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B-TV CRITICAL REWATCH #1 ... 
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TWO GUYS, A GIRL, AND AN ANTIQUE SHOP:
​​FRIDAY THE 13TH-THE SERIES
Weekly posts start Friday the 13th of November, 2020 until until we've exhausted all 72 episodes of the series. 
​
SERIES OVERVIEW: Friday the 13th: The Series, produced by Frank Mancuso, Jr., but otherwise having nothing to do with the long-running cinematic slasher series, ran from 1987 to 1990 in syndication. Its premise: a large number of cursed objects were sold by antique store owner Lewis Vendredi (get it?) to various buyers, some unwitting, some rather willing. Each object provides power and agency for the holder that requires a horrible deed (usually murder) in turn for its gifts. The show's protagonists Micki and Ryan are the niece and nephew of Lewis Vendredi, the original owner of the antique store, Curious Goods. Their bleak inheritance is to recover all of the objects before they cause chaos and mayhem, unleashing hell on earth. The series was shot in Toronto and featured episodes directed by the likes of David Cronenberg and William Fruet, and written by the likes of Jennifer Lynch, Brian Helgeland (A Nightmare on Elm Street 4, L.A. Confidential), and Mark Scott Zicree (author of The Twilight Zone Companion​). The show stars Montreal actor/singer/model Louise Robey (billed as 'Robey'), John D. LeMay, and Chris Wiggins, with an additional cast member Steve Monarque playing "Johnny" joining the series later on.
Weekly posts feature two episodes. Most recent posts are at the top. Scroll down for earlier posts.

"Double Exposure" (1.21) & "The Pirate's Promise" (1.22)

22/1/2021

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Season 1, Episode 21: "Double Exposure" (Neil Fearnley, director; Durnford King, writer)

Some terrible reality where ratings trump ethics; we can’t imagine such horror.
​


​The Goods:
A struggling newscaster, Winston Knight, saves his job through his coverage of a series of local murders. When Ryan sees Knight commit one of the murders the same time he’s live on air, he, Jack, and Micki investigate with the help of Ryan’s new girlfriend Cathy and discover one of Uncle Lewis’s objects—a camera that creates a duplicate of whomever it photographs—is in play. 


The Cheese: The police, who blend total incompetence with gossip and a total lack of emotion. / Winston-Clone’s final scene, in the best possible way

The Sins: Pride with a side order of Vanity

The Verdict
Erin: OK, after the iffy Quilt episodes, I ended up enjoying Ft13th: TS’s take on ethics in media. There was quite a bit of handwringing at the time about trash TV and exploiting people for ratings (Caldwell mentions Peter Jenning’s semi-rant about it in Televisuality.) So far we’re hitting all the 80s biggies: greed is good, US values are shallow, and news is spectacle over substance.

Sin-wise: I’ll say pride/vanity. It’s interesting to note that the “pride” episodes (this is a way better take on it than “Doctor Jack”) how cold/dispassionate the villain is. Winston doesn’t seem to want love, money, or anything except higher ratings so he can keep his job.

Kristopher: Yes, I frame this observation below as a question in terms of the motive for killing, since serial killing by proxy seems to evacuate the pleasure from the act of killing, or the drive to kill. 

E: Of course, the episode goes out of its way to suggest that pretty much the entire newsroom is a bunch of amoral assholes, so...A feature of the better episodes of the series, IMO, is when the writer and director seem to have any sense of structure (not a given!). You’ve got Winston and his duplicate; with the end of the first scene ending on a photonegative flash, followed by Ryan and Cathy in a photo booth. It ends with Ryan staring at the photo and the echo of before, just as the duplicates are echoes of the real person…The visual of the “real” Winston slowly fading away was the kind of practical effect used so well in “Shadow Boxer” and underscored the theme nicely. 

K: You are good at finding the strengths of the script and direction here, while below I do some complaining about the swiss-cheese plotholes and easy-outs the episode falls victim to (like a cop giving Winston a the name of a witness to a serial killing!).

E: Also enjoyed its take on the Frankenstein trope, with the delightfully gross visuals of the clones being born. (Winston’s facial expressions while this was happening were SO over-the-top.) I thought for a moment Ryan might be tempted to resurrect Cathy in this fashion. (His chemistry with her was so much more believable—and Ryan so much more Ryan-y—than in the “Quilt” episodes. Catherine Disher—who played Natalie on Forever Knight—is a much better actress, so that helps.

K: Yes, I really liked her. She was really natural (I almost said super natural, but … well, I didn’t). 

E: We even get the requisite: “I’m alive!” bit, which shouldn’t have worked, but totally did (for me, anyway).

Premise alert: “It’s like always, Ryan; we’re on our own” (said every genre show ever about the police); “It isn’t the objects that are cursed; we are.”

K: Haha, yes. I liked the latter line (see below), but Jack’s “we’re on our own” schtick made me groan. I think the first time anyone has ever said in this series that they should call the police was Jack in the “Electrocutioner” episode.

E: Finally: Meta moment; the series’ producers' names are on the parking spaces outside the TV station.

K: No way! Good eye! I wonder if this was a gaffe?

E: Things that bugged me/inappropriate laugh: The disconnect between Ryan’s reaction to Cathy’s death and Officer Monotone. Officer Monotone’s scenes overall: First scene: not only does the black cop with him get zero dialogue, but Monotone calls the accused and gives him his name? Seriously?

K: Hahahaha. Yep. See my rants above, and below!

E: I expected Cathy’s fridging, but I was still disappointed it happened.

K: I’m always a sucker for anything that builds photographic technology into the story, but the chemical process creating a slimy creature to do the camera-owner’s bidding was … unexpected. Question, though: what does a killer get out of killing if he’s not doing it? The double goes out and does the work of violence, but the actual guy with the killer impulse is doing the news. He becomes a celebrity out of this with his performance of the killer calling him while he’s on the air, and in the way it centers him as a “working reporter” of integrity (and boosts his news show’s ratings). But what is the motive or thrill for the actual murdering? 

Semi-anthology ruptures in the fact that they follow Ryan’s lost love back at the cult compound with him carefree and light-hearted on a date (in a photo booth, no less) at the beginning of this episode. I guess she’ll die. The Wax book says of this: “Well, that was fast” (132).

E: And again, as you say so well above, that is one of the issues with this format. First, we really don’t get a bead on Winston’s motivations here; obviously it’s “in him” to kill, or else why would his clone do it? Unless it’s because his maker has instructed him to do so, which may be the case, since he was ordered to kill Micki and Ryan but went after the Jack clone instead. (And that itself suggests his growing independence from original-recipe Winston as the time gets closer to Winston himself disappearing, but the episode is, as you say, kind of a mess. Second, “I’ll write you every day” becomes “Laura who?” in the space of a single episode. I suppose, if I stretched my interpretive powers, I could look at it as characterizing Ryan as fickle, but I think that would be giving the show too much credit.

K: There is an erotic bookstore or video store in the background of the episode’s first murder scene. The sign reads, “From the Erotic to the Exotic.”

E: I missed that! Brilliant.

K: The detective gives newscaster Ryan’s name. Oof. And why doesn’t Kathy, the girlfriend, go find Ryan or the police? She goes home while her purse is with the killer. From the way the information gets conveniently bandied about, to Jack’s conclusion that “We’re on our own” (when they have Kathy’s voice message as evidence of the two reporters), the whole thing has more holes than swiss cheese.

Vying for best (and possibly most horrifying) image of the series so far: the TV reaching out and grabbing Ryan by the neck in an explosion of light (in his dream, of course). 

E: Loved that! It had a Nightmare on Elm Street quality I appreciated. Also, I think it was intentionally thematic; the TV/reporter is the source of the evil...

K: Ryan’s claim that “It isn’t the objects that are cursed, we are. Everyone that comes near us dies,” is pretty on point. The episode ends on an appropriately bleak note here, with the realization that this work means alienation and isolation of the three Curious Goods team members from the rest of the world.

E: Yes. It’s a well SPN returns to many a time; it also reminded me of the dialogue at the end of Buffy’s “I Robot, You Jane” (I think), where Xander, Willow, and Buffy discuss their dating woes, laughing at how they’re doomed until it sinks in and they stop laughing…

K: Totally. This is a good observation about an issue that these series treat well. It’s deep.

Season 1, Episode 22: "The Pirate’s Promise" (Bill Corcoran, director; Carl Binder, writer)

Clearly, they’ve never heard Humperdinck’s take: “Pirates are not known to be men of their word.”
​


The Goods: A lighthouse lamp summons the vengeful spirit of a betrayed pirate; in exchange for killing off the descendent of his mutinous crew, the murderer is rewarded with gold. Micki and Ryan hit the road to the world’s most depressing seaside town to investigate.

The Cheese: Robey’s acting gets another (anti-)nod. / Best bad line? “I did everything you said; I killed twelve people!” / Best use of freeze frame? The descending ax, and cut to commercial. / Bit players who telegraph their deaths.

The Sins: It’s a pirate episode, so it pretty much has to be greed. But what’s greed without a little wrath?

The Verdict
Kristopher (pre-watch): I always hoped that the “pirate’s promise” is that he’ll capture me, make me his love slave, and cuddle me while defending me against interlopers (aka, other gay pirate rapists). Is that so much to ask?

Erin: We all have dreams, my friend. Although now I’m thinking you should totally write a treatment; I would watch the hell out of that show!

K: Okay, anything with a lighthouse, and you’ve got my interest. I am obsessed with them. But even beyond the lighthouse, and the gorgeous seaside setting (another location score for this show, right on Lake Erie), this episode is pretty intriguing. All of the scenes where Angus McBride appears are beautifully lit and evocatively eerie. The voice actor for McBride’s voice, however … is a Scooby-don’t.

This episode has everything—the awesome F13:TS landscapes, cool sets (that horrific underground grotto/mausoleum for the victims, and a folkloric sea tale with a decaying mummer captain returned from a sea grave (the big reveal of the monster’s face does not disappoint). Shades of John Carpenter’s The Fog abound in this episode, including its color scheme.

The final death in the finale is awesome. And I like the info delivered in the coda that this is ultimately a tale of two brothers, one empathic and kind (Dewey), one corrupted (Fenton).

Not much on this from the Wax book, aside from the shoot occurring on Lake Erie, and thus requiring two days’ travel time cut from the week of shooting time. The interiors of the lighthouse were shot on a soundstage (138). The combination of sets and location in this episode blend well.

For me, this one is one of the very best. There is an American Gothic sense here of the pervasiveness of past trauma as it resonates and dominates the present. And here, as so often in the longer tradition of European/British Gothic, it turns on secret identities and how those identities are revealed by virtue of their links to a sordid past.

Best bad line for me goes to Joe Fenton, speaking to Angus McBride’s ghost: “I did everything you said; I killed twelve people!”

Robey’s acting is typically over the top. When she breaks into the lighthouse and gets caught, it’s an obvious conclusion when Joe Fenton says, “You’re lying.” Her crying in the epilogue about Dewey’s heroic death is a fairly weak attempt to infuse the episode with any more pathos than is already there in a story of one brother destroying another without ever knowing of the family connection.

For the episode’s second death, the woman who is discussing setting up an investment plan for Joe’s gold, delivers her lines as though she is is just “killing” time waiting for him to strangle her.

E: There’s an outtake from season three of Buffy, with Anthony Head wincing before Kristin Scott Thomas knocks him over the head; he stops, laughs at himself, says: “I telegraphed that.” Investment woman clearly not as self-aware.

K: One thing I’ll never quite get past in the suspension of disbelief department is how many deaths happen in the episodes that occur in rural areas—deaths that go more or less unquestioned by locals. Three deaths is already a serial killing; twelve is an extravaganza.

E: Pretty tightly plotted opening; touches on the slasher/horror bit with the “kind of spooky”; “part of the charm” exchange. Putting aside the obvious age difference, creepy as it is, I appreciated how, unlike some of the bad guys on the show, managed not to tip his hand to the victim until the moment he killed her. Also? The first victim’s outfit was peak 80s.

The fact that it wasn’t immediately obvious why Joe was doing this, but was set up subtly (for this show) throughout the first act: Barney being a descendent of the crew, finding gold (bounty) when he delivers a victim, etc. I thought at first (to be fair, maybe I’m slow), that any killing would do, so it was a nice surprise to find out the victims were the descendants.

The horror aspects: the ax-ing of Barney, the cave of corpses, was suitably gross for 80s horror. The traveling to retrieve an object—which this show does far too little of so far—gave me SPN vibes again. The sound effects were pretty good as well.

I love ocean scenes; big sweaters, cool, salty mornings, sailing. Making me nostalgic and maybe a little sad. (In a good way.)

Ryan being fairly intrepid; hanging off the edge so he wouldn’t be seen when Joe went to look. Also, that they didn’t do the “accidentally stepped on the fingers” bit.

The sin combo of greed (Joe, Barney) and wrath (McBride).

The first victim’s descendent was named “Abel”; the last minute reveal that Joe and Dewey were brothers, with the older brother killing the (nicer) younger one giving it a Cain and Abel thing they don’t belabor. 

K: Agreed. I liked this too, very much.

E: What did not work: It just needs to be said: Stop giving Robey material beyond her range, show. Seriously. The obvious glycerine tears at the end. Fire the continuity editor: When Barney goes to the lighthouse, it’s day. When they go (right) up to the top of the lighthouse, it’s pitch black outside. No Jack! Twelve people go missing in, let’s face it, not a large town, and the town drunk is the only one concerned?

Apparently, there is an actual Whaler’s Point; a gated community in Seaside, Oregon. (Considering how low-rent the town looks in this episode, I found it rather amusing.)

All in all, I didn’t hate it. Not necessarily a favorite, but it was clear some thought went into the episode, so I can’t say it failed. Indeed, the more I think about it, the better I like it. Also, I really want to go sailing now. *sigh*
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"The Electrocutioner" (1.18), "The Quilt of Hathor, Parts 1 and 2" (1.19, 1.20)

15/1/2021

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This week, we present you three episodes for your dead-of-winter, Covid lockdown pleasure. Plus, it would be just cruel to split a two-parter across two different posts. ADDED BONUS: All three episodes are streamable in full (for now, at least) below. Enjoy!

Season 1, Episode 18: “The Electrocutioner” (Rob Hedden, director and writer)
A dentist breaks bad, or why we should reconsider the death penalty.

FULL EPISODE BELOW!
The Goods: An innocent man survives his electrocution by electric chair; when that chair is cursed by Uncle Lewis, he procures it to avenge those who put him on death row.

The Cheese: The special effects get a special mention. / The unintentional hilarity of death by electrified doorknob.

The Sins: Wrath, as one would be a bit angry after a botched execution for a crime one didn’t commit.

The Verdict
Kristopher: I think Rob Hedden and Tom Mcloughlin are the only two writers who directed the episodes they wrote for the series, outside of William Taub who wrote and directed the Pilot. Hedden also wrote an episode of the 2002 reboot of The Twilight Zone and a few episodes of the 1980s reboot of Alfred Hitchcock Presents. He also directed the regrettable Friday the 13th, Part VIII: Jason Takes Manhattan, which must have been his way into this series in particular, despite also having written episodes of Alfred Hitchcock Presents and McGyver!

Erin: I wasn’t blown away by this episode, but there were elements to it that were interesting. Unlike most of the episodes so far, Eli’s motivation was to a great extent understandable; he was unjustly accused and had his life destroyed (as well as losing his girlfriend to murder, something the episode doesn’t really delve into).

K: Yes, this plot bit kind of landed with a thud.

E: There is one gaping plothole that bugs me: Whether the chair was cursed when Eli was electrocuted. I don’t think it was, because the dialogue suggests Lewis bought it after the botched execution, and Eli purchased it from him. But, if it wasn’t cursed, Eli would nonetheless be brain-dead, even if he was physically alive, after exposure to it, so.... 

K: It seems to me that it has to have been cursed prior to the electrocution, since Eli needs it to fuel himself. Another part of this plothole is … how the heck did he get his hands on the chair that failed to do him in?

E: The black and white portions were one of the stylistic choices I liked; it gave those scenes more of a documentary feel, and I thought that Eli’s recollections—the gathered group laughing at him—did a good job of suggesting the high level of trauma the experience caused. It also gave a pretty good argument against the death penalty through both the botched execution of the wrong man, as well as Eli’s vigilante actions, without being didactic; he murdered no one until after he was killed, suggesting the toll of that type of punishment has far-reaching effects. Having the only survivor (the warden) be the one person who tried to get a stay of execution seems to underscore this. There was also a nice transition between the b & w execution scene, and Ryan working on a lightning lamp, both seemingly controlled energy, but for different purposes.

K: I agree. I thought the episode looked great, and the direction is strong. Another interesting thing is that this ep. centers the secondary actors more than the Curious Goods trio. I liked this element, and it’s likely why the general tone of the episode is more serious.

E: YES! Which is an element it shares with the Cronenberg[link to ep here?] episode, which also decenter-ed the trio. Things that didn’t work: the unintentionally funny district attorney death scene; I have to hand it to the actor; he went for it, but took it beyond over the top and halfway to the moon. Also, the ending was so off from the tone of the rest of the episode—Micki’s hair standing on end—it put me off as well.

K: Totally! Although I laughed out loud at Micki’s hair. The funny thing is, her hair isn’t that much more poofed than usual.

Great opening shot! I wish the entire series looked like this opening! The shadows cast on the walls, the cutaways. It’s like an art film. The innocent man, the suits standing around him (one black guy, oddly), the failed first attempt at electrocution. The framing of the men from below, with the continual dolly passes across them. Rob Hedden had only directed documentaries to this point (Wax, 111-12), and this is a benefit to these backstory scenes.

Eli Pittman as creepy reform school dentist, gassing students and then saying later: “The kids give me just the stimulation I need.” “Let’s have a look at that lower cuspid.” Also, Pittman’s office has a lava lamp! The whole setup is skeezy.

E: Yes, intentional or not, it gives a serious pedophile vibe. Also, a black student is the first to die. Again. The focus on targeting orphans because they won’t be missed reminds me of Buffy’s “Anne” in particular, but perhaps because it’s such a trope.

The episode is well directed. The segues, first the electrocution cutting to Ryan’s lamp; then, the handshake between Jack and the warden cutting to Pitman’s latex-gloved hand. Cool and very stylish. I want to check out Rob Hedden’s other directed episodes and see if this guy has a style.

Dated line: Micki: “I made Xeroxes of everything.”

K: Nice commentary at the Haverstock Reform School with Micki and Jack, ie, runaways and orphans: “That’s not high on a politicians priority list.”

E: Yup! Hitting all sorts of anti-Reagan-ite highs here: the death penalty, the lack of care for the poor.

K: Did the guy Ryan’s talking to about the unidentified man in the photo just ask him out on a date? Come over and look at my files … after dinner, of course.

E: It’s the “come over and look at my etchings bit again!

K: The dental torture scene has me thinking: seriously, why dentistry? Beyond the ability to get people in a compromising position, it’s pretty random. And no one questions why the dental chair has a helmet. He’s been there a year; I suppose no one has notice the school’s electric bills? Or maybe this is why it has to close?

E: It’s very Little Shop of Horrors…

K: I thought of that, too. The preying on troubled teens makes it that much more sadistic. But the connection between evil dentist and wronged innocent man is pretty thin! This episode (and the show in general) is well shot and lit. The colors are rich, especially in low-light scenes. I guess we’re looking at wrath here, retribution for real harm. He becomes as corrupt(ed) as the system that did him wrong. The episode overall is uneven, but I have to say, I think it has some of the most beautiful imagery in the whole series so far. This, and the “Scarecrow” episode. 

E: Agreed. ​

Season 1, Episode 19: “The Quilt of Hathor” (Timothy Bond, director; Janet MacLean, writer)
We’re all crazy Penetites livin’ in a Penetite Paradise

FULL EPISODE BELOW!
The Goods: A woman from a local Amish-ish community, calling themselves the Penetites, contacts the Curious Goods crew about a potentially cursed quilt, after a few sect members ends up dead. Ryan and Micki go undercover, and Ryan takes break from creeping on his cousin to make eyes at a reverend’s daughter

The Cheese: A mix of good and bad cheese; Ryan’s inexplicable and obviously doomed romance and a weird duel over hot coals (bad); random 18th-century fantasy segments as a prelude to murder, weird but good. 

The Sins: A double pack of Lust and Envy

The Verdict
Erin: Well, there’s always a bit of a challenge commenting on part one of a two-parter. The episode didn’t blow me away, but the more I think about, the more nuance I find in terms of set-up for the next episode. Here is yet another story of someone “plain” turning to evil to get what she (or he, as in “Cupid’s Quiver”) wants. 

Kristopher: Yes, definitely a trope in the series.

E: For me, the trope is a bit tired, suggesting women in particular are constantly envying and hating on other women. And yet, that’s not entirely what the episode ends up suggesting, which pleased me. Effie may be considered “plain” but it’s slowly revealed that while she might lust for Reverend Grange, it may be the lust for power that drives her. 

K: There is the suggestion that she may be in it for the power, yes. But it’s truly both, since all her dreams involve her looking longingly at the Reverend. The suggestion of power comes from Laura to Ryan, who says the Rev.’s wife holds a lot of sway.

E: The dream sequences, with their low-budget 18-century drag, seem to confirm this: she takes more pleasure in watching the destruction of these other women than dancing with Grange. The fact that Grange himself stands idly by while these dream murders occur could suggest that he is not as he seems either, despite his loud “why hast thou forsaken me” moments. (The young bride against the rules, being secretive about the finances, etc.)

K: I’ll be interested to see in the next episode if the issue with the finances comes up again. He does seem to be sinister in some way. 

E: While I don’t think “Penitites” is a real thing, using a fake religious sect at least allows the episode to offer some commentary on religion as a cover/outlet for any number of sins. I mean, aside from Grange’s daughter feeding the horse and singing, it’s all coal fights, shouting, and pitchfork stabbings.

K: Yes on the fake cult as a way of getting at issues, yet why does it have to be an Amish-style religious sect? Seriously, they could get at this using a Presbyterian church community; no need to drag a true minority community through the mud (or coals). It’s actually kind of offensive!

E: “Your dream becomes someone else’s nightmare.”

K: This episode is someone else’s nightmare … mine. 

E: Yay for Ryan falling for someone other than his cousin. Also, big laugh over Robey’s hilariously over-the-top reactions to the coal fight.

K: Gorgeous opening, but wow, that dialogue sounds like rocks in the mouth of these actors.

You gotta love an evil spinster, I must say. The Penetite Colony? Also, is this Penetite as in a combo of Penitent and Tight? I guess it would have been transparently worse to just make them Amish? The opening scene made me think it was occurring in the past. It’s funny that the sect is secretive, but Old Sarah Goode has no problem divulging that the reverend’s daughter isn’t happy about her arranged marriage.

E: I can see why they’d make up a religious sect, particularly in the 1980s. The Moral Majority assholes were (and still are) complaining constantly about how they were portrayed in the media. Although, at the risk of sounding flippant, the Amish aren’t big TV owners, so I can’t imagine they’d be mounting a letter-writing campaign over it. Oddly, there were some Amish-centered TV shows in the 1980s, and Harrison Ford in the movie Witness, so it might also be another instance of trend-leaping, like with the “Baron’s Bride.” 

K: If it were at all believable, it could be cool. But the writing isn’t committed enough to getting the details down in terms of consistency. This is strict cult, but everyone is killing, bashing, and raking people over coals! Wait, what is the pretense for bringing outsiders into a secretive sect? A lost quilt, really? Sarah, who brings them to the sect mentions “envy” by name, so I guess we’re there. Lust comes next. This episode promises to give us a smorgasbord of deadly sins.

Micki’s hair actually looks good all tied down. Ryan seems to be leading the investigation with his boner. This whole setup is really off. A secretive sect (cult) that is extremely strict, yet one of its members, Effie Stokes, uses an evil quilt to kill people, and the sight of his betrothed dancing with Ryan fills him with rage and violence. Also, I wonder how Effie discovered the quilt’s powers?

This episode is hilarious, but not for the right reasons. Ryan’s acts are ridiculous, but the sect is full of contradictions. Considering their knowledge of punishments like The Cleansing, they’re rather cavalier in the degree to which they break codes and decorum. At least the dreams seem to be intentionally campy, especially the one in which Sarah dies. The Reverend’s “Where is thy justice?!” from Sarah’s death becomes a funny shriek. Ryan’s falling in love with Laura and seeing something in the cult lifestyle is truly ridiculous. This is Ryan— comic books Ryan, rock music Ryan. The breaking of character here seems to be a characteristic of the semi-anthology format.

Alyse Wax writes of this episode’s “strong female point of view” (?) that “The Pentitites are, surprisingly, not a patriarchy” (127). Um … ? Interviewed by Wax, the writer, Janet MacLean, mentions the “Witness-style romance between Ryan and a chaste member of the sect” (127). Also, in Wax is the following, which is pretty funny:

“Story consultant Marc Scott Zicree has but half a memory of this episode: ‘I remember, in-house, Bill [Taub] and I were not pleased with “Quilt of Hathor,” but I don’t remember why’. MacLean was pretty surprised when she saw the final cut on television. ‘I’d written a fight between Ryan and Matthew, but it hadn’t included a fiery pit! I remember watching that scene in total amazement’” (128).

Season 1, Episode 20: “The Quilt of Hathor: The Awakening” (Timothy Bond, director; Janet MacLean, writer)
Alternate title: The Quilt of Hathor: The Reverend’s Revenge

FULL EPISODE BELOW!

​The Goods:
In part two, Effie gets her comeuppance when she and the Reverend get quilt-y, and Ryan gets framed for all the bad things that have happened and sentenced to die. 


The Cheese: A tie between every scene that picks up Ryan and Laura’s love story. / The freeze-frame of a shocked Ryan at the end of the episode. / Jack channelling Robert Stack during the “Previously On” segment. / That subtitle, which has nothing to do with the episode. At all.

The Sins: See part one, above.

The Verdict
Erin: OK, first off: What does “the awakening” refer to? I think there might be a bit of a joke to the title, as the quilt’s power lies in sleeping/dreaming. Ditto on the inquisitor’s name being Holmes.

Kristopher: So true. The awakening should be of these folks to their internal paradoxes and hypocrisies. Yeesh.

E: Again, this is in many respects a standard issue mob mentality/religion closes minds type of tale, and yet, like the previous episode, it gains a bit more nuance on further inspection. Effie spends so much time being the nightmare for everyone else that she doesn’t twig to what happens if that moment is shared until she’s actually in the dream, with both Effie and Grange trying to kill one another. It also affirms what was suggested in the previous episode, when Effie talks of the “passage to the power God has ordained for me.”

K: Yep, I make a parallel observation below around the Rev.’s own power being threatened. It’s funny Effie wouldn’t think to question what might happen if she got under the quilt with another.

E: As with other episodes, it seems to draw people who already have a proclivity; while never really expanded on, Grange was clearly doing shady things, and using his religion as a cover for it; timely. (The complaints from conservative whiners about how religion is portrayed on TV would do well to look at the various and high-profile religious/church-related scandals during the late 1980s as a reason.) A quilt cursed by Salem witches that leads to someone being burned at the stake? A bit on the nose. 

K: In the episode’s context, totally. Yet, the persecution of “witches” in Salem Village (no one was burned, but many were hung or drowned) leaves the source of the curse here feeling a bit on the wrong side of history and ethics. They might have gotten their history right, at least! The folks who were suspect as witches were those who were thought “queer,” in all the senses of that word, with the addition of racial difference. This cult is super-duper white, too, adding a further taint to this misrepresentation of history. I found it really problematic.

E: And yet: Holmes ends up being surprisingly open-minded. He not only doesn’t take Grange’s words as truth—preferring to conduct his investigation before coming to any conclusions—and nails Brother Matthew’s spurious motives for pointing the finger at Ryan. “We encourage converts.”

K: Yes, I liked this character, and the actor’s performance of him. 

E: While it was obvious Ryan/Laura couldn’t last, it was a decently nuanced good-bye, with Laura’s reasons for staying less about repression and more about guiding the community. She is no longer “trapped” by the traditions but actively choosing them. 

K: Thematically/narratively sound for the episode, but man I felt this scene was still really weak.

E: Cheesiest moment award: A tie between Ryan’s wide-eyed, freeze-framed final moment in the episode, and Jack’s “previously on” voice-over that sounded so much like Robert Stack on Unsolved Mysteries that I thought for a moment is was a bizarre cross-over. “Alone...with a killer!”

K: Hahahaha! These are truly good ones. But still the cheesiest of the cheese (not the dream-campiness, which I love, but the truly unintended cheese) are any scene between Ryan and Laura. Oof!

I’m going to come back to the beauty of the setting. It’s one of this show’s strengths. The snow scenes are so gorgeous. Speaking of, Ryan looks really cute in his Pene-tight duds. Effie giving Elder Florence the equivalent of a locker-room towel snap with the quilt is priceless. But in the dream where she kills Elder Florence, the latter isn’t asleep. Calling script supervisor/continuity!

E: I’m not gonna lie; I was digging him in that too.

K: Ryan to Laura: “The less you know, the better.” Oof. This episode turns much more strictly around power, and these themes are the most interesting thing about it. The Reverend acts because his authority is being challenged, with others seeing the deaths as attached to him in some way, and raising a “furor” in his words, “claiming witchcraft.” Ryan’s interview with him is interesting, the secular son trying to convince the god-fearing cultist of the very real presence of the supernatural power of evil. Ryan in this interview raises the specter (haha) of power in terms of Effie’s interests in marrying the Reverend, and suggests (like the brethren, in a way) that his power might be under threat. The Reverend response as men with power do— with accusations, denial, and attempts to downplay the crisis.

Plot hole: have six months really passed since the death of the Rev.’s last betrothed? That is, has Ryan really been here six months? Or is expedience the rule here?

E: That one I do think they explained; it had been six months since the first murder, but the other elders were like: “Fuck that rule; get thou married already.” Although WHY anyone would say yes after 3 other women died is beyond me.

K: Totally. The dream sequences really are deliciously campy and fun. I guess this is the first time we get to see what happens when two manipulative dreamers lie under the quilt, and the Reverend’s true colors come out. (Note that he wakes up far from the marriage bed, with his hand in his crotch.) The scenario is interesting because he turns on Effie (turning on him) in the dream, but her death could be his undoing rather than his release, since suspicion will turn further to him.

The Reverend walks under a ladder when Inquisitor Holmes arrives. Guess his faith doesn’t extend to superstition. (Side Note: Holmes’s carriage driver is kinda hot.)

Kudos for Laura (such a bad actress) storming away from Ryan and having to straddle a fence to get away. Not even a door to slam. Painful acting from her in the following scene, and the writing, too: “I’ll write you every day.” (Wouldn’t that be even more painful than just saying goodbye?) “Do not forget thy hat. … something to remember me by.” Like, she’s not super-upset that he’s leaving. Buh-bye, Felicia!

E: Right? And in the final shot he’s got the hat on his lap like he’s in seventh grade. Maybe that was what woke him up, all surprised?

K: Interesting in a potentially homophobic (?) way that when the dream involves two men, it isn’t shown. (Men are never campy.) The Reverend’s dream’s effect is shown on the inquisitor, and his attempt to dream Ryan out of existence is all outward action.

E: Right? I would have LOVED to have seen that dream; I’m imagining Holmes in a deerstalker and some foggy London streets. (I mean, is it always the 18th-century banquet, or is that Effie’s kink?)

K: Hahaha! True. Or, since this is the Reverend's dream-gig, I picture it looking something like the Claude Frollo "Hellfire" musical number in Disney's Hunchback of Notre Dame. And Holmes just gets burned up in the Rev's flaming spew. (Hot)

E: DUDE. YES.

K: Sometimes fun, sometimes excruciating … this one leaves me feeling a bit yanked (not that erotically) in two directions.
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"Tattoo" (1.16) & "Brain Drain" (1.17)

8/1/2021

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Season 1, Episode 16: “Tattoo” (Lyndon Chubbock, director; Dan DiStefano and Stephen Katz, writers)

Forget it, Jake; it’s Friday the 13th: The Series' version of Chinatown.

FULL EPISODE BELOW!


​The Goods:
An unlucky gambler finds the secret to success when he steals cursed tattoo needles.


The Cheese: Racism and sexism are too serious to be cheesy, but apparently not bad enough to play major roles in this episode.

The Sins: To no one’s surprise, GREED. Pride makes an appearance as well.

The Verdict
Kristopher: This was another relatively weak one for me, but with some interesting lines that work around the series’ thematic concerns. Tommy puts things rather well when he says that “In America the only shame is to lose” and later, “This is America. Everybody wants money.” Pride and Greed run the show here. The Grandfather offers a more biblical though no less masculinist and patriarchal version when he says to Tommy: “Fruit either ripens and falls to earth, or it rots on the branch.” 

In keeping with this patriarchal formulation, there’s a serious virgin-whore thing going on with the women in this episode, with the gambling molls all hanging around silently, or in the one death scene all spread out with garters and in red, and the granddaughter, Tommy’s sister, submissive and dutiful, protective. The misogyny is tied directly into the episode’s racism, though it is interesting to see the constant references by Tommy to himself and his family as American, as against his father’s more traditional Chinese ties (he reveres the family’s Ming vases … um, they have Ming vases?! … and is an herbalist who ends up finding ties with Jack at the episode’s end … which was kind of weird).

On another not-that-related note, Micki’s hair is relatively subdued in this one. I wonder if this is to set her off from the wild hair of all the Asian women?

The episode’s pervasive racism continues in the interesting confrontation of the team by the Asian gangster who equates his community’s “customs” and “way of doing things” with the “job” Tommy has to do. Chinatown = crime here in the same way Italian American culture equals gangster culture. I’d like to think this were a wider critique on the limited opportunities America offers for its POC, but it’s just not there.

Erin: YUP. Also, I’d like to think that the gangster’s line: “This is Chinatown” was a reference to that film’s themes of the futility of justice in a corrupt system, but, as you say here: the episode doesn’t support the weight of that reading.

K: This is the first time we see the object identified and called in to the store by a holder. When grandfather says he’s “made arrangements to return them to the people who sold them,” we get one of the first framings of the Curious Goods team as purveyors of or accomplices in the dissemination of evil, who now must bear the burden of a dark past act, and who are now seeking a kind of redemption in retrieving the goods.

E: I noticed that too. How weird is it, though, that we really don’t get any explanation for the needle’s power? I mean, usually Jack explains or it’s written in the manifest, but not this time.

K: Question: Is the luck attached to the needles applicable to any kind of success? Even in the case of the Russian Roulette scene, it’s still tied to gambling. Maybe it could be used in service of rescuing animals? Interesting finale with the table spinning around for Russian roulette and the “good luck” death charm about to be thwarted by Jack and Ryan. Also … is Russian roulette gambling a thing?

There’s a line in the end in the shop from Grandfather about progress and apathy, a lack of humanity: “In our rush for progress, I thought we had lost the … . “ Jack responds that “We didn’t lose those values, but we might have put them aside for awhile.” Like, for how long? The Reagan era? Longer? The duration of humanity? What’s his point? Regardless, I find this message a pretty durable one for the series as a whole, with the Curious Goods Team undoing the unfortunate work of an “evil” capitalist.

E: Satan’s a capitalist! I knew it! Seriously, though: that line offers a ham-handed moral to this particular story that I also find both amusing and interesting. What it seems to suggest to me is, whether the episode’s writer intended it or not, the moral of the story seems to be: embracing American values is wrong. I mean, I agree with that wholeheartedly. Of course, this is uncomfortably coupled with the idea expressed both by the gangster dudes and Lum that integration is undesirable. It’s quite a muddle. 

I went into this with a certain resignation: set in Chinatown, with Asian actors, but written by a couple of white guys. That it would lack cultural sensitivity or nuance was a given. That being said, it wasn’t as bad on that front as I thought it might be. It wasn’t great, either in terms of story or representation, but given the time period in which it aired, it could have been much, much worse.

It wasn’t a good episode, but there were some parts that were enjoyable. The effects of the tattoos were really cool (and the chestbuster bit was delightfully gross). Also, that Lum Chen knew the needles were evil without being tempted by them, because he could read the inscription. This may be the first time it shows someone finding the object and not being tempted. Finally, a moment I thought was a sign of Tommy being stupid (telling his friend about the lucky needles) was actually a ruse to use said friend as a sacrifice.

Best line goes to Tommy, as a piece of truth: “In America, the only shame is to lose.” 

Greed, obviously. Tommy is also pretty corrupted before he gets the needles, and seems to not be that torn up about anything he does.

K: Yes, and I would add Pride, particularly around the family. This is oddly tied into the episode’s racism. Immigrant family pride, ahhh! But Tommy’s pride as a budding criminal is nicely, ironically tied to American ideals. As you note above, American values are not the values to have.

E: Jack calling the obviously very influential gangster guys “small time”? Not only wrong, but kind of racist. Even with the lack of depth they are given, it is obvious they wield power and rake in money. 

This is kind of a weird observation, but on a structural level, almost all of the episodes end with a bit of a joke or observation that is eerily similar to their siblings in the procedural genre during the 1980s: Simon and Simon, TJ Hooker, Riptide, Hart to Hart, etc. (Seriously, i would watch ANYTHING as a kid, but those types of shows were big faves of my dad’s, and we’d watch them together.) I think it’s amusing that each episode starts with the sex sax and ends with the 80s procedural freeze frame.

K: Astute, not weird! In fact, Police Squad! made fun of this element, with the actors posing in tableau as though there were a freeze frame, but the scene was still live. This comes with great sideways looks from Leslie Nielsen at the camera as if wondering, “How much longer?” I love it.

Season 1, Episode 17: “Brain Drain” (Lyndon Chubbock, director Joshua Daniel Miller, writer)

OR, Flowers for Algernon Two: Charlie’s Revenge

​FULL EPISODE BELOW!

​The Goods: 
A trephinator-for-two allows the one person to drain another’s brain power and become smarter; a mentally challenged janitor discovers the secret and goes on an intelligence-seeking rampage.

The Cheese: Robey’s acting. (Also, unmentioned before, but going by your last name only is weird AND cheesy. Apparently, she was forced into it by the producers [Wax, 2015].) / Pretty much the entire finale of the episode.

The Sins: Envy (the janitor) and pride (most of the scientists).

The Verdict
Kristopher: A little bit of a mad science episode here, finally! A trephinator? Cool! Nice gruesome first “drain”! “I don’t wanna be stupid anymore. … Now it’s my turn to be smart.” LOL

Micki’s hair is back to “normal.” (At times her pony tail makes it look as though there were someone else standing behind her.)

Jack’s bemoaning his bodily aches due to age echoes forward in Vi’s later comment, “Come on, Jack. At our age, let’s not pussyfoot around,” when she wants him to come up for some sexy times. I’m always looking for ties between the parallel narratives in these episodes, but here the increased brain strength of the mad-science storyline isn’t quite the connection I’m looking for, despite the fact that the two parallel narratives intersect around Vi’s research. Carrie Snodgrass is awesome, a class act.“Vi, Viola Rhodes.” a Linguistic anthropologist who went to Kenya (“keen-ya,” as they say it). Jack said no. I wonder if the evocation of race here is intentional, considering that in the next scene, we have Dr. Pengborn discussing measuring intelligence by the size of the skull—phrenology was based in racist notions where markers of physiological whiteness were held as signs of intelligence.

Erin: I was wondering about that too, as well as the fact that he says it to a German scientist. I’m inclined, given the rest of the episode, to think that the mention of phrenology conflated with German-ness is potentially intentional.

K: Why can’t Vi tell Jack about her research? She’s a linguistic anthropologist, for shit’s sake! Of course, this question gets answered fairly quickly after, with Vi and Pengborn working together on an experiment that might change “mankind.” The more interesting aspect of their dynamic here for me is the vague sexual threat (“There’s one more instrument I have to show you.”), sexualized in part by Jack’s romantic interest in Vi, and continued later (oddly) in Pengborn’s comment to Jack that he knows Jack knew Vi intimately. Ew!

Question: Do brains inhale and exhale?

Robey’s overacting is pretty extreme in this episode. She expresses worry about Vi to Ryan as though she were furious with him. Weird. The finale is hilarious. Ryan and Micki are wandering around bickering, and Jack finds a gun that he promptly, clumsily loses to Pengborn. A maundering Vi stumbles into Jack and Pengborn while the latter is holding the former at gunpoint. Vi’s having been rendered mindless is tragic, but the scenario and performances here undercut the mood. And Micki’s attempt to offer solace to Jack in the coda (“You had your time with her”) is again rather hilariously curt. Gee, thanks, Micki.

These medical/mad-science narratives for me evoke pride over greed; I guess that’s pretty logical, since intellectual ambition is linked more to making one’s mark, rather than making one’s fortune (though the two often come together). This episode though is an interesting example of a strict focus on pride. Pengborn, despite his suddenly being well-groomed and clothed after he gets an intelligence boost (which reminds me of Gunn in Angel), never speaks about money. He just wants to be a god.

E: My first thought was: “Scientist with a secret basement project? That’ll end well.” I found this episode miles better on multiple levels than the previous one. We get Jack backstory, compelling relationship drama, and a nuanced and affecting ending, But there were other grace notes that to me showed a thoughtfulness in the script that isn’t always a given on this show. 

A few things first: Loved how it was, in essence, both a nod to Flowers for Algernon and 50s sci-fi B movies, like The Brain That Wouldn’t Die, including the fact that absolutely no one involved seemed at all concerned about the ethics of the experiment. Can’t speak for the science of it, except that Young Frankenstein ended in a similar fashion (brain transference), so I’m guessing: not accurate. This might also be one of the few instances where the original owner bought the object as a curiosity only, with perhaps a view to studying its mechanism, without being tempted by its power. This does lead to what could be a plot hole, or an intentional commentary: how does Henry, who is considered as barely functional, understand what’s being said and figure out how to work the device? Either they didn’t consider that, or the episode is making a point about the dismissiveness of those with power (intellectual or otherwise). In either case, pride seems to be the defining sin: Henry’s pride is wounded, leading him to take action, and is literally fed by the brains of others. 

Also: totally getting Dollhouse vibes on this, particularly since he takes on the personality of those he’s drained. (Second creepy villains role in a single season for this actor; he was in Cupid’s Quiver as well.)

What set this episode apart for me? Naming the device the Trephinator; if I remember correctly, trepanning was a way to release evil spirit (eg, treat mental illness) and/or a method for attaining enlightenment, requiring a hole to be drilled in the skull. Viola was also a win: she gets more depth and rounding in a single episode than Lloyd did in two: she’s smart, she’s forthright. They even upend the usual dynamic (woman gives up her career for a man, or is asked to), by having Jack be the one asked to do it, and regretting he didn’t take the chance. Even diminished, she’s the one who brings down her attacker. That the ethics question applies to everyone, from the original scientist to Jack’s insistence on using the Trephinator to return Vi’s intelligence. And finally, the next level naming of Jack’s cologne (Vi’s favorite) as “Sayonara,” encapsulating the trajectory of their relationship and its eventual end in a single moment. Awesome.
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"Bedazzled" (1.14) & "Vanity's Mirror" (1.15)

1/1/2021

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Season 1, Episode 14: “Bedazzled” (Alexander Singer, director; Paul Monette and Alfred Sole, writers) (27 February, 1988)

Treasure hunting goes Tarantino. 

​The Goods:
A cursed lantern that reveals buried treasure is recovered by Ryan and Jack, only to have its previous owners invade the shop looking to take it back.

The Cheese: A sailor named Jonah tops the list.
The Sins: Pride and Greed

The Verdict
Kristopher: Changing up the formula here. Ryan and Jack infiltrate a ship to capture a cursed lantern. And now they will be the pursued. 

Okay, this one was pretty good! I like that they give the episode over to Micki and the kid, and the single-set setup after the cool opening was a nice change from the past two episodes. Micki really has her day (night) here, outwitting the villains at every turn.

In some ways, we’re looking at Pride in this episode, but otherwise Greed seems to carry the episode (and the series). Still, it’s not super-clear how far one could get with a lantern that makes people spontaneously combust. Definitely a better episode than the first few, though lesser than the ones we’ve thought as quintessential. But I have a real affection for this one.

Erin: Yes! Its flaws make it endearing, if that makes sense. 

K: It’s uneven in the sense that it doesn’t really bring the two settings—ship and store—together in a meaningful way. It’s more an exercise in claustrophobic space and home invasion than an engagement with the series’ overall themes. But it’s still one of the better entries.

E: I think that if one sin tops them all for the series so far, it’s greed. I think it’s interesting that the first death we see, the lantern initially burns the heart out of the diver, a nice (if perhaps not intended) metaphor for greed. The opening dive sequence, with the guy swimming through the wreck, may have been stock footage, but it looked good. (Did James Cameron steal from this episode for the Titanic framing device?)

A repeat (by Jack, this time) of the “upside and downside of the curse” line. 

Also? Surprisingly violent episode with a high body count that, of course, is never mentioned: police officer harpooned (nice touch!), one guy shot, one guy with his face burned off. (That kid is going to need serious therapy). It’s been too long since I watched 80s TV; back then, consequences just slow things up and are generally not dealt with. Another instance, as well, of a character showing competence and ingenuity when away from the others. It’s nice to see Micki actually taking charge, coming up with decent plans that play on her opponent’s weakness.

Not the strongest episode, but miles better than “The Baron’s Bride.”

(Season 1, Episode 15: "Vanity's Mirror" (William Fruet, director; Roy Sallows, writer) (5 March, 1988)


Sibling rivalry goes nuclear.
The Goods: A cursed compact dazzles anyone its aimed at into being obsessed with the compact’s owner. Helen, the ugly duckling to her sister’s swan, uses it for both revenge and to steal her sister’s boyfriend, with whom she’s secretly in love.
The Cheese: Helen’s fashion sense.
The Sins: Lust, Pride, and Wrath fight for supremacy.

The Verdict
Kristopher: This one feels like a retread to me. Another cupid’s arrow-style object, a love charm object picked up by a serial killer, or turns the holder into one anyway. It’s interesting that Lust isn’t entirely the object here; it’s more like Pride that carries the episode—being seen rather than being with. I wouldn’t say Envy here, either, since Helen is pretty proud to be who she is (so much so that she struts into the prom with teased out hair looking like an ugly peacock). The whole object of the curse seems to be to make invisible people visible (“I’d never seen you before” and being-seen become something of a refrain).

Erin: It was a bit of a challenge to hate Helen, I must say, because not only did she talk back, but dressed how she wanted and ate four sandwiches at a go with zero shame. Oh! I’m an idiot. HELEN. Seriously, that can’t be an accident, right?

K: This turns out to be one of the more twisted and violent episodes, often (oddly) played for dark humor. If only the characterization of Helen were taken a little more seriously. As it is, it’s too silly and whimsical to think about the damages of bullying and alienation that are implied in the scenario. The prom scene plays out like an inversion of Carrie in this way, with no sympathy for Helen where we have immense sympathy for Carrie (and her motives for killing).

E: In a weird way, I appreciate that bit of gender parity: neither this one nor “Cupid’s Quiver” suggest we sympathize with those who use magic to manipulate others, particularly when it comes to intimate relationships.

K: Interesting that they aren’t able to retrieve the object. Still, this one’s a minor effort for me.

E: Right? The non-retrieval of the object, I think, fits in with the “slasher” aesthetic of the episode, as if it’s being set up for a sequel. And yes, this did feel like “Cupid’s Quiver” 2.0, although between the two, this one is actually better. We get a bit more characterization of the primary antagonist and a more understandable reason why she would have been tempted by the compact. It also made some interesting character choices. Helen is kind of an asshole; she doesn’t fit the “perfect victim” stereotype, she talks back to her tormentors, and she is full of resentment and jealousy against her sister (who REALLY doesn’t deserve it). Kudos to Canada, as well, for her “unattractiveness” being very much in line with her age: she’s pimply and her hair could use a wash. US series tend to either 1) throw a pair of glasses on a conventionally attractive person, maybe paired with some dodgy sartorial choices, or 2) go completely over the top with some hideous injury or deformity.

Highly amused by Captain Jack Obvious: “The trouble with evil is that it’s very tempting.”

One thing I noted, and really liked, was that the episode itself had a serious slasher film vibe. There were the fairly gruesome killings—mashed by a trash compactor, death by table saw—the structure (temptation, escalation), and incidental music that had a very Jason or Freddy feel. Things I found darkly amusing: Helen’s sister calls for Scott, not her sister. Although, to be fair, she did steal her boyfriend and order him to kill her. Had Helen survived, that would make some pretty awkward holidays. The snake (temptation metaphor) on the compact.

Lust and pride are pretty predominant, but I would argue wrath plays a huge part here as it did in “Cupid’s Quiver.”
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"Faith Healer" (1.12) & "The Baron's Bride" (1.13)

25/12/2020

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Season 1, Episode 12: “Faith Healer” (David Cronenberg, director; Christine Cornish, writer) (13 February, 1987)

In which a one-and-done Cronenberg takes things to the next level.
The Goods: A fake, disgraced faith healer happens upon a glove that actually gives him real healing powers, but only by passing that disease to someone else. 
The Cheese: Mostly, that the mystical glove looks less mystical, and more bought in bulk
The Sins: Greed is the big winner here, although various shades of gluttony and lust are also at play.

The Verdict

Erin: OK, I haven’t watched all of Cronenberg’s oeuvre, but the body horror alone in the episode feels very him. (Also, possibly the grossest/most visceral horror yet shown in the series.) The scabby, breathing lesions (what illness is that? hmm) put me in mind of his version of “The Fly,” which I think came out the year before this aired? The final shot of Fishoff trapped between two dumpsters was not subtle, but I liked it nonetheless. Indeed, the episode feels more like a short film than a television episode, down to the bookended structure of Jerry revealing Fishoff’s trickery at the beginning to Jerry’s final words being “Pray for Me, Jack.”

Kristopher: Jerry says “a crime against every one of you, and a crime against reason”: The pro-science message here isn’t exactly dear to Cronenberg, but the emphasis on broken, disabled bodies very much is. That the glove takes on the disease in a kind of transference is also an interest of Cronenberg’s in parasites, and technology (in parasitechnology) that begets a kind of new sensory organ. That the TV console plays a significant role here is also an allusion to Cronenberg’s other work (Videodrome particularly). Jerry’s eventual obsession with the glove and its potential to heal him is in line with the series trope of otherwise normal folk becoming obsessed with the curse objects, drawn to them. The fact that the swelling dark red pustules that appear on several of the sufferers (including Jerry) isn’t explained is also very much in line with Cronenberg’s sense that modernity and all of its shocks has a physical and psychological impact on the human sensorium and body that we may not yet or ever understand. The idea that the flesh is turning into something new and radically different is very much present here, and it is very likely that Cronenberg brought this specific aspect into play. The sufferers could easily have been physically disabled like several other folks we see here, but the repetition of the pustules, especially on Jerry, seems a Cronenberg-ian touch. Finally, Jerry calls these “frauds and hustlers” “parasites,” which is fitting with the way the glove transfers the curse like a fleshly infection, and very much in keeping with a Cronenbergian reality. His first film, Shivers, was originally titled Orgy of the Blood Parasites.

E: I really liked this episode, even though the actor playing Jerry felt a bit too low-energy throughout to justify the maniacal laugh at the end. Structurally, it felt a bit different; it was nearly 11 minutes into the episode before the Curious Goods’ crew even makes an appearance.

K: I noticed this as well. In the Curious Goods book, Wax notes that Robey quotes Cronenberg as saying that he had no interest in the main characters, and this lack of interest could have, perhaps unintentionally, created a shift in the structure of the episode.

E: The episode offered some decent development on that front; Jack (and the show to some extent) seems to treat them as children (they arrive on bikes at Jerry’s boat!) At the end, though, it acknowledges the sacrifices all of them made to be there; will that hold moving forward?

K: That final scene was clunky in this respect, particularly the acting: “We’re your friends, Jack.” But I liked the further bookending of the humorous “magical cure” vs. science. Ryan’s head cold: “You try magic, I’ll try science.”

E: Other things: the glove was created for a king to ensure the royal family’s health at the expense of the populace, which feels timely right now.

K: Also interesting that an alchemist has the glove made. The silly part is that the glove looks like it was purchased in the sale bin at Montgomery Ward.

E: It’s a nice touch, too, that Fishoff basically tells his audience (on TV , exactly what his healing entails, but by couching it in religious language (healing requires sacrifice) they don’t realize he’s giving them what he probably thinks is fair warning.

K: Another Cronenberg trope, right out of Videodrome, where Brian O’Blivion, a kind of Marshall McLuhan figure, appears on TV on a talk show set, saying “I only appear on TV on TV.”

E: It’s interesting to consider the implications of what the glove does. Beyond the healing and passing on of the disease, it actually restores the faith of the first woman healed. Obviously, both episode length and format doesn’t really allow for this to be explored further, but the idea that a devil-cursed object restores a woman’s faith is kind of fascinating.

K: This is great thinking and beautiful writing! I also noted some interesting factors with the glove. It is coincidentally stumbled upon in a filthy alley; it just happens to do the real work perpetrated by the fraud. Is this the first time we see one of the objects randomly found by someone? The coincidence here is that he needs this “healing” glove. Incidentally, the first actress healed by the glove is in Cronenberg’s Videodrome.

E: Finally, the “sin” in this episode? Well, Jerry names it: Greed. I would argue pride is in there as well. Like “Scarecrow,” Supernatural’s “Faith” borrows (intentionally? I don’t know) quite a bit from this episode. No glove, but a preacher’s wife uses magic to bind a reaper; when her husband heals someone, another individual dies of the same ailment.

K: I noted the line in my viewing notes: “There’s a power that is greater than the both of us that is running through me. Blessing me.” “Yeah, it’s called greed.” But there’s something else here, as well. Yes, pride, but I’m thinking of Jerry deciding that the glove should be used to heal if it can heal. There is a selfishness here, as in the following exchange: “Jerry, you’ve never been a criminal before.” “I’ve never been dying before, Jack.” But I would say that this might be an entry for Envy (the health of others) and even Lust, though not sexualized and likely more in line with Greed. What makes me say Lust is the degree to which the envy of health takes shape in the flesh here, and the focus on corrupted flesh.

Some random thoughts I noted that don’t have to do with the above that much are that the music in this episode is good! It felt a bit different, but I didn’t see a new name in the credits. This is a particularly urban episode, and I like that particular kind of location as a backdrop for people and their compromised flesh. There’s something about the city that feels more toxic than the rural, and this episode could be interestingly counterposed to the previous one. I think the “Shadow Boxer” episode is another one that makes good use of urban locations. But this episode tops it; the docks/wharf carries shades of the apocalyptic ending of Videodrome, and you can see the CN tower in the background/skyline at some points. Last point here is just that the Curious Goods book suggests Cronenberg’s involvement was simply because he knew Frank Mancuso, Jr. (2015, 87).

Season 1, Episode 13: “The Baron’s Bride” (Bradford May, director; Larry Gaynor, writer) (20 February, 1988)

The series goes super low-rent Anne Rice.
The Goods: A cursed cape turns its wearer into a vampire and bedazzles victims with costume jewelry. A magically roofied Micki gets transported to the past, and Jack and Ryan have to both rescue her and inspire an Irishman.
The Cheese: So much cheese that this episode could legally be classified as fondue—including, but not limited to, the dime-store cape and jewel worn by a dime-store Rick Springfield, the unexplained appearance of an actual vampire who owns the cape and lures others to wear it, and a not surprising but still irritating lack of research into actual historical figures.
The Sins: Lust, for what it’s worth.

The Verdict

Kristopher: The cape in this episode is mentioned in the coda of the previous episode. Mickey is talking about it. Forgive me for the rest of these comments reading like half-baked notes. This episode left me feeling distanced throughout. Holy Toronto neighbourhood!!! There is no mistaking it, and it looks like the upperclass area where Margaret Atwood lives. 

The Madame/Vampire/Landlord’s acting is really bad. (Also … Vampires?! So, the supernatural in the series is not limited to the cursed objects, then?) I’m glad the landlord dies early (and also unsure of why she’s a vampire already and what this does to the logic of the entire series). / The cape gets a POV shot! Classic way to suggest its draw upon the beholder.

Jack says the house is on Bay Street, a main drag in Toronto. Jeez, the hetero vibes here are nuts. Couldn’t Ryan or even Jack also be attracted to the cape-wearing guy?

Okay, just when I thought this episode was going to be painful, they go even further by bringing the characters into the past. I mean, though this is a trick from Star Trek, this episode feels like and predates a similar use in Buffy the Vampire Slayer. Have they met Bram Stoker? His name is Abraham. Yes, the coda confirms it.

The sudden use of voice-over for the vampire-cape-wearer is silly, as is the dialogue: “Tell me where the pain is.” / “It’s in my heart.” Oof. This episode is having a hard time not going down as the “episode where Micki falls under the thrall of a mulleted vampire.” Part of the awfulness here is, I’m afraid, Louise Robey’s horrendous acting. (I’m not a fan, even still.)

This one was a really nice try. A beautifully shot episode that just doesn’t fall together in the way they want it to. The melodramatics (of which I’m usually a fan) are amped up too high, and the outer-framing narrative doesn’t parallel the time-travel/vortex narrative closely enough. Yet Toronto never looked so good in black-and-white as 1874 (was the past color blind, by the way?). And finally, I don’t recall the novel Dracula coming with that inscription.

Erin: It DOES NOT. (See rant below.) And absolutely. I think this would have worked SO much better if the tone weren’t so serious. Playing this material absolutely straight (as they did) only highlights its ridiculousness.

K: So, we have another entry in the Lust category, finally. (Where is Sloth, for heaven’s sake?!) But I must say, this one left me feeling like I’d just read a fan-fiction episode of the series. Inconsequential for me. Signed … Roger Ebert.

E: OK, so I can appreciate the stylistic chances they took here, although the black and white, as you say, just makes everything look grainy and grimy. Perhaps an homage to the Universal monster movies? I didn’t recognize Toronto (having never been there), but I thought it was hilarious that they tell Bram and Caitlin they are from the States.

The idea that vampires are real I guess would fit into the continuity if you bend it hard enough and cross your eyes—the devil is real, so in theory? That doesn’t explain why the landlady is a vampire; did the presence of the cape turn her? None of it makes any sense...which is why I have a theory: This was purely a ratings (or whatever) stunt. I can’t speak for Canada, but 87/88 was kind of a banner time for vampire-themed stuff, at least partly due to the popularity of The Vampire Lestat/Queen of the Damned, which came out within a couple of years of one another. In 87/88 alone: Vampire’s Kiss, The Lost Boys, My Best Friend is a Vampire, Near Dark, The Monster Squad, Robo Vamp, Beverly Hills Vamp… My guess is that the series was attempting to cash in on the vampire’s popularity at the time. Also? Jack’s mention of Whitechapel and the first victim being a prostitute seems like a weird tie-in that goes absolutely nowhere.

Also: his whole interaction with the cape and its effects, the episode suggests, leads to Bram Stoker’s success as an author. Brings up a similar question to the healed woman getting her faith back in the previous episode. (I am overthinking. I know.)

Some things I liked: Caitlin standing up to Vampire Rick Springfield. Ryan running to get the “Room to Rent” sign to stake the vampire landlady. The cape POV shot. Also, Bram’s line, as true then as it is today: “I’m beginning to think you Americans can’t be too right in the head.” NAILED IT, BRAM.

K: Agreed on all of these. If these elements had been presented less seriously, this episode could’ve been hilarious.

E: Some things that drove me batshit: Dracula as “greatest masterpiece”? Whatever, show. Also? I know there was no internet in 1987, but still! Forget the fact that there are some questions about Stoker’s sexuality—that’s something no US show would have dealt with in 1987—but his wife’s name was Florence, not Caitlin, and she was involved with Oscar Wilde before she married Bram. Apparently after his death she sued the studio who made Nosferatu for infringement, so even a modicum of research would have unearthed her name. Louise Robey’s acting.

K: Louise Robey’s acting nearly always drives me to distraction.

E: All in all, not great.
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"Tales of the Undead" (1.10) & "Scarecrow" (1.11)

18/12/2020

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Season 1, Episode 10: “Tales of the Undead” (Lyndon Chubbock, director; William Taub & Marc Scott Zicree, writers) (30 November, 1988)

The show takes a giant leap forward into awesomeness.
The Goods: Jay Star, creator of seminal comic book character Ferris the Invincible, uses his work to enact revenge on those who betrayed and cheated him.

The Cheese: All cheese contained in this episode appears to be intentional, although Ferris’ costume IS a bit on the janky side.

The Sins: Wrath, for Jay; Greed, for pretty much everyone else around him

The Verdict
Erin: This is really interesting, particularly since there are two opposing sins at work here: greed (Carmine, the boy in the comic shop, Mrs. Forbes stealing and selling Star’s unpublished work), and wrath: Jay Star himself. It’s hard not to sympathize with Star, living, as Micki and Ryan and Jack do, in “a world of cruel miracles”...and it’s an interesting acknowledgment/repentance moment as he is dying: “How does it feel to be a hero?”

Kristopher: I've noted these lines below as well, and the "cruel miracles" one is, I think, key to the entire series premise.

E: Other fascinating parts: “Ferris” the Invincible? So, Iron Man? Now, my knowledge on this might be spotty, but if I recall correctly, there was quite a bit of backstabbing and screwing over in the comics industry, But this seems….particular, and its ringing a bell. Jack Kirby, maybe? It also acknowledges how many of the early comic book writers and inkers anglicized their names. It makes the episode feel simultaneously like a throwback and oddly prescient. The effects around the transformation; while Ferris looked like a 50s-era b-movie alien, using comic panels for the transitions was an inspired choice.

K: This production history of comics angle is really interesting. The Iron Man connection is one I didn’t make, even though it’s perfect: Iron Man is a friend to a youth who believes in dreams and hope. The episode handles with both reverence and bitter irony. Yes, the name-changing aspect is fascinating in the U.S. context in particular, especially with all the references to the comics series starting in the 40s, after the war, and of course the racist and xenophobic fallout in the 50s. As I note below, the transformation comic panels stuff is borrowed from/inspired by George A. Romero’s Creepshow, which is the best comic book movie of all time. :-D

E: Yes! Even down to an oblique reference to the comic code adopted in the 1950s, with Star saying certain issues he drew were too violent. It was also surprisingly kind to comics fans, that is, Micki voicing the “I don’t get it; it’s immature” viewpoint, with Ryan offering nuance to why it appealed to him. In the end, she seems to meet him halfway.

What is the provenance of the “want to see my etchings” line? It’s a joke I’ve seen so many times (books, movies, tv shows), particularly in stuff from the 1970s/1980s, but never actually knew where it came from? 

K: No idea. It even sort of appears in Cameron’s Titanic. Hey, wanna come over and pose for me naked while I draw you? I wonder if it is a remnant of some 19th century (or earlier/timeless) pervy thing?

E: I googled it, and apparently it was commonly used in Philip Marlowe novels; ironically, apparently...and then just passed into the general population as a joke. Finally, it’s interesting that Micki and Ryan get WAY better at figuring things out when Jack isn’t around. This is the second time (same with “Dr. Jack”, also written by Zicree) that Jack’s absence brought their skills to the fore.

K: Yes, I mention below that it’s odd that Jack isn’t around. Do they mention why? I didn’t catch it.

E: At the beginning of the episode, they say something about him going to a conference, I think? I need to re-watch to catch it.

K: Here, the object definitely draws the user, but the clever aspect is the lure of collecting and fetishizing around the object. Ryan, too, and the mention of getting “a PhD in comic art” indicates his particular interest in the books, a new detail in his fascination with them, and a bit of backstory on his (lost?) dreams, following Micki’s own episode of loss.

E: I know I’ve drawn this parallel before, but I can see so much of [Buffy the Vampire Slayer’s] Xander’s characterization in Ryan, with this episode being his “Zeppo” in some respects. Also, you’re right; both this episode and “Root of All Evil”, both at the near-midpoint of the first season, resolve/deepen both Micki and Ryan; sort of an unofficial two-parter.

K: The transformation scenes are cool, borrowing heavily however from Romero’s Creepshow (1982) in the episode’s slipping from live action to comics drawings. The effect of meshing the comics and real world, and a fantasy story in one of the comics of a man becoming an armored fighter, Ferris the Invincible, is interesting here.

E: That reference (Creepshow) completely passed me by, and the borrowings the show engages in are vital, so thank you! (I’ll note here that the series iZombie, which is loosely based on a comic of the same names, does a similar comic panel to live-action transition at each act break, although I would suppose they probably “borrowed” that from Heroes). In some respects, the “cursed objects” are the stories themselves. 

K: There is, of course, the greed angle, with Peerless Comics, who  “cheated him out of Ferris” (Mrs. Forbes) Great line: “The worms always know where the bodies are buried” (Jay Star) And also “It’s a world of cruel miracles; nothing surprises me.” (Star here seems to state the entire series’ premise.)

Ryan in this ep., at least initially, is at the center of a proof narrative, the witness to something that others will have to see to believe. Noel Carroll calls this a “disclosure narrative.” (Or so Star wants Ryan to believe.) Nice reversal of the threat in the scene where Star seeks out the thief, risks death, and then kills him, and great touch of Ferris’s head hitting the basement ceiling lamp, knocking it in Psycho-style, after he kills Mrs. Forbes, the caregiver.

There’s a real pathos to the ending: “Tell me, boy … how’s it feel to be a hero?” Ryan seems to be grieving the loss of Star, and of course his childhood fantasies (and career dreams?) in the coda. A small detail in this scene, but a fun one is that in the end Micki is plowing through the comics series (“I just want to see what happens”).

E: This is the better type of connection between the two, I think. Leave off all the romantic stuff; the parallel codas here and in “Root of All Evil” have the two reaching out to one another during a difficult time.

K: For me, this episode encapsulates all of the series’ concerns, its inspirations in the world of comics and pulp horror mags (and their moralizing narratives), and it deepens the connection between Ryan and Micki in relation to a mutual understanding of how powerful these stories are/can be for youth. It’s the series essentially commenting on itself, and on the origins of 20th century horror. It’s a keeper.

E: ABSOLUTELY agree.

Season 1, Episode 11: “Scarecrow” (William Fruet, director; Marc Scott Zicree, writer) (6 February, 1988)

The show goes on the road to find that the real estate business is murder.
The Goods: After receiving a confusing letter about one of the missing objects, Micki and Ryan hit the road to a struggling small town where at least one resident, Marge Longacre, is doing quite well. To no one’s surprise, her success is due to one of Lewis’s cursed objects: a scarecrow that kills anyone who stands in her way.

The Cheese: A murderous scarecrow and a greedy developer, but the Scooby-Doo cheese here is surprisingly effective. / Ryan’s thematically convenient backstory was a bit clumsily introduced to play such an important role.

The Sins: Greed predominates in this one.

The Verdict
Erin: This is an oddity on a couple of levels; I think this might be the first instance where they have to travel a significant distance for a case; most seemed to occur nearby. It’s also the closest to a “slasher” that the series has offered so far, both in subject matter and tone. Is it weird I found the woman’s head, which seemed to move, delightfully gross?

Kris: Agreed. I liked it from the start. And there were some nice, gruesome touches that weren’t handled too seriously (possibly to the detriment of the tragedy of this poor kid).

E: I liked that the anti-capitalist thread isn’t as obvious, but still there. Marge Longacre (ha!) is using Charlie to buy up any number of farms in an obviously struggling economy. She’s using the economic misery of others to expand her holdings. Basically, she is not only using the scarecrow (a proxy object for her own ends, like all of the artifacts), but also using Charlie (and his son Nick) as proxies as well. She might be the most purely evil character (despite the influence of the artifact) that the series has shown so far.

K: Yes, she seems truly opportunistic and motivated by murderous greed. How did she come upon the scarecrow though?

E: More Ryan backstory, making his jump into the fray, particularly when Jordy is in danger, much more believable. Also, he’s not great at fighting, which is accurate and a nice character beat.
 
K: I liked how the brother story tied into the Jordy narrative, and their kinship, even if the baseball thing seemed a little hackneyed (and its role in the backstory death kind of unimportant). The baseball represents an innocence that has ended in the past and is ending in the present for Jordy, though, and this ties it to the X-Files episode “Home.”

E: Other bits I liked: 1) The silly, and yet scary, jumpscare when the scarecrow rises out of Micki’s bed; 2) the visual bookends of the sunrises and the scarecrow crossbeam; 3) the sheriff overhearing Micki and Ryan’s conversation, as one of my least favorite tropes is the “let’s move two feet away and talk in normal voices; certainly no one will overhear” bit; and 4) Micki taking decisive, if wrong-headed, action by locking the sheriff in the closet.

K: Yes, I found all these last bits very silly, but also lovely fun.

E: What was less successful was understanding Marge’s motivation. I’m guessing greed, but we don’t get much backstory for her, beyond the fact that she was married once; the opening sequence also suggests some kind of druidic reference, but that’s never expanded on.

K: Yes, this aspect was weak.

E: Supernatural’s “Scarecrow” shares a nice bit of narrative DNA with this episode, although their “Scarecrow” made the pagan god connection obvious, as well as the town’s complicity. Also, Micki and Ryan’s drive out of town (in an old black car) was giving me SPN vibes as well.

K: Absolutely. I really like the episode’s overall tone, and again the locations are a major part of this. The time of year is a little late for harvest, but it’s great for atmosphere. It’s more of a wide-open episode in this sense as well, after several close-quarters episodes. I think William Fruet’s direction in terms of space and location here is one of the stars (though his direction of actors leaves a bit to be desired). The kid was good.

I already liked it as soon as it opened, but I love scarecrow horror. Dark Night of the Scarecrow (1981) was a great TV movie that used the trope as a kind of retribution, and also had a mentally disabled man at the story’s center (here, the story detail feels a little unnecessary). Jack is away to find the Icarus feather; I wonder if this was the reason in the prior episode as well. I also wonder why they’re sidelining him, though I don’t mind his absence. There’s a lot going on here. A gimp-closeted insane son, a father-son backstory, a suspicious wife (what was she planning to do before she got scythed?), a greedy landowner.

There is kind of an odd Golem aspect to the way the scarecrow is used as a means towards protecting a community here, or at least a community secret. Anyone who knows about it has sold their souls to the devil. I say odd because the Golem figure is usually deployed in the interest of community, and not against the larger community. The religious aspect is stripped from the girue here, but it is a story that was also influential on Shelley’s Frankenstein. Here, it’s attached to a kind of folktale about ensuring a good harvest. It’s super-cool, if a little diffuse in what it’s supposed to represent in the episode.

Louise Robey doesn’t use a stunt double in the chase scene where she’s being attacked. I appreciate this.

This one definitely felt like an X-Files or Supernatural episode. The investigators are on the road, the locations are in part the star of the episode, and the monster is tied to a kind of mystical and folkloric usage by locals.

E: Yes, let’s star this one as an “influential” one, if not germane to the series as a whole. 

K: Quick side note. Wax's Curious Goods book explains what was to have happened to the heads; they were to have been buried in the ground for crop yield. According to Zicree, the camera was going to pan down after it starts raining, and the water would wash off some of the heads. The interesting aspect of this is that production realities caused them not to be able to show the heads—too gruesome. Zicree also had a fleshed-out backstory for Ruth, whom he sees as a killer prior to coming across the scarecrow. (He even likens her to the governor in The Walking Dead with his trophy room.) (Wax 2015, 80-81). They also discuss the location as a significant factor in the episode’s unsettling tone (81).
Zicree also cites hillbilly horror and To Kill a Mockingbird and Truman Capote as influences on a list of episodes that he sees inflected with a sort of American Gothic vibe (Wax 2015, 83).
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"Shadow Boxer" (1.8) & "Root of All Evil" (1.9)

11/12/2020

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Season 1, Episode 8: “Shadow Boxer” (Timothy Bond, director; Josh Miller, writer) (21 November, 1987)

An aspiring boxer takes a supernatural shortcut to success.

The Goods: Tommy, a petty criminal who works at a boxing club, is desperate to get in the ring, despite the fact that the club’s owner thinks he has no talent for it. A pair of cursed boxing clubs help him achieve his twin goals of success and revenge.

The Cheese: A low-cheese episode; however, the spellchecker needs to be fired.

The Sins: Wrath gets its first entry, with an envy chaser.

The Verdict
Erin: A vast improvement over the previous installment; we get a bit of a backstory and shading for the week’s antagonist—a petty criminal who thinks the world owes him something—that makes narrative sense and works well with the object in question. It’s a challenge, with this semi-anthology structure, to thread the development needle for a character that only appears in a single episode; writer Miller did a good job here in providing enough characterization to make his actions comprehensible without grinding the story to a halt or justifying what he does. I think you’ve mentioned this before, but does the object “call” the user, or corrupt them? It seems that the former is more common here than the latter.

The “shadow boxer” effect was well done, and the way to defeat it (another win for Micki figuring that out) made sense. Points, too, for continuity: Ryan’s comic book love, the world’s most patient fiance, the police suck/are incompetent/can’t understand.

Also, the episode was a good blend of the comedic and serious, and provided some development for both Ryan and Micki. Some good moments: “He grades his pizza boxes?”; the discussion about justice vs. law; Micki taking the time, with a knife to her throat, to indicate that Ryan is NOT her boyfriend. Ryan accessing his dark side.

Finally, there are some actual consequences. Tommy follows them to the shop and puts them all in danger; Kid Cornelius’s concern over whether he had a role in Tommy’s brain injury. (Also: bonus points for not killing the only black character in the episode.)

Kris: The similarities in what we picked up on are compelling. The Red Shoes aspect of this episode is cool, from the folk tale by Anderson, but also the 1948 film by Powell and Pressburger. I’m sure it’s not fully intentional. And the shadow effect looming on the alley wall above the gym owner is so cool. Really unsettling. And such an easy effect to achieve. It’s pretty evocative, and it tags one of the series’ key themes: doubling.

Ryan’s attachment to comics is deepened; he’s shown reading one at the beginning. And later: “I had to trade in my only copy of Green Lantern #3 to get these developed.” On Tommy’s locker “Terrible” is spelled wrong; is this show offering a running theme on misspellings and poor word choice?

The episode hones in well around the issue of toxic masculinity and misogyny. The subtext is pretty consistently developed. Micki “the skirt with the camera” plays it up to infiltrate the boxing scene as a journalist. And Tommy in the diner scene nearly blows past the consent boundary. There’s a genuine dread to this episode. The shadow boxer is a terrifying idea. Later, Micki’s rage (she calls Tommy a “slime”) is palpable as a quasi-feminist response. I say “quasi” because it’s not clear she knows why or or on what to focus that rage. She removes herself from the company of her friends, and then is attacked in her bed at knifepoint. Tommy’s first threat to her is actually a better reference to Jack the Ripper than the previous episode’s: “You make one sound, and I open you up.” During their confrontation, Micki, under duress, still manages to mutter, “I’m not his girlfriend” when Tommy warns Ryan that “your girlfriend” will die. He then kisses her cheek, and later suggestively puts his knife blade up her nostril. He threatens to destroy her “pretty face.” Her major offense to him?: “Stringin’ me along like that, making me think you liked me.” Rounding out this theme is Ryan, who can’t resist putting on the gloves.

Another interesting note is the way Micki’s camera confuses the shadow. I love this idea, especially since the episode turns on photographic evidence of the gloves (and later of the shadow boxer itself). This also is one of the only times so far where the cursed object can be battled and disabled (with technology). Later, they disable it with light only, and I wish they’d stuck with photography, like the scene in Hitchcock’s Rear Window, where Jeffries disorients his attacker with photo flashes.

Micki asks “What the heck is the shadow?” in an interesting inadvertent reference to The Shadow in psychoanalytic theory. This works well with the show’s focus on masculinity, misogyny, and with the show’s broader focus on doubling.

So far, for my money, this episode would be one I’d like to tag as quintessential and effective. Top 10, at least.

E: Wholeheartedly agree.

Season 1, Episode 9: “Root of All Evil” (Allan King, director; Rob Hedden, writer) (28 November, 1987)

In which a gardener goes full Rumplestiltskin. 

The Goods: In a deliciously Marxist move, an old garden mulcher literally turns human bodies into cash and tempts ex-con Adrian into horrible acts; Micki’s erstwhile fiance Lloyd finally shows up, and says good-bye.

The Cheese: Both Ryan and Lloyd take turns being creepy and gross to Micki. 

The Sins: Greed.

The Verdict
Erin: OK, I really liked this one on both a narrative and visual level. It actually surprised me at a few turns, particularly around Lloyd, and the sound effects for the mulcher were disgustingly awesome. The “fires of hell” lighting on the faces of those using the mulcher was a nice touch as well.

So, sin-wise: greed, obviously, down to the biblical source for the episode title (and the pun). For all its simplicity, I found the episode to be surprisingly layered. First, the return of the anti-capitalist thread: a “devil” machine that puts a literal value on human life. One that was built during the Great Depression, no less. You even get a bit of an EC Comics morality play ending: Adrian was worth nothing. His “friend” (the homeless guy in the park) refers to him as a “kissy-faced pimp,” suggesting Adrian already thought in transactional terms before being introduced to the mulcher. You have the rich lady introduced as seeming to ignore the “little people” who work for her: the car splashes mud in Adrian’s face, feeding his resentment. Yet it ends up being more nuanced than that: she takes the time to learn her employees’ names and praise their work, and is interested in giving back to the community.

Not sure if you watched Veronica Mars, but Adrian was played by Enrico Colantoni, who also played Keith Mars (Veronica’s dad). I bring that up only because class differences were a major part of the series. Given this episode was Colantoni’s second role ever, it’s interesting that he stars in an episode for which class differences feature so strongly.

Other things I liked/was surprised by: There’s a visually intriguing shot about two-thirds of the way through the episode, in which Jack and Ryan are discussing what Micki will decide to do about Lloyd. The way King shoots this, with the two standing by the ironwork grill, is lit so that the hatchmark pattern imprints on their faces, visually suggesting that they are trapped as much as Micki by Uncle Lewis’ actions.

Second: Almost everything around Lloyd. One, that he shows up at all...and does it in the creepiest, most asshole-ish way possible (trying to catch her cheating). Two, that he actually finds out what they’re doing and Micki shows him the vault. I expected him to storm out; I did not expect him to come back...although he goes with the whole condescending: “I believe you believe it” bit. He’s lame, but he’s not evil, giving their break-up more weight and a more human dimension.

Least favorite moment: the return of creepy Ryan, just when he was making so much progress. When Micki tells him someone is outside her window and watching her dress, Ryan’s response is: “Do you blame him?” GROSS, DUDE.

Kris: Micki begins feeling trapped in this crusader-investigative role. And responding to what you’ve written above, I agree that the other two are framed as similarly trapped. I like your observations on the staging of the moment between Ryan and Jack discussing Micki. Good eye!

This cursed object definitely attracts its “users.” The gardener whose attracted to it is cute!

Ryan’s horniness for Micki is full force in this episode. It makes his guilting Micki for shirking her moral duties in going off with her fiance a bit less compelling. And Lloyd’s response to Micki’s “He’s my cousin”—“Only by marriage.” … Um … ???!!! I just don’t get it.

I like how Micki’s fiance comes and goes through the bedroom balcony like Dracula. The score always accompanies the two of them with this sort of erotic saxophone phrase. And I just noticed that the saxophone comes back (though a little less sleazily) to suggest a connection between Ryan and Micki when she stumbles into his “Welcome Home” surprise setting.

Having just finished the episode, I’m not as sure its strengths outweigh its weaknesses, but your commentary has made me appreciate it more, especially visually. It’s hard to pull off something suspenseful and broody (in terms of the moral decision by Micki to stay or go, and the issue of fidelity, faith [in people], and trust being so pervasive) when nearly the entire episode is shot in a sunny garden. And yet, what better place to speak of sin and morality and killing the one who believes in you (the gardener and his supervisor, Smitty; the gardener and the Rich lady) than an idyllic garden. One that, not to mention, is to be opened to the public with the monies allotted to it.

E: Nailed it. The "garden" I think is key here. The writer may have been more subtle that the show has been thus far; combined with the biblical title, placing a story about greed and temptation in a garden is, in retrospect, obvious.

K: Here is where I found the eps’ working class politics a little muddled, though. Or maybe they’re just subtle. I’m used to these morality-tale horror episodes being ramped up with the caricatures, but the rich lady is, as you say, genuinely interested in making her staff feel valued. And yet she does so in an infantilizing way (particularly in that scene where she’s standing with all her rich sophisto friends behind her).

E: Yes! It's the very definition of the noblisse oblige, and yet she does feel that obligation. Also, clearly had a genuine love for her departed husband.

K: The working-class focus is the most compelling thing for me here. Desperation driving one to betray anyone, rich or poor, into cash. Interestingly, there are connections here to Stephen King’s “The Mangler,” and certainly to Tobe Hooper’s more politicized film of it that appeared in the mid-1990s. The backstory with Micki and Lloyd tried hard, but doesn’t convince me. Oddly, as creepy as Ryan is, the connection there is more believable. Still, this is a key episode for combining these things in quite a cocktail of backstory and morality tale.
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"The Great Montarro" (1.6) & "Doctor Jack" (1.7)

4/12/2020

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Season 1, Episode 6: “The Great Montarro” (Richard Friedman, director; Durnford King, writer) (7 November, 1987)

The series goes all The Prestige in the cut-throat magic community.

​The Goods

The Curious Goods team investigates some deaths at a magician competition, with Jack reliving his magician past by going undercover as “Mad Marshak.”

The Cheese: The concept of a magicians’ convention/blood sport has the cheese built in.

The Sins: Pride makes another appearance.

The Verdict
Kristopher: Carrying forward the thin backstory of Marshak’s ties to magic, and deepening it a bit with the fact that he was a magician-performer, this episode has a lot of fun with the type of signposting so familiar to audiences of the Grand-Guignol (shout-out to the work of Mario DeGiglio-Bellemare). Twice, we see the terror-mechanics of the (Houdon?) box skewer a “victim” whose success would have depended on another victim being sacrificed to maintain what the audience thinks is an illusion.
Erin: I’m not certain how common this type of story is, but Julie Siege, who wrote for seasons 4 and 5 of Supernatural, seems to have (intentionally or not) straight-up borrowed this storyline for “Criss Angel is a Douchebag.” (Enchanted tarot cards instead of the Houdin box [ha] but the same result.)
Plus, in “Poison Pen” (1.2, see earlier post), you mentioned Jack at the table with the rope/candle/imminent death scene, making a fun tie-in with this episode.
K: I found this episode a bit light, but I like how the magician’s box literalizes the entire series’ punishment of transgressive (sinful) behaviour: here, pride, I guess. The possession of the box turns people with ugly motivations into even uglier figures—grotesques, even. And both the sense of victim/sacrifice and victimizer collapse (no pun intended) into the symbol of the punishing box.
E: It was a bit light, but so was the tone, which was refreshing. The cast seems to be easing into their roles and interactions with each other and neither the tone nor the mise-en-scene was as gloomy as some of the other episodes. Although, weirdly? Bloodier.
K: The show seems to be developing a kind of fun, consistent doubling motif across episodes: here, Micki and Marshak as assistant and magician (and daughter and father) parallel Montarro and his daughter. Some curiosities: there is another small person in this episode, which makes much more sense in the context of the more carnival atmosphere; the mulleted assistant to Fahteem the Magnificent appearing later in drag is an odd choice; and, speaking of odd choices (and bad hair), what is up with Micki’s stuck-my-finger-in-a-light-socket hairdo? The 80s, I guess.
E: Give me a Chicago summer, and my hair looks like that naturally. Another doubling: names: eg, “Fahteem the Magnificent” vs. “Harvey Ringwald the Sleazebag.” Also, Harvey’s appropriation of a mish-mash of Arabic stereotypes but also the coffin’s “life for life” power. Oh, and the struggling magician (with a similar body type) subbing in for Jack. (Poor guy; nobody cared when they found out it wasn’t Jack.) Finally, Lyla as “The Great Montarro” instead of as the long-suffering daughter she appeared to be. As for the drag; the emcee guy calls it an identity crisis, but because he was also dressed like “Fahteem” in the beginning, I thought it was just another costume.
K: I liked that this episode was kind of a locked-room mystery, playing out almost entirely either onstage, backstage, or somewhere in the theatre with a limited cast of character with whom we become familiar. It’s the world of magic eating itself.
E: For $100,000, no less. That’s depressing.
K: I always think I won’t have much to say about an individual episode (especially the last two), and then I do!
E: Right?

Season 1, Episode 7: “Doctor Jack” (Richard Friedman, director; Marc Scott Zicree, writer) (14 November, 1987)

In which the “Jack” in question is not in fact the reincarnation of Jack the Ripper.

The Goods:
Bad medicine, in which Dr. Howlett rebuilds his dodgy reputation with the help of a cursed scalpel that takes a life to save a life. 


The Cheese: Canada’s favorite specialty store: Jim’s Knives, in which it’s all knives, all the time. / Hospital security is a joke. / As is the show’s spell-checking department

Sins: Pride is getting quite a workout during these mid-season episodes. Envy also plays a part.

The Verdict
Kristopher: Marc Scott Zicree is the author of The Twilight Zone Companion, which is a pretty great resource. I had no idea he had such a TV writing pedigree, and he’s also written three novels. This episode opens so well, in shadowy streets with a backlit monster figure, but then devolves into a ludicrous tale of opportunism. So many elements were laughable, from the shop called “Jim’s Knives” to the doctors trying to revive a patient in the corridor when Ryan and Micki enter, to the gun-toting, fanatical, bereaved mother seeking vengeance for the death of her daughter. Of course, she’s kept in the hospital rather than taken to the police. Of course, Marshak has access to her for questioning with no supervision. Of course (?) she manages to break free and get the gun back. What!? Did they keep it with her belongings in the “Patient’s belongings” cupboard?
Erin: At first glance, I thought it was something to do with Jack again; perhaps he’d impersonate a doctor. There was a lot of dumb in the episode, as you so clearly state above. The weird bit is, with Jack out of the picture for most of the episode, Micki and Ryan actually do smart things: Micki (easily) tricks Knife Guy, Ryan tricks Howlett by leaving on the morgue drawers ajar, and the last (cheesy effects) bit with Micki electrocuting Howlett was not a bad plan.
K: There’s also the newspaper article she carries with her in her purse/archive of evidence; the article carries the headline: “Death Stocks the Halls.” Not “Stalks”? Is this a spelling error, or a clever play on words (as in Death “stocks” the halls of the hospital with bodies)?
E: My eyes nearly rolled out of my head on that one. Maybe Death just wanted to be helpful to a struggling hospital. You know, provide PPE, make sure the equipment is sterilized, restock the cupboards.
K: And, seriously, a cursed scalpel? Um. :-/ The Jack the Ripper connection doesn’t work here, as it does, say, in the Star Trek episode “Wolf in the Fold” (OS 2.14), which carries forward the issue of toxic masculinity and misogyny. There’s a great One Step Beyond episode that makes good use of the Ripper theme, as well. It’s a horror staple to revisit this case. But here, it is wasted. Beyond the Ripper’s being believe to be a surgeon, the facts don’t parallel well. The Ripper’s targets were women, and he seemed to have targeted them because they were sex workers, or possibly just conveniently “invisible” to society. But he didn’t slice their throats as Marshak says; he gutted them surgically, with a focus on their female-identifying parts. This is mainly where the episode fails for me. There is a mother and daughter backstory, and the daughter wanted to be a surgeon—why not tailor this to the misogyny theme of the Ripper cases? Instead, we have Marshak put in peril, which could have been a clever twist in another context, but not with the Ripper element in play.
E: Agreed. I’m not sure what it was about 1987-1988, but there was more than one Ripper-inspired media. (I watched “Jack’s Back,” but to be fair, mostly for James Spader.) Also not successful; it’s such a rich text you’d think even a merely competent writer could do something with it.
K: This becomes another locked room scenario, but not as effectively as the previous episode. I do like the horror touch of the medical theatre, with students and/or colleagues observing a live surgical lecture on several occasions. Howlett hopes arrogantly that his “miracle” working can “regild this somewhat tarnished institution,” another backstory that goes nowhere, but could have considering the lurid crimes of the Ripper. Marshak: “he just loves the limelight” and is “turning the medical profession into a three-ring circus.” Cool, but again, more could have been made of the circus of blood he’s creating behind the scenes.
E: I wrote “pacing sluggish” in my notes, and I think that’s one of the problems with this episode. Too much time is wasted on long tracking shots, of Howlett staring at randos without actually killing them; the long sequence in the operating room. Plus, the one bit that could make it understandable (he wanted to be a doctor, but sucked at it) is never built on in a significant way. My notes also say: “Music doing too much of the work of building suspense.” Weirdly, I loved the fact that the way Howlett used the scalpel had so much Wile E. Coyote to it.
K: I’m not sure, but this seems the first time someone has put the cursed objects in the particular way that Micki does when she refers to “the upside and the downside of the curse” — aka the scalpel cures miraculously at the price of other lives. It seems to adequately describe the series’ premise.
E: Agreed; definitely seems to sum up the overall thematics. And, speaking of which: this episode is the first time someone says, “We’re his family” (Ryan about Jack). 
K: I suspect I sound like Roger Ebert here (or, worse, Gene Siskel), but this one was a fail for me.
E: Yeah, it was a bit of a dud. To put it mildly.
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"A Cup of Time" (1.4) & "Hellowe'en" (1.5)

27/11/2020

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Season 1, Episode 4: “A Cup of Time” (F. Harvey Frost, director; Barbara Sachs, writer) (24 October, 1987)

More than one character gets tangled up looking for the fountain of youth.
​
The Goods
Birdie, a social worker from Curious Goods’ neighborhood (aka, one seen in this episode and never again) alerts the crew to a rash of disappearances among the homeless people she works with. Micki, Ryan, and Jack investigate, discovering a link to a newly popular rock star, while Jack tries to fend off Birdie’s advances. [Note for the future: see season 3, episode 14, “Repetition,” written by Jennifer Lynch for a very satisfying episode that features a social worker.]
The Cheese: Rock star in question, of whom Ryan is a fan, is named Lady Die. Whose youth depends on killing others. Yes, show, WE GET IT. / Biggest wedge of cheese award goes to Lady Die’s hit single: a hard rock version of “I’m a Little Teapot.” Of all the public domain songs, that’s what you choose? 
The Sins: Gluttony and Vanity
The Curiosities: The writer and director of this episode never filled these roles in the series again. Why, I wonder? F. Harvey Frost reads like the pseudonym of a chilly exec. Writer Sachs was a consulting producer; she’d worked on Friday the 13th, Part VII, which is truly terrible.
The Verdict
Erin: I blame summertime [2020, under Coronavirus quarantine, no less] for the fact that it took me until episode four to realize the pattern: each episode’s object corresponds to one (or more) of the seven deadly sins: wrath (the girl with the doll); greed (the pen); envy and lust (the ugly-ass cupid statue); and vanity (cup). I mean, a decade-plus of Catholic school and it takes me this long? Inexcusable. [Note: Prior posts in our blog that associate each episode with a sin or two were retrofitted to include this detail, after Erin’s revelation.] If each episode has a touch of the old-school morality play vibe, in this instance it actually is paired with (and in some ways masks) the more important moral point of the episode: the way Lady Die/Sarah preys on the homeless because she knows no one will care (the police sure don’t; that’s timely) and masks the way she is “draining” people for her own success by hiding it under good works. Birdie is similarly tempted, first by trying to appear younger, then by the cup itself, even though she is presented as a thoughtful, moral person. In contrast to Sarah, she doesn’t need to drain an already vulnerable person; she and the homeless guy connect and it reminds her what vitality really is.
Kristopher: Yes, the doubling going on here was nice to see; Birdie and Lady Die are both charitable givers to the street community, and are also both struggling with vanity, fear of aging. That moment of connection after she throws away the cup and sobs is cool. [Retro-critical metacommentary: Geez, I sound like such a douche.]
E: There’s also the whole protein drink subplot, which seems irrelevant for most of the episode. I actually thought Jack was lying and it was some experiment related to the shop. But weirdly, I think it connects to the Birdie plot in this respect: If I’m reading the ending correctly, it suggests she’s adopting the pickpocket girl; providing a home and nurturing for the next generation without having to give birth. Jack is creating a protein/energy drink, with a side-effect of nymphomania. Birdie wants Jack; Jack ignores this. Yet at the end, Birdie becomes a mom without conventional procreation, and Jack has figured out the formula for boundless energy without nymphomania. What are you trying to say, show?
K: The energy drink seems cleverly tied to the theme in that Jack, too, seems to be striving for some form of youthfulness in his experiment. I wasn’t remarking much on these thematics of the episode, which I wasn’t liking very much until Birdie became more of a focus. This show, even in its weaker moments, has pretty carefully layered scripts. 
E: The stop-motion (?) vines were a cool effect, and I liked the way the lore of the “swapper’s vines” fit into the object. I wish Jack had mentioned a bit more about it; I tried to google it, but most of the results were for spouse swapping. 
K: Hot. And, yes, the vines seem to be stop-motion when they start to emerge from the cup, and then for the shots where they twist around the necks of the victims, it’s filmed backwards (done with the camera upside-down so that when the film is projected the correct way, things that were shot forwards appear backwards. In other words, they start with the vine around the victim’s neck and slowly pull it off while filming; when projected, it looks like it’s wrapping around the neck, rather than loosening from it. John Carpenter used this effect in The Fog when the fog ‘retreats’ from certain areas.
E: I’d say a hard-rock version of “I’m a Little Teapot” is ridiculous, but I’ve heard weirder.
K: I hope I never have to hear that again. Also, the little girl’s Canadian accent is extremely pronounced when she sings the “Little Teapot” song: “short and stoot; here is my handle, here is my spoot.”
E: I noticed that too! 

Season 1, Episode 5: “Hellowe’en” (Timothy Bond, director; William Taub, writer) (31 October, 1987)

A family reunion from hell when Uncle Lewis stops by.
​
The Goods: A Halloween party at the Curious Goods store goes south when two guys sneak into the vault just as Uncle Lewis’s spirit shows up and attempts to escape hell with the help of a demon and an amulet. Hijinks ensue.
The Cheese: It’s an Uncle Lewis episode, so, Uncle Lewis, with his Colonel Sanders accent and bolo tie. / Lewis’s wife, Grace, died from neglect. Subtle.
Sins: If it’s Uncle Lewis, it’s always greed.
The Verdict
Kristopher: Hellowe’en spelled the UK way. The Canadian influence?
Erin: Very likely. I didn’t find a lot of subtext in this episode; it seemed a pretty straightforward “escape from hell by any means necessary” plot. (That I can recall enough “escape from hell” plots to make one “standard” says something about my viewing habits.) That being said, if taken with “A Cup of Life,” there is a shared theme of wanting more than you deserve at the expense of others. That theme of entitlement is mirrored briefly with Ryan’s “friends” who sneak down to the basement because they know the owners and feel they have the right. Some cool effects: I liked the way the apparition of Lewis appeared like an image out of a staticky TV set. Also, I’d be curious as to how accurate the object lore/old dudes chanting at each other bits are.
Things that seemed “off” or troubling: 1) Jack takes over Ryan’s creepy factor: Ryan was surprisingly not creepy toward Micki (no comment on her outfit or off-color remarks); meanwhile, Jack’s dressed as Merlin making boob jokes at the expense of two of the party attendees. Given that he later he uses their own toxic masculine posturing against the two guys in the truck, perhaps it was supposed to be an act? Either way, off-putting. 2) Greta the demon. By switching her from child to an actress with dwarfism had an unfortunate tinge of associating difference with monstrosity. Not untypical, I know.
Question for you: Who was staring through the window at Micki? Was it supposed to be Greta or Uncle Lewis? [Read on for answer.]
K: I also was wondering if you’d find much subtext here, as I didn’t. Lewis’s “ambition” and “greed” are things he, himself highlights, in his manufactured story of his murder of his wife by neglect. At most, this episode seems to deepen the sense of the two characters’ “soft hearts,” along with Marshak’s own soft heart at the end with his story of Grace.
Marshak being creepily misogynistic with two women, performing basic magic on their cleavage is silly and seemed out of character to me. This “playful” magic is balanced later, when he shows (for the first time?) that he’s something of a sorcerer, and something of a pining would-be lover. The story between Marshak and Lewis gets a bit more complex here. But if there is subtext, it is in the playful magic vs. occult sorcery and playful manipulation/flirting/sexual harassment vs. a sense of true unrequited love.
You’re right that the episode is not unique in its unfortunate likening of a small person to both a child and a demon. That line: “Yes, the midget, she’s really a demon.” Ugh. The idea that this body be both infantilized and a marker of monstrosity is awful. And then I think: Hey, this is one of those shows that gives roles to small people!
Three things that I thought were very curious and/or cool: 1) a hidden room in the antiques shop, makes me wonder if they’ll make this a part of the show—it’s such a cozy space and would serve to make the shop feel much more like a home base. So far, I haven’t been able to get a real sense of the shop’s layout in terms of where these characters inhabit space, where they actually live. They gather in the main room, but having this baroque, cozy room would be a nice touch. [Note from the future: the hidden room never reappears, but we do get a better sense of how Curious Goods accommodates its dwellers, eventually.] 2) Lewis’s dramatic exit seems a reference to both Nosferatu (the cock crows, and morning light destroys the shadow monster), and Hammer’s Dracula with Christopher Lee, where Peter Cushing rips away a curtain after literally leaping upon the window. (I like your point that he appears first as a flickering TV image, or a kind of Pepper’s Ghost illusion, all kinds of references to the illusory moving image.) 3) To answer your question above, I wonder if the opening scene with Micki being observed is an homage to The Spiral Staircase (1946)? I thought it was someone spying on Micki from her closet, through clothing, though—that it was actually a curtain makes more sense, but lessens the chance this was an allusion. And yet the observer is watching Micki get dressed in excessive makeup. In The Spiral Staircase (1946), the killer kills women whom he sees as deficient; this woman, he sees as somehow dirty (it’s implied she might be a sex worker); later, he targets a mute woman. The fact that the “demon” comes in another body that would be “deficient” to the killer of Spiral Staircase, along with the fact that the Abraham Stark Mortuary was established in 1946, the same year as the film, still has me wondering. Probably not enough, though.
E: Well, that would give an added resonance; if it was an intentional tribute, and the focus on bodies suggest it was Greta at the window. In fact, she asks Lewis which kind of body he would prefer: man or woman. (Surprisingly progressive Uncle Lewis: “I don’t care, as long as it’s alive.”) That Greta asks the question could be viewed as a troubling suggestion of “body envy” on her part. 
K: Further evidence that the writer sees her body as a figuration of lack.
Wax notes an interesting anecdote that the production of this episode was a bit troubled. The original director (who had done Hammer films … I’d read this after I made my comment about Hammer above!) wasn’t covering anything in his shooting; he was just doing long, single takes. He was fired. Then, the music for the episode (a 38-minute score) was erased due to a technical glitch and had to be written in a day and a half (Wax 2015, 47-8).
E: I’ve been curious about the music used in the show, especially the music that features lyrics. Were they written for the show, or purchased? Apparently, the instrumental score for the first couple of seasons was released as a soundtrack album!
K: Whoa.

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"The Poison Pen" (1.2) & "Cupid's Quiver" (1.3)

20/11/2020

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Season 1, Episode 2: “The Poison Pen” (Timothy Bond, director; Durnford King, writer) (airdate: October 10, 1987)

In which Gossip Girl meets Sister [well, Brother] Act, complete with flying guillotine blades!

The Goods: The series settles into what will become its season one formula: starting the episode with the individual in possession of, or about to take possession of, one of Uncle Lewis’s cursed objects. The first of two series episodes devoted to cursed writing utensils (the second will be season three’s “Mightier Than the Sword” [3.10]), “Poison Pen” starts with the monks of “The Eternal Brotherhood” debating the potential sale of their building; the abbot who opposes the sale ends up taking a literal flying leap as a mysterious hand writes his fate as a portentous prediction. Is the monk in question psychic, or does he cause these things to happen? (Spoiler alert: It’s the latter, powered by a cursed fountain pen used by a criminal posing as a monk.) Micki and Ryan go undercover as monks to retrieve the object—though between Micki’s looking like a supermodel in a cassock, and Ryan’s incessant wisecracking, it’s difficult to believe even the dumbest of the brotherhood would buy into their ruse.

The Sins: The first of many many entries into the “Greed” category. Lust also plays a part.

The Cheese: Besides Micki and Ryan dressed as monks, that is … This episode also has both flying guillotine blades and flying abbots. / It also has Jack’s questionable ornithological (er, cryptozoological?) opinions: “Giant Chilean Condors: they’re the worst kind!” / Oh, and there’s this bit of dialogue between Jack and Brother Lacroix:
Jack: “I thought you were meditating.”
Lacroix:  “But I am … premeditating!”

The Verdict: We're just getting started ... 
​

Erin: Ryan’s wisecracking dialogue and sartorial choices are giving off serious proto-Xander Harris (of Buffy the Vampire Slayer) energy. Add to that the continued creepy cousin flirting, but this time overshadowed by creepy monks...especially Brother Drake’s spying on Micki as she showered, with a close-up on his eye. Psycho homage? Also, I have to call out the pervy directorial choice for the camera to linger on Micki in her underwear. My guess is that it was being played (somewhat) for humor, but it went on a bit longer than necessary.

Kristopher: Well, we are at the tail-end of the Slasher cycle, so lingering on Robey’s model form is I suppose both a prerequisite and (possibly?) the series making an in-joke (as you suggest) towards such prerequisites. Let’s hope! The Psycho homage is for sure, also in the episode’s gleeful (sinful?) humor. Brother Lecroix struts around like a Diva. He reminds me of a combination of Lost in Space’s (1965) fey Dr. Zachary Smith, and equally fey villain Jafar in Disney’s later Aladdin (1992). I love the moment when he momentarily guffaws when he finds out the real Brothers Simon and Matthew were killed due to his curse! He also has my vote for best line, with the “premeditating” bit (see “The Cheese” above).

E: Cloistered Catholic communities also offer a reliable, Gothic creep factor (see: The Name of the Rose [1986]); note the flagellating monk in the background as Micki and Ryan walk down the hall in their first monastery scene. But, “The Eternal Brotherhood”? Speaking as a lapsed Catholic, that’s not the way monasteries are named. That, and the opening shot crow, made me think they were secretly vampires.

K: Interesting thought. (And I like crows.) The whole brotherhood here felt very cultish, it’s true. They also weren’t very observant. Micki looks nothing like a boy, and Ryan’s gee-whiz Xanderisms make him stick out like a sore Monk. That being said, I liked Marshak’s line that things could’ve been worse while he glances at a skeleton in the dungeon. Also … this monastery has an effing dungeon! The climactic scene there with Marshak tied down and waiting for the candle to burn through the rope that activates the guillotine is pure Poe (a la “The Pit and the Pendulum” [1842]). The intertextuality here is very much of the horror genre; the mystery-quest scenario is also right out of Poe, but the allusiveness to other horror tropes (your point about vampires, for example) keeps this show original. I’m really enjoying it.

E: Practical effects employed were very effective in this episode, especially the bed-crushing scene. Flying abbott and soaring guillotine blade, not so much. Points for trying, though.

K: I also noticed Timothy Bond’s direction. His use of camera movement is extensive; his camera is nearly always shifting and tracking. He directed nine episodes of the series. I’ll keep my eye on this, as it might be interesting to see what individual directorial styles are at play here. Canadian director William Fruet (who directed ten episodes in total) is the director of The House by the Lake (1976), Funeral Home (1980), and most famously, Spasms (1983). He also directed episodes of Tales from the Darkside (1983-88), the 1980s reboot of Alfred Hitchcock Presents (1985-89)and Poltergeist: The Legacy (1996-99). This point just trails off into nowhere, but the point is, this series seems to have nurtured or attracted some significant talent behind the camera.

E: I’m enjoying the anti-capitalist thread thus far; greed/lust for power drove Uncle Lewis’s deal...which is tied to commerce. Rupert Seldon and his partner—both criminals before, it seems—hide out as monks, and make the Church complicit in everything that follows. (Nice axe-ing, pervy Brother Drake!) That’s two stories in which greed is the primary motivator. 

K: Yes! Greed and real estate. It’s funny, my head is perpetually in Scooby-Doo mode, because one of my initial notes was, “Like Scooby-Doo, the episode turns on a real estate deal.” 

Season 1, Episode 3: “Cupid’s Quiver” (Atom Egoyan, director; Stephen Katz, writer) (airdate: October 17, 1987)

In which incels can be traced back to 15th century Italy.
​


The Goods: A series of murders occur connected to a seriously ugly cupid statue that ends up in a frat house. (Like, seriously ugly: it looks like Freddy Krueger with a bow and arrow.) Maintenance man Eddie Munroe steals the statue, and once he figures out what it can do, goes full Phantom of the Opera on the girl he’s obsessed with.

The Cheese: Ryan continues to be weird about cousin Micki.

The Sins: The episode would want us to say Lust, but really Wrath is the sin at play here.

The Verdict:
​

Kristopher: The backstory around the Cupid of Malek (1453 Italy) is a kind of ugly duckling tale, but also a tale of misogyny—the would-be lover is first a serial killer of women, and then one of a group of “college guys.” “They must fancy themselves as loverboys or something,” says one character. Next shot is through the crosshairs of a camera lens. In the case of stalker Eddie Munroe, the camera isolates the woman’s body parts as Eddie’s eyes would. I like this. It’s not the camera (aka the series’ perspective) ogling Micki’s bum in underpants. Here, it’s a particular gaze motivated by character that we get to inhabit. The series often puts us right up next to the perspective of unsavoury characters, challenging our allegiances in ways that divert viewers to other aspects of the episode, including cinematography and script. The viewers have to figure out not only where their allegiance lies, but just what it is about the scenario that attracts them. Eddie, it turns out, is not a Sigma Delta Chi member, though he wears one of their shirts. The setup is stacked in almost allegorical proportions, like a kind of fable.

Erin: My notes basically say: “Oh, it’s about incels!” While I could write for hours about the dodgy way “love” is defined throughout the episode, I was pleasantly surprised that neither the camera nor the dialogue seemed to suggest the viewer should sympathize with Eddie (or the bar patron at the beginning).

K: On an interesting note of generic tropes that other series will pick up, Micki and Ryan pose as cops in this episode, a la the much later Supernatural. Also, yes, “love” isn’t really the object here. The men in the episode in possession of the statue don’t want to date these women; they want to consume them, to destroy them. This makes it all the more delicious that our resident elder Jack Marshak spikes the frat party’s punch bowl with sodium pentathol—like, he totally roofies the frat boys!

E: Micki also gets the great line, in response to Ryan’s “he’s got a serious problem”: “Not as serious as hers.” The bar is low, but not bad for the era.

K: Eddie takes a girl at a bar to a place that he calls “a beautiful spot, lots of lovely flowers.” Again, love here is violent. It’s about not just possessing but entirely consuming the beloved. Like Nick Cave’s song, “Where the Wild Roses Grow,” this is the kind of mythical, idyllic place of death where a person destroys a lover so that no one else can have them. As soon as the pursuit in both cases is over and the woman says, “I love you,” the next move is to destroy them. As he watches his date being stung to death, Eddie mimes “I love you” into the truck window and draws a heart on the window. Chilling. By the show’s rules so far, the cursed object will only, ultimately, perform or serve evil; the cupid falls only into the hands of killers, or perhaps draws only them. This series “rule” will change and be compromised in later seasons/episodes.

E: I think even here the narrative leaves it open as to whether those affected will kill regardless, or if the cursed object brings violence out of them, a la “Billy” from Angel (1999-2004). And like “Billy,” why is the effect only on men? I’m not trying to make a gender parity argument here, just think it would be interesting if the episode had explored a man using it, and a woman using it for the same reason.

K: Yes, and as we’ll realize with more episodes under our belts, this series misses (or intentionally skirts [haha, no pun intended]) many such opportunities. The chase scene between Ryan and Eddie, for example, misses the chance to have Eddie “sting” Ryan with the cupid, thereby bringing him under Eddie’s power. But I’m sure the suggestion of homosexuality was probably too much for even a syndicated show in the late 80s. Too bad. Cool post-industrial space for the climactic set piece, with the two guys chasing each other around a kind of steely web, like monkeys. 

E: It would have been fascinating to see that dynamic; still, if my recollection of 80s-era North American TV serves me, would have been followed by a chest-pounding assertion of masculinity that would be embarrassing to watch.

K: "No homo,” I guess. Also, have I mentioned that I’m not really a big fan of this episode’s ‘Canadian darling’ director, Atom Egoyan? There, we mentioned his name in the writeup. ​
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    Rewatch #1

    Friday the 13th: The Series aired in syndication from 1987 to 1990. It boasts a large fanbase but almost no scholarly commentary. This episode-by-episode critical blog on the series is part of a research project by Erin Giannini and Kristopher Woofter that will include the series in a scholarly monograph on horror anthology TV series in the Reagan era.

    This is the first in a series of (re)watches we'll do of some pretty great (and some not-so-great) 80s TV horror series. Some of what we're doing is having fun with the show, obviously, but the idea is to use the blog to brainstorm. But with the idea that such things don't have to happen in isolation, we give you ... this blog.

    If you'd like to watch along with us, you can stream Friday the 13th: The Series on Amazon Prime Video ​in the US.

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