I’ll say this for Apocalypse Hotel – it’s not selling out. In no way is this show afraid to keep being weird. In fact it’s amping up the weirdness week over week as we enter the home stretch. But while I bank it some credit for that, weird in and of itself is not enough. Or even good. Most of the more recent weirdness (everything since Harmageddon, pretty much) has been misguided. And usually not especially funny, though there have been moments.

This was progress, to a point. Hit and miss, but certainly better than the previous three episodes. Another span of time has passed – it’s not specified how much, but we are told it’s been 527 years since the Procione family arrived in Ginza. Ponko has an extremely annoying and bratty daughter named Tamako, about the age (by appearances) Ponko was on arrival. Fuguri has finally grown up (or aged up) and now lives as an anti-social potter in the wilds outside of town (for some reason). And the Gingarou seems to be doing pretty well, by appearances.

Into this arena steps an alien who signs his registration as Slurpity Slurp or some such, but appears to be modeled on the Rodians (Greedo) from Star Wars. He’s highly suspicious to say the least – shields his face when some other guests take photos, asking for all his meals to be delivered room service, and that if anyone asks Yachiyo deny that he’s staying at the hotel. He also almost gives Tamako the wrong candy as a tip, though we won’t find out till later that he carries candy that’s actually a bomb that can destroy the world (which Tamako eats – that seems like a Chekov’s bomb for sure).

To wit, Slurpee is a crook of some sort. But he dies in his room, which Yachiyo for some reason assumes Ponko is responsible for (I guess this is supposed to be a gag but it really doesn’t work). Then another alien of the same species – this one played by Tsuda Kenjirou – shows up and makes it pretty clear he’s hunting for Slurpee (as a detective – given his appearance a bounty hunter would have been more on-point). The funniest moment of the episode is Tsuda and Shiraso Saho rolling their Rs when referring to Slurp as a “serial bomber psycho terrorist” in English.

The rest of this is played purely for laughs and as I said, it’s kind of hit and miss. The whole hide the body thing is kind of weak, and the bit with Ponstin going into a murderous rage after Tamako makes him think Ponko is cheating with Slurp is even weaker. I did like the bit with the movie, and the idea of showing aliens Hollywood films to teach them about human culture is an interesting one. As for Fuguri, we never really get any explanation for why he turned out the way he did and what the hell he’s doing throwing pots and cake plates.

We also don’t get any explanation for why the detective alien dies too, and in the same seeming fashion as Slurp. Something in the Earth’s atmosphere, maybe, but it’s odd that it’s just left hanging out there (maybe to be resolved later?). Guests dying under mysterious circumstances can’t be good for business, Yachiyo is certainly right about that. She can cover it up (though not very well), but seems like this sort of problem might not be an isolated incident.