2 out of 5

Director: Peter Medak

Yeah… Another MOH entry that piddles in interesting middleground until some nonsense happens to make you slap your forehead. Washingtonians starts firmly in B territory, with (after an intro to get your attention) a family driving their car to grandmas house while listening to talk-radio, over-dubbed with the kind of talk-radio chatter you never really hear in real life. So grandma has recently passed away and the family is there to go through her belongings… when they stumble across an odd document that seems to suggest that George Washington was a freaking cannibal… Honestly, director Peter Medak strikes the right notes for most of this, playing up the comedic value by keeping his lead actors all as straight men, very rigid, very one-dimensional. It makes the silliness of a town of Washington-worshipping cannibalistic oldies fun to watch, and the interactions between the old folks and the family are entertaining. That the plot never really goes for scares or any deep development is fine – most of these episodes try to hard to do something and fail; better to remain humble. Its just that its all very easy, too easy to really get wrapped up in it. This is background viewing. And I was happy enough to give it three stars until a super unnecessary last-minute joke that just tanked the episode down into timely territory, and I hate that nonsense.