray, shown when they repeatedly push the cover of his laptop down while he is typing and stealing his mouse as well. However, Jimmy starts making friends with Virgil and others, like Richie and Frieda.
Virgil and Richie decide to go over to Jimmy’s house, there Virgil gives him his sister’s mouse, an old model but still compatible with his laptop. Jimmy thanks him and invites them to his room, where he shows them his collection of action figures and various goods from movies and tv shows. Richie notices a model laser gun, this prompts Jimmy to ask them if they want to see a real gun, his dad’s gun. This hits home for Virgil as his mother died from a gunshot. Virgil and Richie leave, with the therapist telling him that he did the right thing by leaving, but Virgil feels like it wasn’t.
Jimmy although depressed, regularly hung out with Virgil and Richie at the community center. Then Frieda asks them to help with the preparations for a Halloween party at the Community Center. Jimmy gives them invaluable help with his own style of special effects much to the joy of Frieda whom he developed feelings for. Later Virgil says he was looking for Frieda as he needs her input about the Halloween masks. Jimmy volunteers to find her, as he wanted to show her his work on some of the other Halloween decorations. However, Jimmy inadvertently eavesdrops on Frieda and Nick talking, as a result Nick chases him through the maze while Frieda tries to stop him.
Nick, along with Ray and Kevin chase him into the locker room and pull a rather violent prank on him by stuffing him into his locker, Virgil and the others hear him calling for help and free him. He runs off in tears leaving the kid shattered enough to not show up for the next week. Virgil and his father, worried, pay a visit to Jimmy's home, where they found out that the boy was gone.
Looking at Jimmy's laptop left turned on, Virgil finds his "Battle Journal", a blog where he had posted his intent to exact vengeance on Nick and his friends for torturing him; shocked by what he’s read, he shows his dad and Jimmy’s father. Mr. Osgood dismisses it until Robert tells him to take it seriously. Virgil tells the pair about Jimmy telling him that he knows where he can get a gun. Mr. Osgood says that it’s impossible as he has it locked up and has the only key to it. However, when he checks his keychain, to his shock he finds that the key in question is missing and runs to his room and discovers his gun missing and everyone realizes that Jimmy took it. Mr. Hawkins scolds Mr. Osgood for leaving a gun in the house where his son could get to it. Virgil tells the dads that Jimmy probably went to the community center. Mr. Hawkins orders Mr. Osgood to call the police and sends Virgil home before departing for the community center.
Jimmy shows up at the Community Center when everyone is taking down the decorations after the Halloween party. As Nick taunts him, Jimmy pulls the gun out and points it at him; a teary-eyed Jimmy shouts that he has had it with all the bullying he was subjected to, causing Nick to realize he has pushed Jimmy too far; Nick then tries to apologize, looking remorseful, but Jimmy doesn't believe him. Fortunately, Frieda and Richie are able to talk him out of shooting Nick, and Jimmy lowers the gun. Just then, Ray and Kevin charge at Jimmy and tackle him to the ground; the impact causes the gun to fire, the stray bullet hitting Richie in his leg. Virgil (as Static) arrives too late, shocked - he takes the gun and magnetizes it to the ceiling of the gym. He checks on Richie (who screams in pain and says getting shot in the leg is nothing like television makes it out to be) and asks the other students there to call 911. Ashamed and aghast by the near-fatal occurrence, Jimmy curls up in a corner, sobbing. Virgil recounts that Jimmy "looked confused and angry".
In the end, Jimmy undergoes intense psychological treatment at a juvenile detention center, which Virgil and Frieda feel he doesn't belong in, while Nick and his friends are suspended from school and sentenced to community service as a well-deserved punishment for what they did to Jimmy, which wasn't to Virgil. Later, as Virgil and Richie (with his leg in a plaster cast) try to shed some light over everything, they see another helpless student being bullied in the school corridors. Virgil promptly offers him a hand in hopes that no other youngsters end up resorting to gun violence like Jimmy did.
In the epilogue, Virgil as Static talks to the audience about gun violence. He mentions how many students are arrested (and expelled) for simply possessing a gun on school grounds. He also mentions how many teenagers have lost their lives to gun violence every year. He tells the audience that if they see someone with a gun, don’t stick around, get away from them, find an adult or someone they trust and tell them right away in order to prevent future tragedies.
Background information[]
Home video releases[]
Trivia[]
- At the end of the episode, the fourth wall is broken: Static addresses to the watchers about the hazards of firearms falling into the hands of children and youngsters. Static would do it again (with help from Rubberband Man) in "Where the Rubber Meets the Road" when talking about dyslexia.
- As they are never identified by name in the episode, it's unclear which of Nick's cronies is Ray, and which is Kevin.
- This is the second episode in which the story unfolds through flashbacks, the first being "Tantrum".
- Dwayne McDuffie and Alan Burnett won the 2003 Humanitas Prize in Children's Animation for this episode.
- This is the perennial morality episode, just like how "Frozen Out" was about homelessness, "Sons of the Fathers" was about racism, and "Where the Rubber Meets the Road" was about dyslexia.
- This is the last episode where Static wears his original costume and Virgil wearing his original clothes, which began with the premiere episode, "Shock to the System".
- Series director Dave Chlystek has drawn parallels between this episode and the Columbine High school Massacre.[1] Those events had a notable impact on Kids' WB's programming, which affected other DCAU outings such as The Zeta Project [2] and Batman Beyond: Return of the Joker.
- The script for the episode lists the number of kids killed by guns each year as 5,000 as opposed to the 4,000 stated in the episode.[3]
- The statistics used in this episode were provided by Handgun Control Org. and Entertainment Industries Council, Inc.[3]
Cast[]
Uncredited appearances[]
Quotes[]
Static: Now if you'll excuse me, I'm late for school. |
Virgil: That's when Nick Connor came in. Last year, he was voted “Best Personality”. Should have demanded a recount. |
Static: (breaking the fourth wall) After Richie was shot, I found out some things about guns you should know. In one year alone, 6,000 kids were expelled for bringing a handgun to school. As many as 4,000 kids are killed by guns each year. You can do something to help stop this. If someone tries to show you a gun, don't stick around. Get away from them. Tell an adult or someone you trust. Do your part to increase the peace out there. All right? |
Robert: What were you thinking having a handgun in the house where a kid could get to it?! |
- ↑ Static Shock Crew Talks "Duped" & "Jimmy" by Jim Harvey
- ↑ Bob Goodman Reveals THE ZETA PROJECT Season 3...and 4?! (24-Hour Birthday Bash)
- ↑ 3.0 3.1 "The Dwayne McDuffie Interview" Conducted March 2005 by Danny Fingeroth via e-mail and phone segments transcribed by Steven Tice Copy-edited by Dwayne McDuffie and Danny Fingeroth - Write Now! Magazine #10 July, 2009