Moira (Lois Nettleton) and Ianto (John Saxon) are spending the night in a manger just like Mary and Joseph.  Except there is no Baby Jesus and the man she’s f***ing is not her husband.  Almost identical scenario, really.  Well, they are making out in the hay surrounded by animals, anyway.

When Moira goes back into the house, her husband sickly Owen asks where she has been.  She blames the storm.  He sees that her hair has been tousled despite the fact she was not the one getting blown, so he asks to brush it for her.  Even that effort is too much for him.  After being with the studly Ianto, she is repulsed by her weak husband’s kiss.

Moira goes to see the local witchy woman.  For the price of two lambs, the old woman carves a likeness of Owen.  Although, I hope Moira negotiated that she could keep the lambs’ intestines to use with Ianto, eh what?

When she gets home, the doll moves its head when she is not looking.  When she sees the head has changed position, she panics and stuffs it in a sack which causes Owen to also be plunged into darkness.  When she takes it out of the bag, Owen regains his sight.

Not quite understanding the concept of cause and effect, she then throws the doll into a roaring fire and freaks out when Owen starts screaming in agony as if being burned alive.  Well, WTH did she expect?  She doesn’t remove the doll, but it leaps out of the fire on its own.

She grabs it and runs through the moors, then tosses it in the quarry.  She returns to the house and cautiously enters the bedroom.  All that is left is a charred, smoking pile of Owen.

The next morning, Ianto finds her passed out.  He is not happy that she murdered her husband.  He says he must go get the doll and completely destroy it.  Moira follows him and ends up falling into the quarry.

Owen, is lying in the bottom of the quarry and says, “I’ll never leave you — ever.”  This doesn’t make much sense as it was only the doll that was cast into the quarry; the smoking pile of Owen is still spread out on the bedroom floor of their house.

Plus, if the fall killed her, his threat is pointless.  If the fall did not kill her, she has more opportunities to cut this guy up into little pieces.  And what happened to Ianto?

Never-the-less, it is still a good atmospheric ride.

Miss Chicago, 1948

Post-Post:

• Twilight Zone Legacy:  Lois Nettleton was in The Midnight Sun looking both literally and figuratively very hot.
• Moira (per IMDb) is spelled Moragh in the closed captions. But Ianto, they get right?
• Skipped Segment: There Aren’t Any More MacBanes.