Revenge of the Male Anchors 5

"Revenge of the Male Anchors 5"
Queen of the Willis episode
Episode no.	Season 8 Episode 15
Directed by	Alexandra Moffitt
Written by	Ava Zinn
Featured music	"Half the Way" and "After You're Gone" by Crystal Gayle
Production code	809
Original air date	April 28, 2020 (2020-04-28)
Guest actors
see article
Episode chronology
<span /> ← Previous "Girl (Lobster) Meets Boy (Lobster)" Next → "Quillsville Wasteland"

Revenge of the Male Anchors 5: The Fatal Frontier is a three part episode of Queen of the Willis. It originally aired on April 28, 2020 as the eighth season and was soft launched on the series' YouTube channel on November 8, 2019. The episode was written by series creator Ava Zinn and directed by Alexandra Moffitt.

The episode deals with Angie's father, Bob Donaldson and Ava's cousin-in-law, Clyde Lee retiring from Fox 11 and 6abc, respectively and they are respectively replaced by on Angela Stroup at Fox 11 Kayla Stewart at 6abc, creating a two-woman anchor team after Mayor Pence mandates two anchorwomen in Quillsville.

The episode introduces Ava's uncle Jim Bruhn (Diane Willis' father and Peggy Willis' father-in-law) Tabby's daughter Pheobe Willis, Shushu's daughter Alaina Willis, Julian Teekerman, Kayla Stewart, and Zoey Tur. Pheobe and Alaina are born in this episode after Christine (Kayla Stewart's dog) and Shushu are impregonated by Tabby and Adam Teekerman (Julian's cat) while Tabby and Shushu vicously attack Pat Hoffman, Sam Bauman, Michael Kuhn, and Rex Smith all die from their injuries.

Plot

Melissa and Karly almost hits Ava, Kenndra, and Alisan with a blow-up doll, Ava grows tired of their antics. At the Petco Sam's Club in Fort Wayne, Ava meets three girls named Emily Dwire (voiced by herself), Kayla Stewart (voiced by herslef) and Julian Teekerman (voiced by Julian Teekaram), latter of the two have moved from Fort Wayne to Quillsville as the respective successors of Clyde Lee and Bob Donaldson, even driving the exact same GMC Sierra. Ava is delighted after she met them,and they decide to go to The Broken Biolermaker together where they enjoy a beer and Diet Mississinewa Cola/Diet Dr. Steve.

When Ava gets home, she arrives to see Kendra trying to talk to a blow up doll, damaging the alley in the process. Ava then suggests having Emily, Kayla and Julian join them in the alley, which Avril, Alisan, Karly, Melissa and Kendra begrudgingly agree to. Emily, Kayla and Julian joins them in the alley, but Melissa and Kednra are not fond of the women. Emily, Kayla, Julian and Ava go to look at outfits, while a jealous Kendra and Melissa get drunk in the alley until Ava gets home later in the night. They express their displeasure in Ava spending time with Emily, Kayla and Julian, causing Ava to admonish them.

Meanwhile, Angie informs her family that she's writing a coffee table book titled Gay Penises in '90s Shorts. Ava insists that she spend time with Brynn, Tabby, and Shushu while she goes out. While they watch television together, Angie becomes shocked as both Clyde Lee and Bob Donaldson announces that they are retiring after 50 and 31 years respectively. Angie creates and stars in her own Saturday morning children's TV show called Happy Angie's Place (by awnsering a Facebook ad, which was a sex slave trap but got the show anyway), and is granted airtime by Quillsville 24. Ava is surprised at her initial success, but fears it will not end well.

The content of Angie's show tends to be over the heads of her intended audience, containing off-color hummor and adult themes. Ava is upset when Angie's success leads to late nights out on the town. Angry that Ava keeps saying negative things about her and angry that she isn't supporting her show, Angie makes a puppet resembling Ava called "Naggy Baggy", which represents her as an aging shrew who mouths off about everything and nags Angie to do her work. The puppet's reputation on the show impacts Ava's life when she is attacked by pets and children (including Tabby and Shushu) at Petco Sam's Club in Fort Wayne. When Angie wants lesbian sex, Ava turns her away. Ava agrees to stop nagging if Angie will stop using the puppet. Angie refuses.

While at Petco Sam's Club with Ava, Tabby and Shushu quickly become friends with Adam Teekerman and Christine Stewart and when both Tabby and Shushu shows them their weapons collection as part of his attempts to kill Ava, Tabby and Shushu are convinced to give up their plans so that they can stay friends and buries their weapons. But then after Christine Stewart and Shushu get respectively impregonated by Tabby Willis and Adam Teekerman, Tabby and Shushu discovers that they're not the only one who did not receive an invitation to the Addison Agen concert at the Family Fun Zone and decides to get revenge.

Tabby and Shushu manages to murder a Burmese street gang at ABC 21 Fort Wayne and confronts Adam and Christine where they discover that they did receive an invitation but never responded back. Heather arrives after discovering the plot and reveals that she destroyed the invitation because she didn't want to lose her own friendship with Tabby and Shushu because it appeared she had been pushed aside for Adam and Christine as Tabby and Shushu points out that they are more than friends in being family. As Tabby and Shushu drives away, the street gang blow up the building. As Tabby and Shushu's owner, Ava is arrested since Tabby and Shushu were the only persons on the surveillance tapes—the street gang dressed in black and crawled on the ground—but Melissa Long, a long-time news director, and Tina Craven, who had just acquired the station, doesn't press charges. Melissa Long tells Tina that if Ava Willis looks you in the eye and says she didn't do something, she didn't do it. The truth is Melissa doesn't believe Ava's innocence, but knows Ava would fight the charges, which would mean bad publicity for ABC 21. Long says that she has had a good run from Ava; thus she should cut her losses right there. As a result, Mayor Pence decides to ban males and transmales from the news anchor desk, meaning only two women or a transwoman co-anchoring with a woman and it becomes permanent.

Production

Cast

• Bob Donaldson as himself
• Laura Donaldson as herself
• Clyde Lee as himself
• Fanchon Stinger as herself
• Diane Willis as herself

Cultural references

• Tabby and Shushu respectively mention Amanda Carmack and Wendy Bergen.
  • Amanda Carmack was mentioned by Tabby after Angie throws her off the couch, refrencing Skylea Carmack's death after Tabby says "Nice going, Amanda Carmack".
  • Wendy Bergen is mentioned after Angie strnagled Tabby and Shushu.
• Angie mentions a sex tape with Ricky Martin on PornHub.
• Tabby mentions Nancy Drew cereal.
• Several refrences to The Simpsons are refrecned in this episode:
  • Angie strangles both Tabby and Shushu in the same manner Homer strangles his son, Bart.
  • Deanna Willis and Brandi Souza are watching "Girls Just Want to Have Sums", marking the fifth refrence to that episode.

Reception

A television critic gave the episode a C- when screening the episode, saying "Revenge of the Male Anchors 5" has just enough time to run through the basic beats of the story, doing the most superficial possible version of a serious episode of Queen of the Willis cripples the show’s strengths." The critic also wrote, "while other shows, even the procedurals with grisly murders, are playing around during prom season, Queen of the Willis went for the Tabby and Shushu Attacks episode that wrote off any chance that comedy-drama could save it if things took a wrong turn." The critic went on to criticize it for its tone, noting "An episode like this only works if the bits of comedy surrounding the serious plot create contrast to the darker main story, but the scenes where Tabby and Shushu Willis kills a street gang is probably the reason it wasn't shown in Fort Wayne."

Reaction to the episode by news media organizations was average and caused controversy, criticizing the episode for its portrayal of hate crimes. Kelly Ling of ABC 10 Milwaukee said of the episode, "Like some many other people screening the episode with our GM, I was just shocked by what I saw on Queen of the Willis that made our GM regret ever bringing the show back," and continued, "What the hell was Ava Zinn thinking when she relaunched the show." In another interview, WTOR meterologist Jillian Gates said of the episode, "The main theme of the show was about equal rights and human equality." Ling agreed with

WXWI/WZWI Vice President and General Manager also complained that the episode may went too far, and compared it to "The Rape of Heather Willis" and "Quillsville Cold Case: Something About Loose Ava" episodes that produced criticism, noting, "The show has dipped into sensitive material before, and as Vice President/GM of ABC 10 and Z-24 it is in the best interest of Milwaukee to air late Saturday/early Sunday at Midnight like many other stations carrying the show.

Stations refuse to air

In a Tweet by series creator Ava Zinn in Febuary 2020, it was revealed that four stations carrying Queen of the Willis refused to carry the episode due to viewer complaints: NoSirGifts-owned NBC affiliate WHNC-FTV Charlotte; independent station (and NoSirGifts co-flagship station) WXXC in Fort Wayne, Indiana; CBS affiliate WWCF-FTV in Tampa, Florida and ABC affiliate WXWI in Milwaukee. WCOL in Columbus, Ohio; WAKT in Knoxville, Tennessee; WFXM in Memphis, Tennessee; and WZVA in Hampton Roads, Virginia followed suit the following week.

After WHNC and WWCF refused to air the episode, NoSirGifts Charlotte Fox affiliate WXNC and Tampa CW affiliate WNMB, will air the episode at 3:00 a.m. on April 25, 2020 while NoSirGifts flagship station and CBS affiliate WTOR plans to air the episode at Midnight following that station's hour-long 11:00 pm newscast. WXWI/WZWI then announced Queen of the Willis will not be renewed nor will it carry its spin-off, The Souzas. Series creator Ava Zinn announced Queen of the Willis will move its Fort Wayne affilliate from NoSirGifts-owned WTOR/WXXC to United Broadcasting-owned NBC/CW duopoly WFTW/WGOM.