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WARNING!: This week, we invite you to behold an unfortunate double feature of two of the absolute worst episodes of the entire series, one an innocuous dud and one that courts outrage. Come along with us as we discuss ...
Season 2, Episode 7: “Wax Magic” (William Fruet, director; Carl Binder, writer)
We interrupt Season Two’s winning streak with the thud of Lizzie Borden’s waxen axe.
Watch the FULL EPISODE below.
Kris: The Goods: This will be brief. “See Jack the Ripper! See Bluebeard …!” The opening speaker/barker loudspeaker tags masculine monsters—one real, one mythical—who targeted women in their violence. This makes it all the more curious that Micki is “away for the weekend till Monday.” And it should have informed the episode’s treatment of a man who captures a woman to make her both his slave and his death-servant. To no avail. The Cheese: This won’t be brief. Regarding the opening: Yes, we know what a carnival looks like. A quick set of establishing shots would have been just fine. But this sequence looks like a music video for the Huey Lewis knockoff song that underscores it. It’s not hip to be THAT square. E: What? You weren’t rockin’ to such deathless lyrics as “deep in the heart of a Midwest night”? K: I grew up deep in the heart of a Midwest night, and I do not approve. This episode is pretty overstuffed with ideas. I was expecting that the victims of the w/ax(e) murderer would become wax figures themselves (though even this isn’t clearly explained in the end), but Marie’s sudden clairvoyance when she wipes the blood off of the death-bringer’s cloak adds an extra angle. We learn later that it’s Marie (sort of) who is the murderer, puppeted by her husband-captor-creator. Yet we also learn that the cloaked figure is Lizzie Borden in wax. If I thought the initial mention of Jack the Ripper and Bluebeard were a subtle cue to the episode’s thematic concerns, I guess I was giving the writing more credit that it is due. At the crime scene, within which the cops unbelievably let Ryan wander around, Ryan finds a wax finger and removes it (!), saying it’s a quarter when asked by one of the cops. Impossibly, they let him. Wouldn’t someone trying to remove anything from a crime scene be suspected as the murderer or an accomplice? This moment feeds into one of the series’ continually absurd suspensions of disbelief— that multiple murders occur and the police are, variously: not called, oblivious, or flatly and hilariously ineffective. The backstory of the curse is so convoluted I can’t even summarize it two seconds after hearing it. We’ve got Madame Marie Toussaud of wax museum fame making a death mask of King Louis, escaping the French Revolution; the handkerchief is payment for the mask (?) and so it takes on power to turn whomever it’s placed onto into a beheader (because Louis was beheaded), and so the wax museum curator at the carnival tucks it into the lapel of the Lizzie Borden wax figure, so that there will be a natural fit for the killer. This is all so stupid that I didn’t even rewind it to listen again to the details. Because I don’t care if I get them right. Because I’m never going to think about this episode again after this post. Biggest understatement of the series so far goes to Jack, who tells Ryan: “You have to stop becoming so soft-hearted when it comes to a pretty face.” He’s right, though I’d add: “obsessive and sociopathic” to “soft-hearted.” From now on, I’m going to refer to Ryan’s stalkery horniness with, “Oh, look, Ryan’s got a soft heart on.” E: LOVE IT. The Verdict: Ryan stops the w/ax(e) murderer by melting her in an earlier scene, which I liked. And of course she follows suit with her melty self-immolation: “It was the only way, Ryan. The only way.” The coolest thing about the episode is watching her melt away. It actually manages to be disturbing in a way that this episode never achieves elsewhere. Wax notes that writer Carl Binder was disappointed in the episode, particularly that the wax museum wasn’t creepy enough. He’s right— the wax museum itself looks about as menacing or uncanny as a bunch of mannequin displays of knockoff fashion at JC Penney (RIP). No, I take that back … JC Penney displays are/were much creepier. The entire episode fails on this note. It takes place at a nighttime carnival, for shit’s sake. It’s convoluted and ridiculous in all the wrong ways. Here I am, kicking into Roger Ebert mode again, but if an episode has as much potential subtext as this one has going for it, and squanders every bit of it at every turn, it could at the very least just be a creepy mood piece. It’s got nothing going for it except that carnival setting that it forgets to use. A total, unforgivable stinker. Erin’s thoughts (before reading yours): Well, that was certainly an episode. There is a whole thing that could have been done with this setting, of the ways in which carnivals are viewed by “townies” and how townies (“rubes”) are viewed by the tight-knit community of a carnival. Instead, like the wax museum itself, it was all stage-dressing. It was easy to twig to the fact that there was some type of Pygmalion situation going on, although I will admit that I wasn’t immediately aware that it was Marie as the Lizzie. And poor Marie. Once AGAIN we’ve got creepy asshole using magic to control women, but Aldwin dialed this up to eleven and managed to embody every incel trait one can imagine. But almost nobody comes out great in this episode, from Jack saying it’s a “domestic” issue to Ryan Ryan-ing whenever a pretty girl comes along. (Kudos to the unseen Sally for ditching him.) The only decent and relatable character in the episode was Danny (and thank you Ft13th: TS for not making the little person the criminal in this one), and of course he gets killed. GRRR. K: Just wait till the next one. Oof. What else didn’t work? Almost nothing worked, from my point of view. Louis’s hanky? Madame Tussaud? OK, we’ve got wax and the hanky, but how exactly is that supposed to bring wax to life? And how did Aldwin get a hold of it? And the police letting Ryan traipse across the crime scene (which, weirdly, had no blood?). The slo-mo fight? (Although, Ryan gets points for the fire idea.) The melty bit at the end was fairly effective, although it went on a bit too long for comfort. Which might have actually been the point. BLARGH. What a hot mess this episode was. K: Truly.
Season 2, Episode 8: “Read My Lips” (Francis Delia, director; Peter Lauterman, Angelo Stea, writers)
In which Kris and Erin slog through the worst, arguably most misogynistic (and ableist) episode of the entire series.
Watch the FULL EPISODE below.
Kris:
The Goods: There is one—and only one—good one-liner in an episode that should have been full of them: ventriloquist dummy Oscar to promoter Bernie as he’s stabbing him: “Keep it, Bernie. It’s your cut.” The Cheese: I wish there were some cheese to offset this episode’s vicious misogyny, its total lack of awareness of anything, and its near-total lack of humor. The Verdict: The episode’s logic and tone are completely off, and suspension of disbelief is stretched to an all-time, gossamer thinness. The indecisive tone begins early. Just after the opening routine with Edgar Van Horne and his ventriloquist dummy Oscar, something is really off (and off-putting). The Oscar routines aren’t funny, and the second routine where Micki joins her friend at a show is the wrong kind of uncomfortable. It’s unclear how these routines would draw any audience. Vulgar and “inappropriate” humor is a delicate balance— if you’re going to be offensive, you have to be funny and also suggest that you understand you’re being offensive, and be clear why. I understand that Oscar is an entity all to himself, but the scenes of his misogynistic comments aren’t balanced with anything to give the sense that the writers don’t share it. The episode is the apex (or nadir) of the show’s misogyny, in the sense that it’s seemingly both the underlining theme of the narrative and the force that drives the episode. Here is a case in point, from Alyse Wax’s Curious Goods book (and I read the following passage in the Wax book after I wrote the above thoughts): Although [director Francis] Delia didn’t write the script, he made the decision to make Oscar the dummy a misogynist. “I thought it would add a fun dimension to that half of the story. Edgar is very dedicated to his lovely, much younger fiancee, but any time he has the dummy on his lap, the dummy is shooting nasty wisecracks at her. To this day, I still think it’s funny because psychologically, this guy is talking out of two sides of his mouth. For reasons that don’t really need to be explained, when he is talking to his fiancee through the dummy, he’s letting out the side of him that really, perhaps, has issues with women. The rest of the time, he is this very dedicated, caring fiance.” (Wax 2015, 214, emphasis added). When I read this passage, my jaw dropped, and I’m not sure I can say much else about the “for reasons that don’t really need to be explained” line. I mean, this guy directed a lot of the show’s episodes. Misogyny becomes a “fun dimension” to complement a narrative. Fuck this guy. E: What the hell does that even mean? What a dick. (Also, he apparently directed a porn film called Nightdreams, described in IMDB as: “In an experiment, a pair of scientists use electric jolts to induce a sleeping woman to have erotic dreams” which seems very on-brand for what we’ve seen so far. Weirdly, Nightdreams stars “Dorothy LeMay,” who apparently is no relation to John.) K: Hahahaha! :-/ Also, Oscar or no Oscar, why is Micki’s friend “crazy about” Edgar? He treats her like total shit and has no charisma—and there isn’t even a sense that either of these things were any different in the times before Oscar. Case in point: Edgar brings Oscar to his wedding. The actor playing him does do “crazy” well, however; the scene with him strapped to a gurney in an attic room and startling Ryan with his crazed speech is pretty juicy. John D. LeMay doesn’t seem to be performing his startled reactions as much as just having them. E: “Crazed” and “creepy” are Billy Drago specialties, believe me. At about three-quarters of the way through the episode, suddenly Oscar is no longer a dummy, but a little man in makeup? Have I missed some subtle information about the length of time wearing the boutonniere bringing someone back to life? While I find this shift to dummy-fleshiness way more effective than the endless dummy scenes—and the devilishly inappropriate “little man cam” that hues closely to Oscar as he stalks his potential victims in the finale is certainly uncomfortable fun—it’s another sign of this episode being a total mess. Hey, let’s add ableism to our mix of marginalization! E: It just occurred to me that Oscar biting Edgar at the bachelor party was probably their idea of foreshadowing. And, for perhaps the final outrage … I’m not sure what to think of Jack’s collection of Nazi paraphernalia (is he really leaving Micki and Ryan to find cursed objects while he is in … Florida? … collecting Nazi stuff?). The idea of Nazi occult experimentation having something to do with Oscar’s inhabited or possessed body—and thus a pink silk boutonniere that Hitler wore to be immortal—is patently ridiculous and as the logic behind a cursed object is about as tenuous as the John Wilkes Booth makeup kit in “Master of Disguise.” [The idea of associating Florida with Nazism is, however, not ridiculous.] Also, my feeling is, if you’re going to dredge up the Nazis’ occult interests (or, frankly, the Nazis at all) in a TV horror show, have the decency to build the intricacies of that history into the episode’s logic or themes somehow. The cursed object here might as well have been a pair of underwear Hitler wore. Or that John Wilkes Booth wore, for that matter. Sins: Sloth (the dummy does most of the work). And Greed. And Being a Shitty Episode—not necessarily in that order. Erin’s Thoughts (before reading yours): Wow. That was PAINFUL. Putting aside the fact that ventriloquist dummies kind of freak me out, there was so much wrong in this episode I don’t even know where to begin? With the misogynistic “humor”? With the horrible “rap”, compounded by the camera cutting to an African-American woman in the audience who is attempting to laugh? The lack of any foreshadowing or build up to the reason for the killing until the last act of the episode? Billy Drago’s scenery chewing? (Seriously, that should have been on his business card; you want scenery chewed by a guy who does “creepy” better than anyone in the business, call Billy Drago! Well, actually, you can’t anymore, ‘cause he died. But my point stands.) That the first killing we see is the black guy? The fact that almost every guy in the episode is a misogynistic asshole? Going to the “little people are evil” well again, and the weird-ass tracking/running shot of Oscar at the end? K: I feel serious shame for finding this last aspect twisted and inventively funny. I am a horrible person. Also, if you’re going with the Don Rickles schtick and nobody makes a “how to get a head in show business” joke upon discovering the agent’s head in the freezer, I feel cheated. K: Totally. Nobody’s behavior or motivations make any sense in this episode. Oscar wants to be human, but there is literally nothing human-looking about him until nearly the end. Micki wants to get involved with what’s going on with Gabrielle, then she doesn’t, then she does again. Ryan takes Jack’s troubling line from the previous episode of suggesting obvious domestic violence isn’t worth bringing the police in before saying they need to investigate it.. Finally, is that supposed to be a hospital Edgar’s locked up in, or did someone just stick him in a random attic? K: I thought the attic looked kind of like the undressed set of a shitty 80s sitcom about “middle-class” people living in an area of, say, San Francisco that no middle-class person could ever afford. You know, like Full House or something. E: That’s hilariously accurate; and weirdly, something I talked about in my PhD thesis! K: Legit. Sins: This whole episode is a sin. It makes “Bottle of Dreams” look like an Emmy contender. K: Haha, for sure. I do think this is one of the minority entries in the sloth category. Unintentionally so for the writing and directing. This one is like Season One bad for sure.
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Season 2, Episode 5: “Symphony in B#” (Francis Delia, director; Peter Mohan, story; Carl Binder, teleplay)
The series embraces old-school Universal horror, while marking the return of Ryan’s grossest behaviour.
Watch the FULL EPISODE below.
Kris: Do people really bring opera glasses to the symphony, Micki? No, they don’t. It’s clear that Ryan and the “phantom” of the symphony are both going to have their eyes on the same girl (second violinist, Leslie). I like the idea of revisiting classic horror; this is postmodern horror’s way of speaking horror’s language in a kind of echo, and there’s something almost comforting about seeing these narratives recur. This is especially resonant when Leslie follows the haunting music into the Phantom Janos Korda’s basement lair in a fairly direct replication of The Phantom of the Opera. But it’s disappointing when she finally confronts him, and they’ve had a past together, and she reacts with virtually zero shock at the sight of him! Erin: Huh. I attributed that to recognizing his music, although also, see my comments below re: the actress’s performance. More allusiveness comes in the character names: Leslie Rains, a clear reference to Claude Rains, who played the Phantom in Universal’s 1940s remake of the original film. And Korda is the name of the vampire played by Robert Quarry in Deathmaster (1972) (the other two films in this series are Count Yorga [1970], and The Return of Count Yorga (1971), but for Deathmaster, they had to change the name of the character). Intriguing as the latter reference may be, it’s a little random. E: Ooh! I got the Rains reference, but not the Korda one. Nice! Point of Interest: Clear sign that you’re in urban English Canada: “Theatre Adelaide” on one door and “Adelaide Theatre” on the other. It’s pretty cool that the phantom gets to score his own murder scenes! Allusions here to Michael Powell’s Peeping Tom (1960) are interesting with the instrument serving also as the artist’s weapon. The voyeurism sub-theme attests to this as well, and it’s interesting that Ryan’s creepy stalking of Leslie parallels it. Wax also finds this unsettling. Even creepier than Ryan’s stalking Leslie, however, may be Micki’s presumption that “she seems to have some sort of hypnotic effect on” Ryan. Why does it have to be her fault!? The Cheese: Leslie “waxing her bow” after her sex night with Ryan. I mean, to be fair, she did say earlier that she’s “married to her work.” E: That made me snort laugh. You win. The Sins: Lust, envy, greed, and maybe for only the second time gluttony are in play here. The lust is oddly more for power than for the flesh on the Phantom’s part (Ryan’s drive is clear). But gluttony finally comes in where one life of fame seems to be not enough for Korda. I would link this entirely to greed, but in this series greed is often attached to characters who want more of something they haven’t had prior (am I off with this?), and gluttony to more of something they already have. It’s a metaphorical gluttony. Maybe I’m reaching. Erin, swoop in and rescue me from my reaching! E: Actually, I shall not! I think you are absolutely on target with your read on this, and I’m only envious (mwah ha ha) that I didn’t think of it myself. The Verdict: Again, there is a sense that season 2 is consistently stronger than season 1, with its unevenness coming mostly in the episodes’ closure. I find this one, like the prior one, intriguing until the finale. At least this episode leaves us with a striking image of Korda having plummeted to land atop Leslie, their bodies forming a twisted criss-cross of death, and later with Ryan listening to Leslie’s last recording, her essence, at episode’s close. The uncomfortable fact that this life’s essence for Leslie was a forced performance by Korda, with her nearly sobbing through it, goes un-assessed after Jack’s statement. Erin’s Thoughts (before reading yours) OK, so I looked it up, and I have to give the episode’s writer credit: B# is not really a thing; it’s actually, if I understand it correctly, a stand in for the C note. Given the episode thread on who is really performing Janos’ recordings, this may actually be intentional. K: Cool! You know, I know that B-sharp doesn’t exist, and because of that I read the episode title as “B-flat,” even though the # stands for sharp. Interesting! E: Like, but more effectively and subtly, “The Baron’s Bride”, this episode puts me in mind of the black-and-white Universal films, and the parallels to Phantom of the Opera are so obvious as to hardly be worth enumerating, but I’m me, so I’ll do it anyway. Leslie “Rains”; the deformed musician (and later “unmasking”), his first victim a janitor as stand in for stagehand Joseph Buquet, the second victim first chair, as a stand-in for Carlotta. Which, I suppose, makes Ryan the Raoul in this situation. What works here is that Leslie has more backstory and tons more agency than pretty much any version of Christine Daae. Rather than being an obsessive fan of Leslie, Janos is, well, an obsessive fan of himself. Leslie and Janos are a couple long before his accident, and this may be one of the few times in which the object is given to someone unwittingly; it’s implied but not stated explicitly that the presence of the cursed violin is the reason he survived the accident, adding a more tragic dimension to the proceedings. Also, I liked the fact that while douche-y former colleague stuck teaching violin to clearly untalented people basically says Leslie slept her way to the top, Jack actually counters, to Ryan, that Leslie was more talented than Janos. Ryan’s restrained reaction to Leslie’s death—and the lack of freeze frame—were a nice touch, given his theatrics over Micki’s death in “Heads I Win…”. Things that didn’t work: opera glasses at the symphony, Micki? Are you homing in on their bowing or something? K: Hahahaha! The usual conflation of deformity with evil, obsession, and stalking...without acknowledging how creepy Ryan’s behavior toward Leslie is. She could literally not look LESS interested in Ryan when he introduces himself, and yet he follows her to the music store? Is that supposed to be romantic? (I will acknowledge that the fact that the actress playing Leslie played her as if she was on Quaaludes, so perhaps she was supposed to appear interested but conflicted, rather than bored and disinterested.) Janos (Janus?) NOOOOO was genre appropriate but hilarious. K: I’m with you. This is Ryan at his absolute perviest; his stalking her is flat-out criminal behaviour. Not a bad episode; a good beginning with the cross-cutting between the stage and backstage, and interesting ending, but the middle dragged a bit for me. Sin-wise? Envy was everywhere, not just with Janos. Pride plays a concerto here too.
Season 2, Episode 6: “Master of Disguise” (Tom McLoughlin, director; Bruce Martin, writer)
Another Universal homage that tries to sell the audience on Louise Robey's (Micki) acting prowess.
Watch the FULL EPISODE below.
Kris: The Goods: I really like the out-of-time feel of the opening scene; it’s largely the set and costumes, of course, but the creeping stalker camera, music and lighting conjure up allusions to films like The Spiral Staircase (1945). The setup, with a star needing a cursed object to stay vibrant suggests this episode almost as a double feature with “Symphony in B#.” E: YES! One for Ryan, and one for Micki! The Cheese: It starts early, with the slo-mo and non-diegetic fan blowing Micki’s hair as she passes by movie star William Pratt, ogling him breathily. It looks like a commercial for shampoo or Massengill douche. But it’s less cheese than camp, including the way the actors playing actors overplay their scenes. The reporter, Foster’s, death, for example, is hilarious (though the homophobia behind his fey behaviour in his hotel room, silk-robed and drinking a martini in his bubble bath while watching himself on TV, is off-putting). Death by award! “You deserve an award for it.” E: Yeah, Foster’s characterization was….a problem. This has to be the silliest cursed object thus far. What happens when the makeup runs out in this case that has been around since John Wilkes Booth’s time? Also, so much for season 2’s careful logic around the makeup case’s cursed power. Metaphorically, figuratively, symbolically— I don’t really catch a connection between the case being owned by JWB and what it does for its possessor. Something occurs to me as I watch the sex scene between Micki and Pratt (which looks like a Bonnie Tyler music video) … there’s no saxophone music! Where’s the sexy sax? E: You’re right! What’s the point of sex sax if sex sax doesn’t sax during sex? K: She sells sex sax by the seashore. The Verdict: This is an interesting case where the user of the curse generates some interesting sympathy, very likely the most the show has ever conjured. “Please don’t make me do this,” he says as he’s about to have to kill the (cute) gas station attendant to keep up his masquerade for Micki. Ultimately, this episode has more twisted, unsettling pathos a la Phantom of the Opera than the previous one. And the villain is defeated in a fit of tears rather than violence. The homage to Boris Karloff in the end, “a man who made his career playing monsters” but who “was the kindest” and “gentlest” man in Jack’s words, seals this sympathy for the monster, and of course calls back to Karloff’s portrayal of the Monster in Whale’s Frankenstein films. It’s something McLoughlin acknowledges in an interview in the Wax book (203-4): “They [the Universal monsters] all had this underlying empathy” (204). (He also delicately suggests that Robey’s acting range was limited, and that she knew it.) I want to add something here about the series’ chamber pieces vs. its location pieces. There are times where the more claustrophobic, set-bound episodes really work because they are limited to one space (a theatre, for example), and there is a similar feel about the expansiveness of the location shooting (I’m thinking of you, “Scarecrow,” but also “Pirate’s Promise” and a few others). This episode has both, and I think it’s ultimately a good decision to contrast the compelling set-bound first half with open (though murky) landscapes of the road and roadside motels, etc. At first, I missed the colourful claustrophobic, but out-of-time sense of the movie sets, but the second half of the episode settles in to almost a kind of road movie as Pratt and Mickey sort of escape civilization for a bit to have their romance. This kind of structural parallel is another sign of the maturity in the writing on the series. E: Agreed on all counts here; there’s more trust in the story, in the performers, and in the audience than was on offer in season one. Ultimately, a likeable, if not a great episode. But Season 2’s lesser successes are feeling generally stronger than season 1’s. Erin’s Thoughts (before reading yours): They are really leaning into more of the tropes of the genre this season; I’m not sure if it’s intentional, but this is two episodes in a row that reference the old-school monster movies combined with the performative aspects of the referencing. It’s not quite meta, but not quite not meta either. Even more so than in “Symphony,” the resolution is almost directly lifted from Phantom of the Opera’s resolution, with Micki proclaiming her love for Jeff and that being what stops his murderous plans. The settings of both episodes: a theater and a film set (for a film that seems like a weird combo of period piece and spy thriller?) adds to the performative aspect. I like that they save the “William Pratt” reveal until the end, allowing those who get the reference immediately to enjoy it without having it spelled out to them. It also plays with other monster movie tropes; in particular, the “quippiness” of the slashers at the time: Gossip columnist Foster hears himself say on television “I think that’s shocking” right before he’s electrocuted; Jeff’s line “you deserve an award for it” right before he bludgeons his co-star with her award. Indeed, the whole episode’s main narrative thread is Jeff attempting to re-write (re-shoot?) the outcome of his previous relationship with Diana (Lamb? A bit on the nose). Also, props to the show for remembering its continuity: we get the first mention of money, although how Curious Goods supports itself remains a huge question, and the callback to Jack’s past as a stage magician. On the visual front, I liked the distorted mirror and the return of the Cronenberg-esque breathing pustules. Season two is shaping up to be a bit more graphic on that front than season one. The Cheese: Slo-mo “hey you” scene when William first sees Micki. Also, why have it be John Wilkes Booth’s make-up case...and then have the reality of its curse be in no way related to that? Are we supposed to infer that because Booth assassinated Lincoln, his make-up case is ripe for cursing? The episode is vague about how much time had passed since Jeff went on his rampage, but wouldn’t someone have at least noticed he’d escaped? Finally, the idea that not only Jeff, but the director and producer would agree that Micki’s the better actress? That’s ADORABLE. Is it the best episode? No. But the show is on a good trajectory here! One last bit: Ryan, if you want someone to believe that you are not acting out of jealousy when you investigate their love interest, take a look inside and see how you act toward said person most of the time.
Season 2, Episode 3: “And Now the News” (Bruce Pittman, director; Dick Benner, writer)
A shrink goes full Patrick Bateman in a quest for power and prestige.
Watch the FULL EPISODE below:
Kris: According to Wax’s book on the series, this is one of the five best episodes. Let’s see … Wow, the opening moments are disturbing. The actress who plays Mary is fantastic! Oh … Bye, Mary. Old radios and radio programs are cool enough, but a radio news program that conjures someone’s deepest fears is nasty (as is the radio’s sinister design, which looks like a grimacing face). One kill equals one cure —just another ordinary day at the asylum. Loving “Nurse Shirley Jackson”—not a great actress, but a great presence with a delicious inflection to her line deliveries. They don’t use her much in the second half, but I like her! Erin: OH MY GOD. How did I miss that? And that gives a whole other level to this episode. I mean, one could read it as just a bit of a wink on the part of the writer, but Avril’s narcissism and deliberately unclear reasoning for her actions is kind of Jackson-ian itself, don’t you think? K: Ha! Not sure, since I think even Jackson’s most megalomaniacal protagonist (Merricat Blackwood in We Have Always Lived in the Castle) has more believable motivation than this! The issue of professional jealousy returns in a much better episode than the earlier versions of this theme. Yet, the actress who plays the chilly ice queen doctor, Avril, overplays it a lot. Also, I love that these doctors are using the Looney Tunes version of therapy—confront the patient by tormenting them with the one thing (conveniently) that they fear. (“Deeply rooted fear that drives people to murder and suicide.”) It’s the equivalent of curing amnesia with a second conk on the head. I do like how the radio murders take this literally, as well. There is a sense that the media, and the medium, are more real than reality, and take over the subject’s mind. It’s a greed story here, where power over others and individualistic self-advancement are the prizes. The other doctor espouses working as a team; but Avril is like the equivalent of American Psycho’s Patrick Bateman—only of the medical set rather than the yuppie set. John Gibson is either a great name or a cliched one for a serial rapist-murderer. I love the literal logic of the curse here, read to us in the newscast. “As we reported earlier, a case history of Maseo Institute patient John Gibson, which contains the roots of his psychopathology, will be broadcast this evening, immediately following news of yet another violent death at the institute. Stay tuned.” Some cheese: Ryan uses rubber gloves to get safely across the electric fence? Um … The violence in this episode is disturbing. And Robey’s performance is actually quite good. What a harrowing scene. And she takes the moment so seriously, she actually drools. I have total RESPECT for her portrayal of the ugliness of the scene, and of the resulting emotions. And there’s a pretty tense follow-up finale scene. This episode manages to balance wild excessiveness with serious tension and uncomfortable laughter. (Not during Robey’s attack scene, of course.) The final opening of the vault, with Robey asking “How are we going to keep on doing this?” has real weight. Even the closing “joke” makes total sense and is also disturbing, with the radio offering to make the recovery of cursed objects easier. Very cool. Wax mentions this as the object almost offering to end its own curse, but what is more remarkable is that Wax doesn’t mention the disturbing sexual violence in the prior scene (and the episode more generally)—the idea of anyone putting Micki in the situation she ends up in is simply horrendous, making Avril the series’ most awful villain thus far (for my money), and the notes of real desperation and terror that Robey conjures up in the scene are the closest thing I’ve ever seen on 80s TV to carrying the emotional weight of rape. Wax in her writeup is more interested in anecdotal information that shows off how many interviews she’s done. It’s a bit of an ugly omission on her part not to address the thematic and emotional weight of this kind of content. Erin’s Thoughts (before reading yours): Whoa. If “Pipe Dreams” was a giant leap forward in terms of structure and characterization, so too is this. I don’t have to make any excuses for the plot, for character actions, or even for special effects. Even the last moment of the episode, which usually airs on the cheesy side, with freeze frame side eyes or laughs that tend to undercut the episode, actually works. Here’s another doctor whose pride dictates their actions. Yet, unlike “Doctor Jack,” who was trying to rehabilitate his reputation (but somehow, that motivation didn’t add up to a good or seemingly logical episode), or having Avril be not taken seriously because of her gender, the episode makes the bold choice of making her the pure embodiment of success at any price, without having to actually put in the work. (How’s that for a Boomer indictment?) By having her boss take her to task for being ungenerous (not sharing methods), undercutting others, but not gendering it means the episode really gives her no excuse for what she does. That means overweening pride is both her motivation and her sin, which I LOVED. So much good here! Having the radio be the cursed object, the first real mass medium, both “selling” Avril success and turning her into a celebrity is an inspired choice which, wisely, the episode doesn’t feel compelled to lampshade for the viewer. Other things: Again, Micki and Jack are shown to be smarter and more proactive when Jack’s missing. Ryan’s “frat” excuse is plausible; later, he realizes something is wrong and takes action. As for Robey, she takes a GIANT leap forward here; while continuing down the hallway of a clearly abandoned ward was not the most brilliant move, the assault scene was genuinely terrifying and her terror seemed genuine. Indeed, it made that scene all the worse (in a good way) because she didn’t oversell it, she didn’t get a sudden burst of strength to repel Gibson, and the outcome didn’t appear to be a foregone conclusion. Combined with her reactions after her escape, it adds up to one of the more realistic portrayals I can recall on 80s TV. Cutting the power was a great move as well; it alone didn’t magically save Ryan, but bought enough time for Avril to miss her window, and thus be hoisted on her own petard. Finally, the stinger at the end, when it becomes clear that the temptation is specifically tailored to the listener (a targeted ad, you might say), and thus becomes revealing of their particular propensities, sins, or issues. Did I mention that the scares were actually scary? Doesn’t say a lot for some of the other episodes, but even with 80s-level special effects, this was next level. Definitely a top three for me so far, even without Jack.
Season 2, Episode 4: “Tails I Live, Heads You Die” (Mark Sobel, director; Marilyn Anderson and Billy Riback, writers)
Satanic monks meet a misreading of the Salem witch trials, via a magic coin. Can’t say the show doesn’t have a type.
Watch the FULL EPISODE below:
Kris:
The Goods: I really like the opening here: intimations of many Buffy openings to come, plus a grave-digging scene that feels right out of a Universal Frankenstein film. And in fact more than Universal this scene and episode in general, with its occult focus, reminds me of Hammer Studios’ films, right down to the bearded Christopher Lee wannabe. And everyone is dressed like it’s the 1880s, not the 1980s. Beautiful color shooting. Erin: Right there with you on this! There’s a ceremonial gravitas to the occult ritual scene. Nice detail that the corpse’s fingernails are all grown out. The follow-up scene with Hewitt and the leader has dialogue undergirded by the Satanic panic that was probably on the wane at this point. The logic of the curse is much less complicated in that the coin helps the bearer align with Satan. There’s no “middle-person” to worry about. It’s this-for-that, and you’re the devil’s pet. The undead figures look very much like those in Carnival of Souls (Herk Harvey, 1962). The episode’s genre genealogy is clear, though I’m not sure everything in it adds up to a successful effort. The mystical aspects are muddled, as are the coin’s power and needs. The series’ shift to a more emotional/psychological drive is apparent here with Micki “killed” and the fallout with Ryan and Jack a feature of the episode. The witches of Salem provide the background here, with a kind of 1970s cabal of occultist endeavour to take over the world. There’s a very 1970s Hammer-esque element to this episode. It bothers me when shows like this make myth of the Salem Witch trials; here, the rewritten history is disturbing, linking Hiberia, “Satan’s lover,” to a group of persecuted women who were all victims of patriarchal fears of losing power and viability. The power of storytelling … sucks sometimes. The postindustrial space of the episode’s secret occult ceremonies again reminds me of a series like Buffy. There is a certain practicality here in the sense that such spaces are cheap to construct (or easy to find), bu there is another aspect here of the remnants of capitalist endeavour. What does one do in late-industrial times when capitalism has fully failed everyone? Make that final step and sell the rest of your soul to the devil, of course. The Cheese: *Flub: When Jack opens the envelope of evidence, a paper slips out and falls to the floor, unnoticed by all three characters, and apparently by the cast and crew, continuity person, etc.. It’s minor, but also kind of hilarious in that these intrepid investigators would let that “slip.” *I guess occultist’s basements are still supplied with live gas line feeds for lighting? *Jack tells Micki to run for the shop and get out of there, and then he does it, returns to Curious Goods, and has the nerve to be shocked when Ryan says she’s not there! *The cops are universally impotent in the scene where they find Micki dead; the hilarity of it undercuts the pathos, unfortunately. This time it’s John D. LeMay’s turn to overdo it in the acting dept. *Cool as it is to see Hiberia’s face all covered in wriggling worms, they just said that they hoped “Salem’s clay” would have preserved her after all this time. *During the climax, Jack almost doesn’t get the knife to the leader’s throat in his “surprise” attack. And Ryan’s dragging Hiberia down a corridor on a stretcher produced a chuckle. Finally, any time we get this kind of “Satan himself! He’s coming!” and that’s his voice! stuff, my interest slips— but this can be the case with this occult subgenre of horror as well. (Satan’s voice, by the way, sounds like Barry White with a hangover.) Also, how long does it take to make a mask? According to this episode, about a minute? Or did Ryan make it before they headed to the coven’s lair? The Verdict: Overall, this one was pretty good and it’s an indication that season 2 of the series continues to be more interested in realistic narrative and motivation, and darker content. Yet, it feels a bit lightweight, more like a season 1 episode, despite all its attempts to infuse the episode with dramatic heft with the very real possibility of our characters’ mortality. This episode ultimately feels tight, hermetically sealed. All of the most disturbing elements occurred early on in the setting of the scene. All the pyrotechnics in these “grand” near-apocalyptic finales usually see my interest fade. The coin ends up lost but buried under “100 tons of rubble,” so Jack feels they’ve won. But the episode coda suggests otherwise. The Sins: I guess we’re looking at greed here in terms of power, but gluttony and pride tie together in these cases of seeking power at all costs. Erin’s Thoughts (before reading yours): The Goods: I love the way this opens like a homage to old Universal monster movies, particularly, and borne out throughout the episode, Frankenstein. That it ends up being a combo of that, and the 80s Satanic panic stuff (I was getting some Polanski vibes here too) should not have worked, but for me, totally did. It may be that Satanic monks are my sweet spot. So, these guys want to bring Satan up, and as far as evil plans go, this episode was tightly plotted and plausible: a life for a life, in order to bring back their big Satanic guns. Also Sylvan, besides being Brother LaCroix in “Poison Pen” is a FAR more commanding presence than Lewis could ever be. That one of the resurrected Satanists was a stockbroker pleased me no end, and offers a subtle little nod to the anti-greed element of the show. Other things that worked: the resurrected people were gross-looking, and the coin didn’t magically make them look like anything but walking corpses. Everyone at Curious Goods had something to do, so no one character dominated the proceedings. Touches such as Ryan sculpting Micki in clay at the start of the episode (preserving her, so to speak) to Ryan sculpting Micki in clay at the end (saving her) was a great parallel structure the first season wouldn’t have thought of. While it’s obvious Micki wouldn’t stay dead, how she’d come back wasn’t overtly telegraphed. The moment with Jack and Ryan in the shop, with Ryan blurred out in the background, and ticking clocks the only sounds was a great touch. The concept of choice is prevailing theme throughout the episode: choose to stay or go, live or die. Finally, hoisting the antagonist on his own petard is always nice to watch. K: You’re catching some subtleties that I didn’t notice. The ticking clocks moment went right by me (I just didn’t have the time). I found the clay sculpture thing a little forced at the beginning, and felt it was largely abandoned by the end, but I suspect if I were to rewatch with your comment above in mind, I’d catch the clever structural parallels here. The Cheese: Emotional scenes are difficult; Ryan’s first reaction wasn’t too bad, but it went a bit over the top in the scene with Jack. Also, Jack? It’s “hanged” not “hung.” Unless you were talking about something else. Finally, this is less cheese and more perhaps the writer not thinking it through, but I was highly uncomfortable with the conflation of Sylvan claiming “we’ve been hunted and persecuted” and Hewitt’s accusation of sacrificing babies...it trends dangerously close to “Protocols of the Elders of Zion” shit to sit well with me. The Verdict: Really liked this episode a lot. Satan monks, surprise death, homages, corpse-y corpses, and neither the Curious Goods nor the Satanists making idiotic moves marks this as a (qualified) winner for me. Sins: Pride, mostly, and Greed (power).
Season 2, Episode 1: “Doorway to Hell” (William Fruet, director; Jim Henshaw, writer)
Is the doorway to hell for Uncle Lewis or the viewer?
Watch the FULL EPISODE below:
The Goods: On the first anniversary of his death, Uncle Lewis (and Satan!) attempt to escape Hell and open a nice bed and breakfast. Kidding. To wreak Satanic havoc, obviously. Shenanigans, involving both the Curious Goods crew and a couple of robbers on the run, ensue. The Cheese: Too many instances to enumerate, as is the case in pretty much every episode in which Uncle Lewis plays a large role. The Sins: Uncle Lewis (and Buddy, one of the robbers) are greedy bastards, of course. The Verdict Kristopher: Why on earth do we need a recap of the horrendous “Bottle of Dreams,” which is in itself a recap? Oof. Yet, do I detect a distinctly different framing here of the series as less semi-anthology and a tilting a little more towards a season arc format? Or it’s possible that they just want to start the new season with an echo of the context that started the first, so they can shift back to a more episodic structure for the rest of the season. Jack returns from the “realms of darkness” via Rashid’s incantations, and all is wrapped up at the end, with only the intimation of the return of Lewis with Jack’s final comment. Another episode with a kind of hybrid tone: the crime story and the haunted mansion story. You mentioned the series stepping it up with “Pipe Dreams.” A further step might be to relocate the team to Vendredi’s mansion, which is a pretty cool setting. It’s also prime real estate. Selling it might give the Curious Goods folks some income; how do they survive, by the way? Definitely getting a queer vibe from the young hottie being pulled back into a life of … crime … by his crimelord buddy. Their dialogue at the beginning has undercurrents of a past “relationship.” And then they go shack up in a haunted mansion. Erin: Dude, yes. It did not help that Buddy’s shotgun-concealing duster looks like he borrowed it from The Lost Boys’ Sam Emerson’s wardrobe. K: Hahaha! Totally! Am I horrible for finding the Lewis V. backstory tedious? It’s largely because they haven’t developed the Lewis-Jack past very well, and mere mentions of Lewis’s occult past aren’t enough—they need an episode or two or three devoted to exploring this. That said, I don’t like the actor who plays Lewis, so it’s difficult to care. It would help if he came across as more sinister than a creepy old uncle who thinks he’s cool but who’s really just a buffoon. E: No, I’m with you. Also, the southern-fried accent and attire really grates. (Man, I’m all about the fashion today.) K: My first thought upon Micki seeing the eggs frying is “Jinkies! What would a ghost need with fried eggs?” So, according to what we see of the guy being pulled into the mirror by Uncle Lewis, the “realm of darkness” that Jack mentions is essentially a funhouse set with fake leafless trees and cool red backlighting. E: And creepy insulation! Don’t forget that. K: And when you get pulled in and possessed by Lewis, you become a ghoul with bad Mr. Hyde makeup that looks peculiarly like brownface. Possessed by Lewis: another homoerotic note in that Lewis keeps saying “I’ve got this body …” Okay, the cool part of Micki and Ryan’s being trapped in the hell dimension is that they’re like lost children with Jack the surrogate father searching for them. But when Jack is in there with all the screams, the funhouse aspect feels out of place again. In the Wax book, writer Jim Henshaw talks about the first season having exhausted everyone with its ambitions. He also says they tried to inject more “logic” into the stories (161). The idea was to tie the cursed objects more to a logical connection to character and to a psychological realism. If this episode is supposed to be an example of that, then they’re running out of the gate behind. Overall, this one is a beautifully shot stinker. E: Dear Friday the 13th: The Series: Why would you think that immediately reminding viewers of your worst episode would be a good way to start the season? What a weird episode, and one that 1) breaks the narrative pattern of the cursed object, and 2) relies more so than most on viewer knowledge of previous episodes. Like the Doorway to Hell hot house, this episode is quite sweaty...both the characters and the narrative itself. Everything is dialed up to 11 here, and nobody quite sells it. (Also, pro tip, Micki: Never wear white when going to abandoned houses.) It’s absolutely stuffed and therefore a hot mess. You’ve got Buddy (the tempter) and Eddie (reformed criminal trying to put his life together); the anniversary of Lewis’s death; and the opening of hell and possible apocalypse. Geez, episode, save some for the rest of the season! The fact that it starts with Eddie seems to imply it’ll be his story, but nope. Poor Eddie is just a pawn, first of Buddy, then Lewis...but most of all the writer. K: Hahaha! E: There is a theme here: can you escape your past? that should have been highlighted but gets lost in all the theatrics. It’s too bad, because there’s actually something here that surprised me. This might be the first “meta” episode of the series, in a subtle way. You’ve got numerous references to “this isn’t TV,” combined with most of the cast watching things through mirrors...as well as Eddie and Jack being pulled or stepping through mirrors into a different realm (think, too, of Ryan being pulled into the TV in “Double Exposure”). Finally, Rashid’s final line: “I did it with mirrors” is, of course, a reference to Agatha Christie’s They Do it With Mirrors, in which the bad guy is named Lewis...among a few other similarities. K: I didn’t know this. I just chuckled at the intimation of Rashid’s auto-voyeuristic sexual proclivities. E: I would mark this episode as a failure, with a better episode trying (and failing) to get out of this episode’s mirror. Season 2, Episode 2: “The Voodoo Mambo” (Timothy Bond, director; Agy Polly, writer) Family reunions are about to get AWKWARD.
Watch the FULL EPISODE below:
The Goods: The wastrel son of the owner of a plantation in Haiti comes across a mask—with an attached spirit—that promises him power and wealth. The spirit, however, has her own agenda.
The Cheese: The return of Ryan acting like a creep around women. Yay? / The amazing healing of Ryan’s neck wounds. / How the object was defeated was sadly anticlimactic. The Sins: Greed and Lust for power and privilege. The Verdict Kristopher: This is Agy Polly’s only writing credit, and there’s no information on her otherwise. Because this episode has such a didactic history-lesson aspect to it, it seems like she might have been a scholar or expert on voodoo. The Wax book offers nothing; she spends nearly the entire writeup talking about how she fears snakes, and then interviewing Suzanne Coy, who played Laotia about how she’d never done horror before. Wow, this book just doesn’t get it. Interesting that they insert black-and-white documentary footage of voodoo rituals while Jack explains the origins. The episode right away frames itself as an antidote to misunderstandings of voodoo. Tying the secondary story to a spoiled white rich kid (Karl Walters) who’s squandered family money based on coffee plantations in Haiti, echoes of slavery that we’re all too familiar with now, and that likely flourished in Reagan’s morally bankrupt 80s. Ryan’s predatory gaze on the daughter of the voodoo priest is disturbing. The interesting parallel here is that after the first death (which is really quite gory and well directed, with cutaways to a screaming Black woman’s face underwater), the voodoo goddess attached to the mask by curse (“It is I who made your father’s plantation flourish”) initiates a kind of relationship with Walters, just as scenes of Ryan on a date with voodoo daughter are occurring. The intercutting here makes it clear that the two relationships between white men and Black women aren’t so different, despite Ryan’s (ostensibly) more evolved sensibilities. But still, that look he gives her. Yeesh. Erin: I second that “yeesh” and raise you a blargh. K: The scene following the second death is cut in a curious way as to largely privilege the male voices explaining the backstory. Micki is nearly cut out of the scene (she gets one close-up after she asks a question). Stacey enters to tell the story of the voodoo priestess, Laotia, a threat to men. The dynamics here are interesting: the editing largely cuts the women out, but the threat is of a feminine curse. Stacey and her grandfather, Hadley, stand on interesting sides of a dynamic—he, denying that she saw anything supernatural, and she, fully believing in what she saw during the ritual. I find bird attacks really unnerving, and the attack on Ryan doesn’t disappoint. When he shows up later, though, he says, “a crow got me, in the neck,” and one second later he has a little scratch on his face and his neck looks just as deliciously smooth as ever. Ahem. The social integration of white and Black is interesting here, especially since the Haitian community seems otherwise so segregated. Ryan and Micki and Jack are like the only white folks walking through the ceremonies; yet the camaraderie between Jack and Hadley (Hedley?) is natural. Once again, the logic of the curse makes good sense here. Four elements, four voodoo guardians of the elements, and the holder of the mask must destroy them to give Laotia her “new body.” Things get a little fuzzier though when Laotia captures Stacey—I guess because she represents the next generation of guardians? Kind of a dud climax for a rather good episode otherwise. E: Well, that was a VAST improvement on the previous episode; it broadened the story world and those in it; I’m curious if this is something that will continue as the story moves forward. One thing that was a challenge in season one is, to a great extent, the isolation of the Curious Goods trio; they had one another, but there was no real sense of a broader community (except the one Halloween party and the occasional old friend of Jack’s or boyfriend of Micki’s). There is a massive critique of colonialism here; although the past referenced here is fairly recent, it suggests, quite rightly, that the scars left by slavery and exploitation are not easily cured. I found myself massively uncomfortable with entitled white douche (EWD) being called “master,” even though in both instances (father and son), she is conforming to their stereotypes in order to get what she wants. Yet power dynamics and powerlessness are an ongoing theme; one could certainly garner more sympathy for Loatia than Leslie (the murdering mom from “What a Mother Wouldn’t Do”); she too is willing to sacrifice others for herself, but how big a role to the circumstances of her life and those around her play? (I may be giving this more thought than it warrants.) K: I don’t think you are. The dynamics here are in some ways as interesting as they are in Val Lewton and Jacques Tourneur’s I Walked with a Zombie, with white “masters” presiding over what is essentially a slave plantation, yet also where the voodoo tradition and Black culture ultimately really do pull the strings, despite even the mother trying to infiltrate and puppet them with her science-based manipulations. E: Generations play a huge role here as well. Note that Stacy’s attempts to warn the other Legbas (all of whom are older than she is) is dismissed to their peril. Laotia wants more life at the expense of her granddaughter (among many others). EWD is pathetic and lame and wasted the family fortune (remind you of anyone?); he has no interest in working for anything, and yet sadly, that’s clearly more preferable than his father, who was clearly horrible and did anything to make money and wield power. On both sides, then, you have an older generation with no sense of responsibility to the younger, and focused entirely on their own needs and wants, regardless of cost. Structurally, this also worked really well. The curse was logical, Laotia was a smart villain (she knew exactly how to manipulate EWD, calling on his sense of entitlement, flattering him, and assuming he was racist and/or sexist enough to dismiss any thought she might have an agenda in getting him to put on SCARY DEATH MASK. I mean, DUH). The interspersed black and white scenes were a good touch (I looked it up; they are from a 1947 documentary called Divine Horsemen: The Living Gods of Haiti). K: I knew the footage looked familiar. I love Maya Deren. Watch Divine Horsemen below. E: The resolution was a bit weak; Ryan pushes the mask out of her hands? Also, I can’t speak to the accuracy of how Haitian culture or voodoo was presented, but at least the characters of color got to tell their own story, rather than having it filtered through Jack (mostly; he does have a long monologue at the beginning).
Watch Divine Horsemen by Maya Deren below:
Season 1, Episode 25: "What a Mother Wouldn’t Do" (Neil Fearnley, director; Bruce Martin, writer)
In which a mother’s heart will emphatically NOT go on if she can’t save her child.
The Goods: A pregnant woman, faced with the death of her unborn child, encounters Lewis, who provides her a crib that will ensure her child will live, but only at the expense of others.
The Cheese: Leslie’s (the mom in question) over-the-top performance The Sins: Envy (of others who have kids), and Greed (more life for her child, no matter what) The Verdict Kristopher: Abortion at the forefront here. Yikes! But the issue isn’t carried forward very far. Too bad; horror is about being uncomfortable, but once they abandon the discomfort of abortion, the episode plays like a dark comedy. Oh no, the baby’s crying! We’d better go out and kill someone to pacify her! I like that initially we’re in a past narrative here with Louis/Lewis Vendredi selling the cradle to the expectant aborter—er, mother. Alas, the baby is born. According to Wax, the mother “Leslie Kent is one of the most sympathetic curse-users in the series” (153). Um, no. In fact, I find her a hilarious caricature, a reading the episode supports in scenes like the one in the park just after the birth, where she’s sitting on a bench with an empty wheeled carriage waiting to kill the doctor, and reading Rosemary’s Baby! Hahahah! Erin: Oh lord. I really should read the Wax book; that is a tragic mis-reading of Leslie’s character, and I don’t think that was Martin’s intention, given the way she was written. It is, however, not out of line with that era’s portrayal of women who a) wait to have children and thus “age out” of easily getting pregnant, or b) the bullshit “baby hunger” that women were told they should feel instead of having a career. (See: almost every romantic comedy of the 1980s, and Fatal Attraction.) K: This is a twisted idea, the baby that shouldn’t be alive is kept alive in the cradle by murders that feed it. The Titanic backstory is kind of cool, the seven people on a lifeboat refusing to take the cradle and that being related to the seven necessary deaths to keep the child alive. Lewis Vendredi has conveyed the Titanic narrative to the young mother; the folkloric aspect here of stories that need to be transferred to remain alive is interesting. Even more so than the baby kept alive by death(s). E: Ooh, I like that! And it’s not a bad metaphor for these types of series: urban legends, folklore, etc kept alive for a new generation, no matter how horrific they are. K: Acting note: The babysitter actress is really great, like, way better than all of the secondary actors in the show, and some of the main ones (I’m looking at you, Robey). Overall, this was a solid episode, with a premise that might have been mined for more disturbingly political material. I’m glad the babysitter ended up with the baby, even though she became a little creepy and sinister. That last shot and bit of dialogue on the bus reminds me of Shirley Jackson stories. E: See below; I had the same thought! It’s interesting; abortion on TV in the US has always been a fraught topic; I can count on one hand (still!) how many series have actually addressed it, and with one exception it is always either a “very special episode” (see: Maude) or borderline horror (woman driven nuts by having had one, or nearly dies after a botched one). (If you’re curious, the single exception I know of is Crazy Ex-Girlfriend’s episode “When Will Josh and his Friend Leave Me Alone?” in which it is treated as something someone does for her own reasons, with no moralizing or horror.) There is a surprisingly broader subtext here, whether they intended it or not; the late 1980s were when groups like Operation Rescue started targeting clinics; the violence they employed was justified, in their view, because they were “saving babies.” Whether this episode intended to problematize that point of view or not, that’s pretty much what they did: it doesn’t present her behavior as OK because she’s saving a/her child. Given the time period, that’s a surprisingly nuanced take. K: This is a really great observation around context. This episode becomes a bit like the “Badge of Honor” episode in the sense that its unevenness speaks to the 80s socio-political context; awkward and uneven, but important. E: Unlike some of the first season episodes, I found this one to be fairly logical: seven people died for refusing to help a child in distress; thus the curse requires seven deaths to save a child in distress. (It also confirms what’s been suggested but I’m not sure explicitly stated: Lewis “writes” the curses. And again we have the return (which seemed less emphasized in some of these later episodes), of the object drawing the person. Speaking of nuance: it was nice to see a less emotionally fraught conversation about the toll of the work on the Curious Goods crew, and the way Ryan acknowledges that it means they see the “worst” of people. Building on that going forward? K: Nice observation. I’d like to think they’ll build on this. The Wax book includes interviews (also mentioned above) that speak to the attempt to create a more psychologically realistic series, particularly around character motivation and the logic around the curses. E: Other things that showed there was thought (and occasionally humor) going on in this episode: Leslie reading Rosemary’s Baby while sitting on the park bench. K: Totally! I love it! E: The presence of the aquarium on the kitchen counter underscoring the “water” motif. And the most effective, in my opinion; the whole scene as Debbie’s preparing to take a bath is shot low, almost from a “child’s-eye” perspective. That was next level, seeing as she is about to be sacrificed to help a child. K: Didn’t notice these latter two details. Good eye! E: Also: that baby was really cute, but I was getting a sort of Jackson-ian vibe off that bus trip at the end. K: Absolutely, yes! E: While, aside from the baby shower, it doesn’t show Leslie interacting with a group of women—particularly women with kids—I think it’s implied that she is envious of anyone with a child. Greed is also a factor, as she wants more time and more life for her sick child. K: That makes sense. I definitely think envy is intimated, as you say, in the very circumstance, and greed even more so in the fact that she will have this baby even at the price of introducing a child into the world who may suffer because of her selfish need to have it.
Season 1, Episode 26: "Bottle of Dreams" (Mac Bradden, director; Roy Sallows, writer)
A bottle episode meets a clip show to produce the worst episode of the season.
The Goods: Ryan and Micki get trapped in the vault with an artifact that makes them relive their worst memories, and worse, tortures both them and the audience with endless clips of past episodes.
The Cheese: Everything. Everything is the cheese. The Sins: Sloth, on the part of the entire cast and crew. The Verdict Kristopher: Wax attributes the clip reel style of this episode to a massive and long writer’s strike. It’s really too bad. The framing story is really weak. The only cool effect is when Micki and Ryan keep slipping into the “nightmare” (aka, previous episodes’ climaxes), there are some cool video effects where we see the magnified video frame edge. Because the series was shot on 35mm, this video hypermediation is really interesting—an awareness of the medium on which people are watching the show, despite its origin on film. Rashid: “Something is trying to get through!” (Answer: a good episode.) I fast-forwarded through the recapped episodes. Erin: Best line of the rewatch so far goes to you! K: Jack’s entry into the “nightmare” seems to have put him in that place where Carol-Ann goes in Poltergeist. He sees his son there, which is creepy and twisted. Chris Wiggins doesn’t exactly give it his all (in Canadian slang, “give-er”) in this scene. Wow. This is the worst episode by far of the season/series. In Wax (156-7), there is some detail on how the strike affected the show. Apparently there was a serious shift in the creative staff as a result. Zicree felt alienated, and William Taub seems to have left. It will be interesting to see how Season Two stacks up considering that the “roll” Zicree feels they were on with Season One, essentially ended here. I just scanned through the episode credits for seasons two and three, and Zicree is gone. Here’s hoping the show finds its footing anew. E: Yup, this was the opposite of good, although understandable (to an extent) given the circumstances of the ‘87 writer’s strike. It combines two staples of mainstream US television of the ‘80s—the bottle episode (I see what you did there, show!) and the clip show—and in neither instance well. It is possible to have these constraints and still produce a good episode; nearly every series (particularly of this genre, because of the expense) have bottle episodes as a way to balance the budget ahead of the finale: “Older and Far Away” on Buffy and “Spin the Bottle” (I see what you did there, Joss!) on Angel are examples of how it can be done logically. Clip shows have generally gone out of fashion (I remember reading that the Aaron Spelling-produced series Charmed did one or two in the 2000s, but, Aaron Spelling. What do you expect?). “Bottle of Dreams” falls into every pitfall one can imagine, not just of the clip show and bottle episode, but episode narrative and structure more generally. Rando guy in a turban shows up (way to avoid stereotypes!) with the cursed object (weird sped up editing on his exit; did you notice that?), prompting Micki and Ryan into the vault. Why both? The clips go on for way too long, and there seems to be no logic to them. Why is it Micki’s nightmare that prompts the “Scarecrow” clip? Wasn’t it way more traumatic for Ryan? The last-minute revelation that Jack had a son who was a powerful psychic. (Why couldn’t that have been the episode?) K: Agreed. It was a really cool idea, and could even have framed this entire clip reel episode, instead of two guys standing and staring at a jug. E: Also, literally every shot of Micki screaming showcased her boobs. It made me think that the framing “party” at the start was basically to put Robey in a slinky dress and then shoot every reaction scene in the vault as if she’s having the world’s most terrifying orgasm. K: Indeed. And this may be my favourite line of yours thus far as well. E: So, yes. BAD. But there were a few bright spots. Actually one. Despite the fez (aren’t fezs Turkish?), I rather liked Rashid; I wouldn’t mind seeing more of him. He was low-key, got some of the best lines (“Satan won’t fight fair”) and basically told Lewis to fuck off. In fact, we could trade Micki for Rashid; I’d be good with that. K: I wonder if you’ll still like Rashid after his second (and final) appearance on the show, in “Doorway to Hell.” I find him unbearable and unbelievable. In the Wax book, the actor talks about how he had to put on the accent. Um, yep, it sounds like it. Literally, all Rashid ever does is stare at some object with wide eyes and make silly pronouncements. I find it hard to sit through. Regarding trading Micki for Rashid, I suspect you will feel differently when you see her performance in “And Now the News”! E: That’s a bummer. ‘Cause it seemed like in this episode the actor seemed simultaneously aware of the ridiculousness of the material and leaning into it at the same time, which I appreciated. K: That rings true. He’s aware of hamming it up. But it just sort of stops there for me! All of the interviews in Wax testify to that fact that they really liked that character, and that even though he doesn’t really appear again, it feels as though he is a major part of the series going forward.
Onward, to season 2! . . .
Season 1, Episode 23: "Badge of Honor" (Michelle Manning, director; Roy Sallows, Jim Henshaw, writers)
Friday the 13th Meets Death Wish via Miami Vice.
The Goods: A beaten-down old cop stumbles across the means to revenge himself on the criminals who targeted his wife, while an ex-boyfriend of Micki’s reappears and acts as shifty as possible.
The Cheese: The return of the sex saxophone, with the added bonus of playing during a violent shoot-out. / The dubious treat of a Robey-sung song playing at a disco. / The shrugging off of Tim’s death / The amazing disappearing shoulder wound. / Naming anyone “Cooter.” The Sins: Given the focus on revenge, wrath. The Verdict Kristopher: Is this the first female director for the series? It comes up in the Wax book that Manning had just directed a music video with a similar aesthetic to this episode (142). Yet, I can’t find said video … IMDb lists her as the producer of 1988’s “Ry Cooder: Get Rhythm,” but not as director. Plus, it seems to me that Ry Cooder is not exactly The Hunger aesthetic type. Manning produced Sixteen Candles and The Breakfast Club, and went on to direct episodes of Miami Vice after this gig. It’s interesting that between 1989 and 2008, she seems to have dropped off the map in terms of directing, but from 1997 to 2005 served as production president for Paramount Pictures. From 2008 to the present, she returned to some fairly big projects, including an upcoming horror film called The Lost Girls (which I had hoped would be a female version of The Lost Boys, but seems like a kind of castaway story). Erin: Ry Cooder? Wait, isn’t that the name of the first owner of the badge in this episode? Was she cross-promo-ing? K: Oohh, maybe that is the case. I think Wax spells it “Cooter” in the book, but this would make sense. Still, a villain named “cooter” is hilarious to my 1980s self. The opening scene is ultra cheesy. Here and elsewhere in the episode, the saxophone comes in to note city grittiness (gritty citiness?), so the luridness signified by the sax is still there in the link to crime. Sharko has a nightmare while crashed out on his reclining chair, tortilla chips scattered artfully around his chest and belly. I wonder how that dream-vision actress feels about the camera introducing here by shooting up her nose and finding a booger. Is Sharko having a dream about his wife here blowing up in a white cadillac? The hazy flashback effect here makes it feel like it’s his mom … which makes sense when we finally see her later in the episode (shades of Psycho). The next scene with criminal Victor Haas slinking through the Haas nightclub’s neon dance floor is ultra-cheesed out. Here are the lyrics from “Killer Instinct,” the song in the nightclub, as best as I can transcribe them: “I bet you your aim’s right on target tonight! / You got the [?] of instincts, don’t you? / You never walk the same line twice. / You wait around, wait for the kill, boy. / You know it feels so ni-ee-ice! / You got the [?] of instincts, don’t you? / You never make the same move twice. / You never miss the game for your best shot. / You know it feels so ri-eet. Yeah.” The Wax book notes that the vocals are by Robey (139), good evidence that her singing is nearly as bad as her acting. I also read that she paints and writes children’s books; they’re probably fantastic. E: Holy crap. K: Curious Goods and gang don’t appear until nearly ten minutes into the episode, with Ryan in the store reading a comic book behind a newspaper. (Why is he hiding it? I wonder if it is to stoke our sense of his feelings of inferiority to the men in Micki’s life, one of whom enters in this very scene.) The actor who plays Tim Ayers (Micki’s “friend” who sticks his tongue down her throat when they meet) is John Stockwell from John Carpenter’s Christine. I love him. Of course, he turns out to be a counterfeiter—what a dick. He represents everything gross about the 80s capitalist drive (and its thinly disguised criminal fakery). The fact that he then turns out to be undercover FBI felt a bit conventional on the part of the writers. Why not just let him be a dick? The idea of Detective Sharko (great name) becoming a vigilante using the cursed badge is actually a strong one; I like him lurking and stalking criminals around the streets at night. But the character leans a little too close to ugly to make him all that sympathetic. The sax is back! This time underscoring Micki and Tim’s make-out session in a nice combo of the criminal and sexuality. The scenes with Sharko and his ailing wife are creepy as fuck. She’s on a heart monitor and constantly behind a plastic sheet from the waist up, her face shown only as a shadowy, smeared silhouette. The incessantly rotating, cob-webbed ceiling fan over the bed is a nice touch. This is intriguing Hitchcockian homage. (Although what it’s doing in the coked-up aesthetic of the rest of the episode is beyond me.) A serial killer named Herbert Cooter, “the guy who thought he was Jesse James.” Come on. Was it only in the Midwest that “cooter” was (is still?) slang for vagina? E: Heh. I am familiar with that slang, so...no. K: We learn that Gwen (Sharko’s wife) was injured by Haas years ago. And of course this scene ends with the reveal that Gwen is a crusty corpse, moldering all these years in bed. This, and Sharko’s next move, punching a club girl (billed as “Hooker” in the credits), makes him an even more difficult character to be linked to. It’s interesting, though, that the badge as he uses it combines both the “bad” and “good” sides of the cursed object in one act. In other words, each murder isn’t payment for an outcome; it is both payment and desired outcome. When Haas gets it, for example, we’re onboard. And Sharko isn’t doing any of this for his own gain, aside from a bit of vengeance. But there’s no financial gain in his use of the badge. (Wax notes this, I just realize as I read page 143). Wax describes this as her least favourite episode of the series. Despite its cheesiness, I beg to differ. I mean, it’s not good. Initially, I felt the episode’s supposedly gritty crime aesthetic was an uncomfortable blend with the neon dance club and the world of Micki and Ryan and cursed antiques. But the episode feels almost incontrovertibly ‘80s in this way. The addition of the oddly American Gothic bedroom scenes with Sharko’s corpse-wife really throws this episode off in a twisted way (a little more Psycho II, or, better, Psycho III than Psycho, but I’ll take it). There’s a lot going on here; too many ingredients maybe; not all of it works. But I think this is one we could write about in the sense that its unevenness speaks to an era (or eras, considering the odd quasi-pathos of the Psycho references). E: Agreed. I actually think that’s the intention (see comments below). Unlike some of these episodes, there is a sense that Manning is going after a particular effect/aesthetic, even if it doesn’t always work. E: OK, this was a total homage—although since it’s occurring simultaneously, does that qualify as a homage?—to 80s cop shows. It has it all: dark clubs, synth music, shiny outfits, vigilante cops with bosses who “don’t get it,” creepy crime lords with hookers and blow. Like the “Baron’s Bride” and the “Quilt of Hathor” episodes, this is clearly jumping on the by then well-established Miami Vice aesthetic, but weirdly, it works for me. There is a blend here that Manning (and Henshaw) achieves, beyond being an audition tape for later directing actual Miami Vice, of contrasting the 70s aesthetic of TV police (schlubby everyman/vigilante) with the 80s view embodied by Crockett and Tubbs: deep undercover, temptation, who is the real bad guy type stuff embodied by the “yuppie success story” Tim. K: Agreed. Perhaps not homage so much as going for the throat of a current aesthetic. It’s almost like Manning sees it as a calling card to bid for a gig directing Miami Vice, a gig she got. E: Like the other “guest” directors, Manning seems to not only bring her own aesthetic—and the episode is pretty well put together visually and thematically (eg, the song playing in the club at the start is thematically resonant to the episode as a whole)—but also follows Cronenberg and others in not bringing in the Curious Goods team until almost 10 minutes in. I liked the burnt-out effect of his memories of his wife, and while I was pretty sure there was a Rose for Emily sitch going on under the plastic tarp, it wasn’t immediately obvious...but was suggested by the Havisham-like state of Sharko’s house. Obviously, given the episode’s focus on Death Wish style vigilantism, wrath seems to be the main component. He is literally “branding” the criminals with justice. K: Yeah, this was the coolest. E: Return of the sex sax! Like, all through the episode, from Tim and Micki’s dalliance to the scenes in the club. Seriously, did they raid the wardrobe department on the Miami Vice set? It was all sockless shoes (in Canada?) and rolled-up blazer sleeves. Fire the continuity editor, Part 2: Micki had a thing with Tim last summer? Wasn’t she still with Lloyd? How much time has passed? Also, is Tim dead? ‘Cause she was weeping big time for Dewey, but Tim just gets a blank stare? Also, didn’t she get shot in the shoulder? K: LOL, on all of it! This episode has so much cheese. E: The return of the Micki/Ryan cousin love creepiness, now with added reciprocity! Ew. Suspicious of Tim, with the looks and the secretive phone calls? Understandable. Jealousy based on class issues (“yuppie success stories”)? Interesting take. To have Ryan dress like him (and slick his hair back), with an ending implies that this sartorial shift really is doing it for Micki? GROSS. K: I thought I caught in this episode Micki referring to Ryan as like the cousin of her uncle Lewis, which might explain how they’re figuring this weird love interest angle.
Season 1, Episode 24: "Pipe Dream" (Zale Dalen, director; Marc Scott Zicree, writer)
The generation gap becomes a chasm of sadness.
The Goods: Ryan gets an invitation to his father Ray’s wedding; despite lingering resentment, he lets Micki talk him into attending. Unfortunately, Ray’s newfound success after years of failure is the result of a cursed pipe, given to him by Lewis, forcing everybody to make hard choices.
The Cheese: Actually, the episode is too sad to be truly cheesy. The Sins: Pride, but Envy seems to drive a lot of the action. The Verdict Kristopher: The family connection to Lewis comes logically back here in the transfer of the pipe to Ryan’s father. I haven’t noticed this before with Zicree, probably the main writer on the show, but this script is tight, thematically and narratively. It’s a little, self-contained gem, and a viewer wouldn’t have to have seen the rest of the season or series to have an immediate sense of the characters’ relationships, including Ryan, Jack, and Micki. The way Ryan’s father talks about “nerve gasses, stun guns,” not to mention his laser explosive gun with no other interest than money is typical of US dispassionate and non-empathic treatment of the rest of the world for its own gain. The sense of American exceptionalism is strong here. Ryan registers real discomfort with all this, and Ray hits him with an: Oh, “that’s right, you’re the artistic type.” The homophobic coding here is strong. This is a good bit of content to attach to a father-son feud along the lines of toxic masculinity. Ray’s stealing of the plans to the gun come off as a bid for power related to his own sense of potency (the designer is a much younger, handsomer man); Ray’s theft comes with praise, a plan to marry, a possible reconciliation with a son who might respect him, etc—the stakes are high for Ray. The posturing from Ray’s colleague at the factory seems again like a pissing contest. The script is really carefully structured around these male-male dynamics in terms of theme and narrative content. And this isn’t absent when the men go to the factory and the women (stepmom-to-be and Micki) stay home to prep for the wedding, sidetracked briefly by some photo albums—total “girl stuff.” Erin: I noticed the “artistic type” coding too! And aside from the fact that the actor who plays Ray later plays the dad in My Big Fat Greek Wedding, the other guy in the pissing contest looks super familiar to me as well...I think he played this particular type in a lot of things. K: In Ryan’s words, Ray’s “hunger” and “ambition” have always driven him. And because of this the wedding turns to a funeral. At the wake, Jack calls him “a proud man” and says: “When a man reaches the limits of this life there’s nowhere to maneuver.” The scene has real emotional heft, and the entire episode is pretty moving. In fact, it’s got the emotional weight that the prior episode lacked for Sharko. Here, it’s more complicated to love or hate Ray, since Ray really is the tragic man, always seeking fortune and respect but in the end having to steal it, even though it was always there in his son. The Wax book has an interview with Zicree where he talks about the autobiographical aspects of the script: “My father [an aerospace engineer during the Vietnam era] so wanted to be important, to matter” (148). And of Ryan and Ray: “I could understand the corners the father had cut, because he was a little man who wanted to be a big man, wanted to be a hero to his family, but what he was doing was causing great harm to the world. It’s not that you start a monster, but that’s where you end up, because of those small compromises you make that ultimately become big compromises. That is what I was writing about in ‘Pipe Dream’” (Zicree, quoted in Wax 148). Zicree could be describing the context for every white old man running the US Senate right now: too tired to care, too terrified to lose power and privilege, too proud to show either of these as a weakness—so they blow shit up and alienate anyone not like them. E: That’s fascinating; and the fact that Zicree tied his own experience into this may be why it’s so emotionally resonant. (Also: There’s a whole thing in Susan Faludi’s Stiffed that addresses this particular father/son dynamic around the aerospace industry. Well worth a read.) K: The fact that the corporation in the episode is selling the weapons to a Spanish-speaking general is oddly both racist and productively critical of the U.S.’s practices then and now of supporting dictatorships with weapons sales (dictatorships that they will later denounce, possibly shooting other weapons [the ones they didn’t sell to them] at them). E: See my comments below; the Iran-Contra hearings were running right around the time this would have been filmed. One thing in its favor: check out shows like Miami Vice or movies like Romancing the Stone (or even comedies like Innerspace) and the way they portray pretty much anyone from South America. This episode looks positively restrained in comparison. (I’m not defending any of it, but it stuck out as someone who watched a lot of subpar things in my wasted youth.) K: For me, this is a key episode in that it develops one of the main characters and ties things in to the Louis Vendredi history. It’s also a really tightly scripted episode in terms of content and theme, and even gets into a political, anti-capitalist, anti-military industrial complex critique that it ties to masculinity and the rifts between fathers and sons. Both this and “Tales of the Undead” capture the essence of the series, with “Faith Healer” running a close third. E: Whoa. There are certain moments where a series takes a giant leap forward, where everything: writing, direction, performance, is just next level. Buffy’s “Surprise/Innocence” two-parter was one example; this is another. Whether it continues to improve (like Buffy did) or not remains to be seen, but you were absolutely right in what you told me; this is one of the best episodes so far. It moved! I mean, as you know, some of these season-one episodes have been a slog, but this one just roared ahead and engrossed me. I think one reason it worked so well is because it might be one of the first “Curious Goods” crew backstory episode that seemed truly organic. (“Brain Drain” worked fairly well, because Jack’s past is pretty obscure and so it didn’t come out of nowhere), but “Pipe Dream” is different because actually answers questions about why Ryan is the way he is (kind, a bit childish, a dreamer, and kind of needy) that have already been established, and gives them a turn of the screw that I didn’t see coming but also makes perfect sense. It also does a bit of another Buffy trick too; metaphors aplenty! The cursed object is a pipe, with the episode title thus working on numerous levels: the pipe helps Ray achieve his dream of success and wealth and the term “pipe dream” as one of chasing unrealistic expectations. Ray’s potential fortune being built on weapons manufacturing/death and destruction (and Ryan’s distaste for it) offers a nice generational commentary...and both the cursed object and the weapons both rely on death and suffering for success. (It doesn’t seem accidental that the “pipe smoke” and its effects seem similar to things like napalm.) K: Nice observation! E: I also can’t help but think that the fact these weapons were being sold to South American clients was not lazy and vaguely racist scriptwriting, but a reference to the Iran-Contra hearings being held at the time this episode would have been filmed. Also, it taps into the sadness of the “Del Boy” thing Ray has going on; the metaphoric noose of dying without ever achieving one’s “dream.” K: I don’t know the “Del Boy” reference! E: Other things: Given the emotional content of the episode, nobody went over the top (even Robey!) in their performances, or at least not in such a way that took me out of the moment. Everybody was actually smart about things, including Micki taping up the door to prevent the smoke from getting in. The question of influence: Ray’s dad leaves him; Ryan and Ray are estranged, and Ray’s mentor is the bitter and (eventually) evil Lewis, while Ryan has Jack to look up to. Also, I can’t help but think, on the generational thing, that Ray’s crack about Ryan being the “artistic type” was code for assuming Ryan was gay...which gives a whole other resonance to Ray’s later admission that he was “angry” at Ryan. Finally, Jack’s assessment of aging—“a narrow bridge over a long dark drop”—was chilling. K: I didn’t catch this, but it’s the most poetic line the series has offered thus far! E: Can it sustain this level of quality?
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*
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.
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.
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.” |
Critical Rewatch #1Friday 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. Archives
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