Francis Rules the Kids' (Fake) World After the Island's Trial of the Century in Latest "StuGo" on Disney Channel

The latest StuGo on Disney Channel sees Francis’ true nature come out after she helps Merian in the Trial of the Century on Dr. Lullah’s island.

Primate Fear

We immediately open to some highly-stylized footage of a mutant chimp going crazy and attacking other mutants on the island, having to be stopped by Dr. Lullah. Lullah plans to lock him away for this behavior but the chimp, known as Bakey Potatey, requests a lawyer.

As we know from previous episodes, the best lawyer on the island is Merian, who is now on scene and ready to represent Bakey in court - a courtroom made of sand on the island’s beach with a jury of mutants that is and a computer/bot running the program (in a joke the target demo of the show would never get) Court.EXE.

As Lullah needs a lawyer as well, she gets Chip to represent her in the case. And it’s a good thing too, since Bakey is claiming that all of his aggression and rage was caused by Lullah.

According to his story, Bakey was forcibly shoved into a rocket for experimentation in space, with the moon and radiation altering his appearance and giving him special abilities - like lasers that shoot out of his eyes whenever he sneezes.

Lullah denies this, saying that that never happened and she would know because she knows everything that happens on the island. Merian smartly asks how she would know everything, with Lullah responding that there are cameras everywhere on the island. Merian points out that with all the cameras, then there would surely be video footage of the launch, and calls for a recess to examine the tapes.

As recess is called, Lullah fires Chip since a good lawyer would never have let her answer the camera question, and hires Pliny in his place. In a room nearby, Merian and Francis are going through all of the island’s tapes - despite Mr. Okay using the space to record his fitness podcast - since elsewhere on the island the sounds of rocket launches get recorded over his actual intended content. Wait a minute!... Francis found the tape, and as the kids are about to review the footage, Bakey sneezes and accidentally fires his laser eyes into the tape, destroying the footage.

While that idea may be lost, the only mutants that need to be convinced of his innocence are the ones on the jury. As such, Merian devises a plan that will bring in a number of other mutants that were experimented on by Lullah, including Larry - who Pliny calls since he adores Lullah. Too bad Merian is all too aware of a giant third ear that Lullah has experimented with, attaching it to Larry’s back and making his hearing skills quite incredible.

It seems that Merian is ahead when Francis, still playing as Merian’s Paralegal, comes back with the restored launch footage. Upon review, Bakey is indeed a rage-filled ape who terrorized the other mutants before launching himself into space. As the two realize the truth, Bakey “accidentally" sneezes and destroys the tape in a villainous turn thanking Merian for helping him go free.

After a bit of thinking, Merian recalls what Mr. Okay said about his podcast recordings, and sneakily helps Pliny by providing the audio evidence that Mr. Okay inadvertently recorded.

As the trial is about to end, this evidence is brought forward, and also has audio that has Bakey describing word-for-word what he is doing. Sure, that could be an altered recording, and Larry is called back to the stand with his giant ear, confirming that the voices are real.

This enrages Bakey once again, terrorizing the mutant jury and Chip before getting into a rocket yet again. This time however, his flight is quite unfortunate, launching horizontally along the beach before pulling upward and into the crater of the island’s erupting volcano.

It seems that may have been the last we see of Bakey Potatey.

Francis’ Last Straw

Dr. Lullah is in her lab experimenting with a new coffee roast - creating something she calls “Black Hole Coffee." This roast is so dark and so dense that it does exactly what something called Black Hole coffee would, and starts pulling nearby objects into it, like a real black hole would. Luckily, Lullah realizes who unstable and dangerous this coffee is and doesn’t consume it. But don’t worry…we’ll come back to the lab in a bit.

Outside, the kids have boated out to a small area off the beach that is home to six sandbars, where they are ready to make their own faux-countries and play a full scale game of Geoplomacy.

Each of the kids is excited, save for Francis, who is flashing back to the last time she played it…hearing distant screaming and chaos. Francis typically has a withdrawn nature, but now it seems to be more heightened as the kids all start naming their sandbar-countries and rounding up supplies. Pliny mistakenly interprets this distancing, thinking that Francis has nothing to offer in the game and gives her a number of straws from the day’s juice box supply. The game begins and Francis’ true colors in the game begin to come out, taking a more dominant role than previously.

Back in the lab, Lullah knows not to DRINK the coffee, but instead is now stacking glasses and doing parlor tricks with a large amount of cups of the black hole coffee. She knocks them all down, spilling the substance to the floor which sucks her lab and entire island into a black hole making it disappear.

Just off the shore, the kids see this happen and the stakes just got higher as they are now left with the resources they had when playing the game and nothing else. In other words, the game just got real.

Sara, noticing that Francis is a more dominant threat in the game, begins to side with her while the others try to round up what they have together - even creating a coalition of United sandbars to pool all their resources together. Negotiations have reached Francis, who refuses to sign into the agreement and continues to reign over her own sandbar with only the straws. She even sends over Sara to negotiate on her behalf, to get the others to bow to her, but they refuse. Seems like Francis saw this coming though as Sara is covered in sand fleas that quickly spread to the other sandbars because of this maneuver.

The other kids, desperate to get into their juice boxes to quench their growing thirst, inevitably sneak onto the island and steal the straws. Sara warns them, revealing Francis’ past reputation under the name “Bad Francis," a Geoplomacy champion who was banned from playing the game after chaos erupted. A fate similar to what’s happening now since she’s destroying each sandbar until only hers is left.

Since the kids are now left with nothing, they finally give in to Francis, sending over Pliny with a white flag/Chip’s shirt to admit defeat ... but wait. Pliny has noticed that Francis has eaten all of Chip’s wallet spices, and must now be quite thirsty. She offers up juice, as long as Francis agrees to join them. This negotiation tactic was an unsanctioned move, frustrating the other kids and enraging Francis to a point that she destroys her own island so that the kids are left with nothing.

Suddenly, Lullah’s island pops back into existence and it seems that she and Mr. Okay have figured out their coffee blend. The game is over, and the kids all head back to the island, with Francis winning the game.

This episode of StuGo is now available on Disney Channel and the DisneyNOW website. Episodes of the series will be available on Disney+ later this Spring.