The Secret Garden 2: Attack of the Wasps
We open on a young girl. Maybe the girl from the first film. I can’t even remember if there was a girl in the first film. There might have been. By the way, all the other characters from the first film are dead. They drowned in a pool which they dug in the secret garden. You can’t go digging pools in the secret garden. Anyway, back to the girl.
She’s returning to the secret garden. I had considered ‘Return to the Secret Garden’ as a title but the wasps seemed too important not to mention. It’s an emotional return because she hasn’t been there in a while and it probably means a lot to her. It’s a beautiful garden after all. It hasn’t won awards or anything, but that’s more down to the fact that it’s secret rather than the quality of the garden. It’s got colourful flowers, a pond, a filled-in pool, some ducks and even a flock of sheep. When she gets into the garden something horrible happens; she’s attacked by a flock of wasps. There never used to be wasps in the garden. What’s going on? She rolls around the grass getting stung, crying her eyes out, all while a sinister-looking gardener character watches from a nearby hedge/shrub.
We then cut to a lab where some scientists are trying to figure out why there are so many wasps in the garden. As they debate the issue, it becomes clear that they’re under the impression a wasp can only sting you once and then they die, when of course, that’s bees. Wasps can sting you loads of times. Which, coupled with their frankly twatty disposition, is what makes them so annoying.
Amid all the frantic science-like lab work, only one person in the entire place seems to be aware of the truth: The Intern.* He tries to make his voice heard but the scientists are quick to shoot him down. “Why would we believe you, you’re just an intern!”, they say. “You don’t even have a lab coat!”, they say, even though it was their choice not to give him one. So, as you can see, the film isn’t only about wasps. It’s also about a young girl getting stung and an intern’s struggle to have his voice heard and secure a lab coat. There are several themes. Not too many though. Just enough to keep you engaged.
* You’ll notice that I’ve capitalised ‘The Intern’. This is intentional. I feel that interns** seldom get the recognition they deserve. I’ve been an intern several times over and nobody ever respected me. I’m hoping this story can change that.
** I’m not going to capitalise the plural. Not all Interns*** deserve recognition.
*** I forget my stance on this now.
Now, some of you are probably thinking: “How do the scientists know about the secret garden when it’s secret?” It’s simple; when we first see the lab, it’s marked ‘Top Secret’. So the lab is a secret too. Because of this, we just have to trust that they do somehow know about the garden. If they’re smart enough to work in a top secret lab then they’re smart enough to discover a garden that featured in a major motion picture. And apparently a book as well. I hate when they make books out of films.
All the exposition is now out of the way. We can finally get to the ending. The girl tries to enter the garden one last time. This is a big moment. If some wasps attack her, she’s had it. It’s very dramatic. Possibly in slow motion. When she walks into the garden she hears nothing. No wasps. No buzzing. Nothing. She’s optimistic. She starts to dance around in celebration which is exactly when all the wasps attack her again. Loads of wasps. More than ever.
Before long she’s back on the ground, rolling around, covered in wasps. Suddenly the sinister-looking gardener (Although he doesn’t look sinister any more, he actually looks quite nice now. Perhaps he’s not a villain after all?) bursts forth from the hedge/shrub and starts yelling: “You’ve got to see the truth! You’ve got to see the truth behind the wasps!”. And she screams back: “I can’t! I can’t because they’re stinging me! It’s hard to see when they’re stinging me!”. And he yells back: “Try harder! You must try harder to see the truth! It’s right in front of you!”
She begins to try really hard to see the truth and sure enough, out of nowhere, she sees the truth. It was right in front of her the whole time. It’s not a swarm of wasps stinging her at all. It’s just one wasp stinging her multiple times. She’s fine. Well, she’s allergic to wasp stings so she’ll be ill for a while, but it’s certainly not as bad as it once looked. She’s given a three week recovery timeframe. She’s upset, but the doctor shows her some worse off patients (some who have actually been stung by loads of wasps) and she soon stops complaining.
Then The Intern gets promoted. And gets a lab coat.
Then the gardener gets a free meal in the garden.
Then the film ends with the following caption:
“interns are People to”
THE END
