The Curse of Monkey Island
Fair Warning: this article contains plot spoilers for Monkey Island 2: LeChuck’s Revenge and The Curse of Monkey Island. No puzzle spoilers, however…
The ending of 1991’s Monkey Island 2: LeChuck’s Revenge is as shocking in its way as that of the infamous last episode of the classic television series St. Elsewhere. Just as the lovable wannabe pirate Guybrush Threepwood is about to finally dispatch his arch-nemesis, the zombie pirate LeChuck, the latter tears off his mask to reveal that he is in reality Guybrush’s older brother, looking rather irritated but hardly evil or undead. Guybrush, it seems, is just an ordinary suburban kid who has wandered away from his family to play make-believe inside a storage room at Big Whoop Amusement Park, LeChuck the family member who has been dispatched to find him. An irate janitor appears on the scene: “Hey, kids! You’re not supposed to be in here!” And so the brothers make their way out to rejoin their worried parents, and another set of Middle American lives goes on.
The ending served partially as Ron Gilbert’s homage to one of his games’ inspirations, the Pirates of the Caribbean ride at Disneyland. In more practical terms, however, it steered the burgeoning Monkey Island franchise straight into a cul de sac with no obvious escape. Gilbert soon left LucasArts to found Humongous Entertainment, where he would use the SCUMM graphic-adventure engine he had helped to invent to make educational games for youngsters, even as LucasArts would continue to evolve the same technology to make more adventure games of their own. It’s hard not to imagine Gilbert cackling over his shoulder like LeChuck himself as he walks out the door, confident that he has sequel-proofed Monkey Island for all time: “Let’s see you write your way out of that ending!”
