Oh wow. Sorry to make your darkest soul just a smidge brighter but you are my hero. lol
Huh. The tut made it seem so much more complex than that.
but I figured out the problem with the wonky bending, I didn't have the knee joint far enough forward so the IK was crossing over it before it even moved. So now what should I parent the pole vector to so it moves with the model? Does it matter?