My God, the talking!  This is a talkie one.  This  one has more chit-chat than a season 4 Twilight Zone.

Grace Connor has come by to pick up her clothes.  She had been married to Judge Connors for 10 years.  He says he met Grace when he was 54.   If we use the actors’ birth dates, she is 41 years younger than him.  Hmmmm.

While she is packing, The Judge invites her new fella Wallace into the house.  He opens a bottle of sherry, and proposes a toast to Grace.   The Judge drones on about his old schoolmates Socrates and Aristotle.  No wonder Grace is bailing on him.

After a few drinks, The Judge convinces Wallace that he has been poisoned and locks him in a room.  He makes a point of saying the sherry is an Amontillado.  I suppose getting him drunk and confining him in the room is a nod to the Poe short story.  But this time, Fortunato is pissed!

Yikes!!!

As Wallace panics, The Judge uses his pleas to show Grace that she is leaving him for a coward — a 40 years younger, muscular, better dressed, handsomer, more interesting coward with a full head of hair.

Panicky Wallace then shoots his way out, hitting The Judge.  He tells Grace The Judge poisoned him, but she points a couple of circumstantial reasons why that is unlikely.  He accepts this flimsy evidence a little too easily when a stomach pumping would have been prudent.  He realizes that Grace now sees him as a coward.

Post-Post:

• AHP Deathwatch:  Congrats to Robert Horton, still hanging in there at 90 years old.
• AHP Proximity Alert:  This is Robert Horton’s 3rd appearance this season.
• Sterling Silliphant wrote 11 AHPs as well as the screenplay for The Poseidon Adventure.