Dead End: Paranormal Park is all about feeling represented. Whether you’re
a member of the LGBTQ+ community, someone with a hyperfixation that’s lasted 15 years,
or even just someone who would be willing to risk their life for a pet,
chances are you saw a little of yourself in some of the characters.
But we all know, they’re not perfect.
Hi, I’m Brad from WickedBinge and today we’ll be ranking characters
from the 2022 Netflix cartoon Dead End: Paranormal Park from Good to Evil.
For this list we’ll be looking at characters' best deeds, worst deeds,
and the progress they make during the course of the show. We’ll be taking into
consideration all the information we have about them, not just the things we see on screen.
Using that information we’ll be breaking them up into three tiers,
the Good, The Grey, and the Bad to Evil.
We’ll try our best to be considerate of the characters' backgrounds and
influences while making our decisions.
One final thing.
Since we will be looking at all ten episodes and there are some turns in the show,
you can consider this your official spoiler warning.
Please keep your hands inside the ride at all times, darlin’, we are headed for the list.
First, we have The Good. These are the characters with the best morals,
including loyalty, bravery, and sometimes just the ability to admit when they’re wrong.
Taking our Gold Medal of Good, of course, is Pugsley.
Even before he gains the ability to talk and defend his friends with magic,
Pugsley is a good dog. After the possession gives him loads of new responsibilities,
he fights off the evil influence like a champ while also trying his best to help his friends.
He is prone to mistakes and follies, but honestly, who isn’t?
Pugsley is a member of the staff worth saving,
and we think he deserves this medal to go along with his good boy hat.
Taking the Silver Medal of Good is Norma Khan.
Okay, so we’ve all had obsessions before. Here at Wicked Binge,
for instance, we’re obsessed with Paranormal Park.
But using that obsession to make the world a safer place? Putting our very specific,
nerdy knowledge to the greater good by fighting demons on a weekly basis? That’s not something
we signed up for, and we’re not sure we’d handle it half as well as Norma.
She has her faults, as does anyone.
She can be a little bossy, she puts her interests above the safety of her
friends sometimes, and her younger age means that
she often struggles in situations that call for her to be emotionally mature.
That being said, she’s one of the bravest characters on the show. We
see early in the series how she conquers her anxiety daily, and we see her taking
steps to learn to be more sociable to make herself better at a job she believes in.
Norma is a great character, and one of the best young role models ever animated.
Taking the Bronze Medal of Good is Barney
Barney is probably the most self-involved mortal on the show. But there’s an important
lesson that we could all learn from him, and that’s sticking up for himself.
Though there are lapses in his attention (usually where his crush or own insecurities are involved)
he knows that he deserves respect and attention. His greatest fear is being invisible, and he works
to build up the strength he needs to confront his family about making him feel that way.
When it comes to him always thinking about himself first, we also see that redeemed,
if not exactly cured. Sure, he lets Pugsley get stuck on the monorail because he was thinking
about a boy. But, we also see him immediately run back to make sure that Pugsley is safe,
despite his fear, when he realizes his mistake.
It’s a pattern we see with him over and over. Even though the road to progress is slow,
we see him learning, all while being his truest self in the face of adversity and danger.
Following him is Barbora
Not to be confused with the more traditional name, Barbara.
Pauline’s former stunt double is working incognito in the park the entire time, trying
to undermine Pauline’s legacy and find evidence of a terrible truth.
Though Norma almost has everyone convinced once or twice she’s the villain,
she ends up nearly sacrificing herself to save the
kids and bring justice to the missing Pauline lookalikes at Phoenix Parks.
Rounding out this tier is Courtney
Remember when we said that we’d be taking backgrounds into consideration? Well,
that goes double for Courtney, who is literally a demon.
There are plenty of things that would qualify Courtney for a lower position
on our list. For example, the willingness to gouge
out Pugsley’s eyes with a melon peeler for the chance to be returned home.
But, we feel strongly like that’s something that’s just in Courtney’s
nature – a nature which she must often fight for the benefit of her friends.
She is at the bottom for her betrayal of them during Pauline’s comeback show. But she still
makes the Good Tier for her return, and her help in getting things back to normal at the park.
Now we move into The Grey. These are characters with less screen time who
we hope to see prove themselves a little more in the second season.
Kicking things off here is Vince
We actually see Vince as a little Norma. Though he buys into the flashy conspiracy
theory about Barbora (which turns out to be true) the two share a
similar obsessive nature when it comes to all things Pauline.
The fact that he’s willing to bring his magazine to the park to help Norma in her investigation
gives us a good feeling about this kid, and the mystery may not have been solved without his help.
Then there is Badyah (aka Death Slide)
What we love best about Badyah is how determined she is to make friends with Norma. Though this
connection doesn’t happen at once, she sees how much the girl is struggling to make friends,
and does her best to be supportive and friendly every opportunity after that.
She takes on a lot of responsibility in the
park and seldom balks at any paranormal nonsense going on.
If we have one complaint about her (aside from lack of screen time) it’s
just that she is slow to understand when the staff is in danger. And spoiler alert,
that’s going to be a recurring theme throughout this tier.
Following her is Logs
Logs is Barney’s love interest, and safety officer at Phoenix Parks. One complaint we have about him
is that he’s too focused on his literal duties as a safety officer, and perhaps not concerned
enough with all the paranormal incidents that are actually endangering the patrons.
Still, he is willing to risk that job once he knows the full story and true
dangers going on behind the scenes. He’s also a very understanding person when it
comes to Barney’s nerves regarding their perpetually pending date.
In the center of our list is Patrick
We might actually lose some points here because we’re about to complain about a child crying.
We don’t care that Patrick, Barney’s brother,
is a caring young man who wants to see his brother come home. That’s alright.
What we care about is that he constantly finds himself hiding from dangerous situations,
paranormal or emotional, instead of getting more involved or trying to
understand. A lot of this can be understood, since he is a child.
When put up against a child his age like Vince, however, who is more involved,
it’s more difficult to be impressed by Patrick’s involvement, or lack thereof.
Just behind Patrick are his and Barney’s Parents
It can be difficult for anyone to accept change. To their credit, Barney’s parents
think that they’re doing their best by telling him they’re supportive when he comes out as trans.
Unfortunately, they don’t show the same support.
This is evident when they don’t stand up to Barney’s grandmother when she
says disparaging things to him at their family dinner, leaving him with deep emotional scars.
What saves them from being in the bad tier is the fact that by the end of the
show they do actually own up and apologize for their mistakes. If they continue to
make good on their word of making Grammy Gram understand her grandson, and keep having Barney
over for their new Saturday night dinners, we could see these two rising a whole tier.
Rounding out this middle section are Jennifer Swan and The Other Pauline Impersonators
Obviously, we can’t blame the victims of Pauline’s crimes for being used. But the
truth is that none of the Pauline impersonators, either the ones who enable her actions at the
park or the ones she goes so far as to inhabit, are fleshed out much as individual characters.
The lengths that they are willing to go to for that woman literally keep her alive,
in the worst and most harmful way possible.
Finally, we have reached the Bad to Evil. These are characters whose actions can never
be forgiven, or who have not taken the necessary actions to redeem themselves.
Beginning the Tier is Temeluchus
While he may not have redeemed himself completely, he made a big step. He probably would have ended
up in our Grey section had he not been the primary antagonist for such a large chunk of this show.
He is literal royalty of the demon world, and has a long history of human sacrifices.
These themes of possession and dark magic are established in the pilot when Norma,
Barney, and Pugsley face Temeluchus and successfully trap his soul in a photo.
Fortunately, a piece of him remains in Pugsley, allowing the dog to talk.
Not only did that allow Pugsley to come out on the top of our list,
it also saved Temeluchus from the bottom. One of the big reveals of the show’s finale is that the
big baddie has learned to experience love for humans through inhabiting the dog for so long.
The idea that he returns to the underworld to rule with his family makes us think he
hasn’t changed too much. But the fact that he helped his human friends first is a great sign.
Following him is Harm Many
While he may have only been a one episode, lesser antagonist,
Harm Many was actually really good at his job of, well, harming many.
Posing as a team builder, he tries to trap the staff of Phoenix Park in
their own personal little hells so that they can feed their fear to his skull.
Luckily, Norma is able to catch onto his plan before she can be trapped,
and with the help of her friends, she was able to put an end to it all quickly. If he’d been harder
to defeat though, we could see him being higher on this list. That’s a pretty messed up plan.
Taking the Bronze Medal of Evil is Grammy Gram
While we never actually meet this character, outside of a nightmare Barney has of her,
she is set up as the antithesis of all that the show preaches.
The impression of hurt and fear that she has left in her grandson speaks volumes.
In a series that is all about acceptance, she is the one who is causing some of
the most damage. And this, all while being human. (As far as we know, anyway.)
It just goes to show that sometimes the deepest wounds aren’t the paranormal,
or even the intentional kind. Being close-minded and failing the people
who should matter to you is one of the worst things that can be done.
Taking the Silver Medal of Evil is Zagan
Zagan is Temeluchus’ sister and she doesn’t want to let
him have any power that could overshadow hers.
She comes up under the guise of a celebration to take a look at his new realm. When learning
that he is weakened by the control Pugsley has maintained, she immediately tries to take over.
She turns mortals to stone, she tries to execute Pugsley – she even tries to eat Patrick.
With an army of the dead and no morals in sight, we wouldn’t want to cross her.
But there’s still one character that outdoes her.
The Gold Medal of Evil goes to Pauline
What scares us most about Pauline is that she is – or was – human. Unlike
the various evil entities on our list, Pauline knows what it is to be mortal
and should have some understanding that the things she does to live eternally are wrong.
Rather than letting herself age or even step out of the spotlight, she begins using,
puppeting, and exploiting her fans at every turn. She has a constant supply of Pauline
impersonators through the park that she can inhabit when she needs a new body.
If she spent half as much time trying to look after her park as she spent worrying
about her image, then the danger levels would instantly plummet.
It’s truly appalling some of the things she’s willing to do to maintain her power,
youth, and the love of her gullible fanbase.
OUTRO
And that’s been it, darlin’s! Our ranking of Dead End:
Paranormal Park Characters ranked from Good to Evil. Let us know in the comments
if you agree. as well as whether or not you’d like to see a season two.
While you’re down there don’t forget to like and subscribe.
And as always, Stay Wicked.