ALL IN THE UNRAVELED FAMILY

LIGHTIN’ IT UP AT THE HOTEL CALIFORNIA

A TV sitcom that hasn’t ended just yet—but we all knew how it would.

A Metaphysical Sitcom, Some Blue-Collar Theology, Culture-to-Civilization Transition Report, and HVAC Theology

Written by the C-of-C-C Script Department for the Pearls Before Swine Network.

CAST OF CHARACTERS

Uncle Julius Evola

The dignified intellectual foil.

Philosophical traditionalist in exile, living rent-free in the attic of modernity. Brings metaphysical fire to kitchen-table squabbles. Wears house robes like togas. Always halfway between a footnote and a curse.

Archie Bunker

The blue-collar reactionary everyman.

Agonized by change, allergic to abstraction, but somehow always ends up quoting the Constitution with his blood pressure cuff on.

Thinks America was perfect right up until HR got involved.

Gloria Stivic

The returned trad-housewife mystic.

Draped in handwoven prophecy and linen sourced from somewhere biblical.

Meathead (Michael Stivic)

The earnest dialectician.

Still trying to out-argue metaphysics with Marx and syllogisms. Constantly baffled by the spiritual weirdness around him. Keeps a “materialist prayer journal” as an ironic art project.

Edith (Now a Gentle Ghost)

The kitchen oracle.

Whispers unsolicited wisdom through oven dings and haunted Tupperware. Beloved. Half-remembered. Believes every storm is just God stirring something.

George Jefferson

The high-energy realist and avatar of divine excess. Go-Getter. Government subsidized entrepreneur.

Raps to Blake like scripture. Moves like a lion on payday. Argues that lust, rage, and pride are not sins—they’re survival tactics.

Sam Loudermilk

Court-mandated guest facilitator / delivery guy from the Cosmic Clerk’s Office.

Shows up with envelopes, exit lines, and uncomfortable truths. Observes like a man who’s seen the memo and lived to resent it.

John St. Evola

Fire and Ice Specialist/ metaphysical ethicist.

Sweats only when the culture’s in heat. Fixes climate control and spiritual drift. Certified in Freon, Dante, and low-voltage truth. Wears a yellow neck gaiter like a golden badge of divine utility.

Oswald Spengler

Teutonic neighbor and prophet of decline.

Moves in at the worst possible time. Says “Ach…” a lot. Delivers historical diagnoses with a monocle and a smirk. Thinks everything is going exactly as his footnotes predicted.

Airdate: Eternal Present, June 2025 (rebroadcast nightly in America’s subconscious)

Cold Open:

(Archie’s armchair. TV blares and flares. Gloria walks in with a bundle of hand-woven linens.)

GLORIA:

It’s from The Integral Homemaker series—linen made with hand-dyed goat hair. It’s both biblical and biodegradable.

ARCHIE (grumbling):

Goat hair?? In my day, we didn’t weave righteousness into the curtains. We just pulled ’em shut and minded our business!

UNCLE JULIUS (from his study):

Your day, dear Archie, was a triumph of conformity in denim.

(Laughter track.)

*ACT I*

INT. LIVING ROOM – DAY

The whole gang is gathered. George Jefferson storms in, waving a worn paperback.

GEORGE:

Alright, now y’all sit down, shut up, and feel this truth. My man Blake laid it out real clean:

“The pride of the peacock is the glory of God.

The lust of the goat is the bounty of God.

The wrath of the lion is the wisdom of God.

The nakedness of woman is the work of God.

Excess of sorrow laughs. Excess of joy weeps.

The roaring of lions, the howling of wolves, the raging of the stormy sea, and the destructive sword, are portions of eternity too great for the eye of man.”

That ain’t sin, that’s soul, brother. That’s divine energy, raw and unfiltered—like what my people had to harness just to breathe in this country. But I’ll grantcha when the man owned us he treated us like property. He wasn’t gonna abuse his own stuff. He took care of us, not like factory workers who be replaced on a dime.

UNCLE JULIUS (steepling fingers):

What you call energy, George, I recognize as chaos. Formless. Violent. The very undoing of Tradition. That excess destroys the golden mean.

Let me remind you of my words, which your nation now enshrines as gospel:

“America … has created a ‘civilization’ that represents an exact contradiction of the ancient European tradition. It has introduced the religion of praxis and productivity; it has put the quest for profit, great industrial production, and mechanical, visible, and quantitative achievements over any other interest. It has generated a soulless greatness of a purely technological and collective nature, lacking any background of transcendence, inner light, and true spirituality. America has [built a society where] man becomes a mere instrument of production and material productivity within a conformist social conglomerate.”

It is a nation of Human Resource Departments wearing the mask of liberty. No one knows their place anymore.

GEORGE:

Yeah, well maybe you and your “inner light” ain’t ever been chased off a lunch counter, Julius. Blake’s talkin’ real. He know that rage, that lust, that storm ain’t just divine—they’re survival tactics. That’s the glory God gave the folks at the bottom of the ladder.

You call it uncultured—I call it necessary.

MEATHEAD:

George’s got a point. Blake’s not moralizing—he’s mythologizing. That quote isn’t a blueprint; it’s a thunderstorm.

EDITH (ghostly voice from the kitchen):

I always say you gotta stir love and sorrow both into the stew…

(Laughter + faint bubbling.)

ARCHIE (grabbing his temples):

Oh great. First it was the peacock parade, then the goat got a medal, now the stormy sea gets tenure! And the damn HR lady at work still makes me sign a “diversity affirmation” before I microwave my lunch!

UNCLE JULIUS:

That, my dear Archie, is the culmination of your civilization.

GEORGE:

Julius, you just mad that the spreadsheet don’t know how to strut like a peacock.

(Laughter.)

*ACT II*

INT. FRONT DOOR – A KNOCK.

Enter OSWALD SPENGLER, trenchcoat, monocle, and faint aura of Teutonic doom.

SPENGLER (smirking):

Ach… children, children.

You are not at odds. You are reenacting the sacred mechanics of decline.

This isn’t theology. It’s my timeline.

The Blake quote? Culture unleashed.

The Evola quote? Civilization fulfilled—and finished.

Blake names the storm. Julius names the spreadsheet.

And Archie? He’s what happens when the two switch shifts on the factory floor.

ARCHIE (half-muttering):

I miss the good ol’ days… back when eternal truths had a union card.

GEORGE (laughs):

Arch, your eternal truth just got outsourced.

(Laughter.)

*ACT III*

(The room’s getting hot. The TV is now on, broadcasting live riots in Los Angeles—Molotov cocktails, sirens, chaos. A news ticker reads: NATIONAL GUARD DEPLOYED IN RESPONSE TO IMMIGRATION ENFORCEMENT PROTESTS.)

ARCHIE:

Turn it off. Turn it off! I can feel my blood pressure throwin’ bricks.

GLORIA:

No, Daddy. This is what happens when reality throws off the training wheels.

EDITH (soft, from nowhere):

You can’t unbake the cobbler once it’s in the oven…

(A long pause. Then, from the doorway…)

SAM LOUDERMILK enters. He’s been standing there the entire time, holding a clipboard and sweating.

SAM:

Hey. I’ve got a certified envelope from the cosmos.

Also, can I just say?

Y’all are addicted. To explanations.

Like cosmic co-dependents.

Sometimes the goat’s just horny and the storm’s just mad.

(He drops the envelope and walks out.)

TV ANCHOR (offscreen):

…flares continue across Westlake as fires burn through the early morning hours…

(A grinding sound. The thermostat clicks. The vent rattles.)

Enter JOHN ST. EVOLA, wearing mechanics coveralls and a yellow neck gaiter. He sets his toolbox down like a priest preparing an altar.)

JOHN ST. EVOLA:

Figures. It’s finally gettin’ hot—because everybody’s been gaslit for so long thinkin’ this country could be invaded and not be changed.

And now?

Now we’re gettin’ gaslit for real.

That’s the smell of burning tires and bottled resentment.

Molotov cocktails don’t care about your spreadsheet.

(Silence. Everyone looks toward the screen.)

CLOSING LINE (from UNCLE JULIUS quietly, watching the firelight flicker):

“They call it oppression, but they don’t want to leave it. They’re not marching back to Mexico. They want to live under so-called white supremacy—because deep down, they know it works. They want the order, the safety, the systems—just without the people who made them.

And now, at long last… we’ve found the white supremacist supporters everyone’s been warning us about.

Turns out, they weren’t wearing hoods.

They were waving smartphones… and filing asylum claims.

When form collapses, only spirit or sensation remains. Choose wisely.