Tak: The Hideous New Girl

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Tak arrives at Zim's base to confront him

Tak: The Hideous New Girl is an episode of the show Invader Zim. It guest stars Olivia D'Abo as Tak.

Plot

Opening with a pair of robotic squirrels dancing on the window-ledge of the classroom, we see Miss Bitters is yelling down her phone, angry at the idea of having to let the children celebrate Valentines Day. Everyone cheers and hand out slabs of meat, though Dib and Zim, of course. Dib questions why they hand out meat as opposed to candy, which is met with a 'you don't want to know' from Miss Bitters. Then a new girl comes in, named Tak, arriving dramatically from a ship shaped like a weener, which she explains by her father being president of the 'delicious weenie corporation', before handing out weenies for everyone.

Tak proceeds to read a bizarre poem about Zim which is, in the vaguest sense, complimentary. Zim takes this to mean that by "filthy" human standards, she is in love with him...especially when she throws meat at him, which burns his skin, of course. Zim then becomes a boyfriend, of sorts, in order to study human romance closer, believing it is pain-based.

Tak however, reveals to Zim that she is Irken, and has a SIR unit, Mimi, who is desguised as a cat. She explains that, on the contrary, she hates him with a passion. As it turns out, Zim ruined her chance to be an Invader, and she has had to wait fifty years to plot her revenge (although Zim still doesn't quite get it).She proceeds to cripple Zim's base with electronic bugs to render him defenceless as she conquers the Earth.

After the break, Zim is shown fighting an evil ham-demon to get information on Tak's hideout. He discovers it is in a 'delicious weenie' stand, which strangely towers over all the other buildings in the city.

Soon, her evil plan to ruin Zim's life and destroy the Earth (emptying out the core and filling it with snacks) as a tribute to the Tallest is to at last be acted upon, so Dib and (reluctantly) Gaz are forced to team up with Zim to ruin her plot.

The magma pump is activated and begins to hollow out the Earths core. Zim (in his Voot Cruiser) and Tak (in her modified Spittle Runner) duel around the magma pouring into space, while Dib tries to find out how to reverse the pump and Gaz and Gir override Mimi's programming to make it attack Tak. Eventually Tak is defeated and retreats in an escape pod. Dib reverses the pump, and man-kind seems oblivious to what has just happened. At the end, Tak's damaged ship crash lands in Dib's yard, which he uses throughout season 2.

Trivia

• Olivia D'Abo has previously worked in shows featuring aliens, as she has guested on Third Rock From the Sun as Andrea and as Amanda Rogers.

• This episode was meant to be the finale of the first 20-episode season, but due to Nickelodeon's airing schedule, four season one episodes premiered after it.

• Tak was to return in the (cancelled) episode 'Top of the line'

• First time we see an Irken control brain.

Quotes

Zim: Prepare yourself filthy beast of meat and hair, your magical love adventure begins NOW!

Gaz: This is your base?

Zim: Don't touch anything, or I'll melt your face off, or something.