Dethvanity

"Dethvanity" is the eighth episode of the fourth season of Metalocalypse, fifty-seventh overall. It aired on June 17, 2012 on Adult Swim.

Synopsis
Murderface wins an award for being ugly, which makes him seek plastic surgery to improve his looks. However, he lost a lot of money in a lawsuit with a baby, so he resorts to using shady doctors outside of the country to save money. Meanwhile, the rest of the band, now unsure if they will be prettier than Murderface, get insecure about their image as well.

Plot
At Mordhaus Charles tries to start a meeting but before he can finish his first sentence Nathan loudly interrupts him complaining that the room smells like lemons and asks if the table was recently cleaning with lemon-scented cleaner. Toki tells him that he's the source of the smell, revealing a plate full of sliced lemons that he's eating. Pickles seems shocked to learn that Toki is still eating lemons all the time and Toki says that he's challenging himself to endure the flavour comparing it to putting your hand over an open flame. Skwisgaar tells Pickles that he found one of his dreadlocks in the hallway and offers to give it back, but accidentally drops it in his coffee. Nathan remarks that Skwisgaar has been drinking a lot of coffee lately and Charles tries to get the meeting back on track. He says that Murderface deserves some congratulations for winning this year's Brutalies Award. Murderface gloats about winning and being superior before asking what the Brutalies are, though Charles doesn't know either and says William will get the Lifetime Achievement Award for being the most brutal-looking musician ever. Nathan comments that it doesn't sound so much as an award as a public insult. Skwisgaar and Nathan start commenting that it's like awarding someone for being the ugliest person in the world or for being bad at being handsome or being good at being ugly, all the while Murderface looks increasingly uncomfortable. Then the whole band congratulates William, seemingly sincerely and he pretends to be okay with it even though he looks visibly distressed. He excuses himself to go to the hallway to be sad in private. The words of his bandmates and Charles telling him he's ugly reverberate in his mind until he resolves to transform himself to become the "most handsome motherf*cker they ever laid eyes on!".

Handsomeface
At the Neurosis Cosmetic Surgery Center Murderface meets with a plastic surgeon for prospective changes and says that he's okay with himself but wants a little improvement. The doctor hands him a marker so he can point out the areas that he thinks need improvement. After a while William asks for another marker and the doctor realizes that he has almost covered his entire front with lines and comments. Murderface then admits that he hates himself as he is. The doctor reassures him that it's within the skills of his clinic to take Murderface, "a beast damned by the Gods, a grotesque abomination doomed to spend his life as a wandering monstrosity ", and transform him into a breath-taking Adonis and that all it takes is money. He then hands William an estimate for the procedure, which makes him groan in dismay. At the Tribunal, they discuss Murderface's potential plastic surgery. They invite an expert to talk about the cultural obsession with cosmetic surgery; Dr. Alsajahb Fifborgiltk. Dr. Fifborgiltk says that attempting to improve one's looks through cosmetic surgery can lead to horrifying results but that the real catastrophe would be if William actually succeeds with his cosmetic procedure to become "Handsomeface". The Tribunal's in-house specialist has made four possible faces that William could get at his surgery. Dr. Fifborgiltk says that Murderface currently rates a zero on the Yardstick of Attractiveness to which all of the other band members compare themselves to. If Muderface becomes handsome and no longer rates absolute zero, it could set off a chain reaction of gruesome surgery on each band member because none of them want to be the new low. Dethklok members would end up losing their sense of self and the respect of all mankind. Vater Orlaag asks "is the hand of the cosmetic surgeon also the hand of God? Perhaps." Salacia, as usual, orders the Tribunal to stay put and observe where this goes.

Back at Mordhaus; Pickles, Toki, and Swisgaar are chilling in the hot tub and are waiting for Nathan to join them. Nathan is getting a "snack" that consists of three fried eggs, a hot dog, a hamburger, sausages, a cinnamon bun and buttered toast from a table that is full of equally-filling food. He then jumps into the hot tub which tilts and spills, causing him to ask what's wrong with it. Later a Klokateer informs them that the hot tub was not built to withstand that much weight, while Nathan mumbles that they should complain to the manufacturer and that the drain was clogged with coffee grinds, lemon rinds and a cluster of dreadlocks. Pickles also starts to complain about the manufacturing but then takes his dreadlocks back from the Klokateer and puts them back on.

Meanwhile, in his room/office Murderface is arguing with Charles on how much money he can spend on plastic surgery. Charles reminds him he just lost a lot of money in an expensive lawsuit. Apparently, Murderface got drunk and went shopping for scented candles and then tripped on an escalator and his over-calcified face injured a baby. Murderface remembers this and remarks that the baby had a great lawyer, to which Charles agrees. The conclusion is that William cannot use the money he earns as the Dethklok bassist. Desperate, he goes to Nathan's room, where the singer is sitting on an overly complicated reclining chair and making one of the Klokateers adjust it for him so he can eat pizza with minimal movement. Murderface tells the Klokateer to fuck off and tries to butter up Nathan to ask him for money. He tries to play on Nathan's sympathy by telling him the story of a baby so ugly it drove his parents to murder-suicide and the story of a man with low self-esteem and Nathan correctly guesses Murderface is talking about himself. In the end Nathan yells that he will just give Murderface money to go away. Murderface is very grateful and lets Nathan in on the fact that he'll do the surgery in Tijuana to save money but Nathan doesn't care and just wants to be left alone.

Image crisis
Murderface goes to Dr. Sepultura's unlicensed clinic in Tijuana, right between the Morbid Angels strip club and Angra's Burritos. Dr. Sepultura (presumably) is about to start surgery in a rather dirty room and right as his assistant says that the patient has been anesthetized the very much awake Murderface asks if the dog in the room belongs to either of them. They say no and then the doctor chides his assistant that the patient is clearly not anesthetized and the assistant says he simply forgot. The assistant wonders it the tools have been sterilized that the doctor says he's pretty sure it happened at some point. Taking a "close enough" attitude, they put Muderface under.

Three months later a limo pulls up at some red carpet gala event and Murderface gets out, looking a lot more handsome and thinner. All the attractive women flock to him, leaving the rest of Dethklok behind looking shocked and betrayed. "Handsomeface" throws his martini away, splashing his bandmates, flexes his biceps for the women, who really love it and have sex with him. This all turns out to be a dream as the doctor wakes up Muderface and says he doesn't know if the procedure went well but he must wear a protective recovery helmet.

Back at Mordhaus, the remaining members of Dethklok are sitting around the kitchen table and get excited to watch Celebrity Snapdown. Much to their shock and dismay, Dethklok is named number one in the category of aging rockers. The announcer lists how they have gotten fat, bald, their teeth are coffee-stained and their lips are thin from sucking lemons and says they are rock'n'roll gargoyles who are not aging gracefully. The band members each put down his food, coffee, and lemons looking utterly dejected. Skwisgaar comments that at least they don't look as bad as Murderface, and Pickles wonders where he is. Nathan tells them he's down in Tijuana getting some cosmetic procedures done to be handsome and confident and then remembers it was a secret he was not supposed to tell. Skwisgaar points out that if William becomes handsome and confident, the rest of them are left in the dust and Nathan gets worried and says they should do something about it. At the Brutalies Awards show they announce that Dethklok is slated to play and the "uglier than a burning garbage can filled with shit" Murderface will accept his award. Backstage, Dethklok is discussing their "improved" looks. They all went to get spray-tanned, Nathan got a corset to rein in his bulging stomach, Skwisgaar got his teeth whitened, Toki seems to have gone for a major lip augmentation procedure and Pickles got hair insertions. They seem to be pleased with themselves and Nathan says there's no way they'll be the ugliest members of the band, right then Murderface walks in and tells him he's wrong. He says he's handsome underneath his mask and that he'll show everyone what handsome really means. At the Brutalies show William gets announced as the one voted most brutal-looking and he takes the stage and announces that he's no longer ugly, shocking the audience and declaring that he's better than them and they can suck his cock. He then removes the recovery helmet and causes an uproar of people being disgusted. He doesn't understand so he turns around to see his reflection on the podium decoration: his face is badly infected. He begins screaming and smashing things and Dethklok doesn't know how to react. When Murderface starts walking towards them, they panic and throw coffee/lemon juice at his eyes, causing him to stagger backwards and into the audience, who runs away from this hideous monster. He doesn't stop screaming throughout.

Trivia

 * Toki saying that "if I was that ugly, I'd kill myself" and both Pickles and Charles saying that Murderface is ugly is not something they are shown to say on-screen but Murderface treats it as reality. It's unclear whether they actually said this or he imagined it.
 * Murderface first mentioned hating himself in Performance Klok, when Dr. Twinkletits asks him "don't you want to get in touch with your inner dude?" and Murderface replies "no thanks, I hate that guy."
 * Skwisgaar loving coffee is a possible callback to the first episode, where he's frustrated because he wants coffee but he doesn't know how to make it with a toaster and Jean-Pierre was incapacitated at the time. He's probably still drinking Duncan Hills Coffee.
 * It should be noted that getting surgery done from an unlicensed doctor is a bad idea regardless of the country it's taking place in.
 * It's possible that William's looks were actually improved by the surgery, but the infection made it scar wrong.
 * Interestingly enough, the Tribunal's prediction came true: the idea of William becoming more handsome made the rest of the band lose confidence in their own looks right away and go to extremes to look good again.