Note to self: Do not make “fine mess” reference as it is only 50% accurate.
This is not quite a twin spin. There is a story in the Bradbury book called The Laurel and Hardy Love Affair which tracks the first few minutes of this episode fairly well. However, the short story becomes a traditional melodrama like early Vonnegut, while the episode veers into horror.
Strangers John and Alicia attend the same costume party as singles. Improbably, they have independently elected to attend dressed as characters who individually have absolutely no identity without the other.
This is especially strange for Alicia. At least John has the gut, the black suit, the bowler, and the mustache to sell himself as Oliver Hardy. In a pinch, he could also claim to be a fat Charlie Chaplin or Hitler. Alicia really just has the hat. Never-the-less, once they meet-cute, she does exhibit a pretty good Stan Laurel vibe.
Alicia takes him to a staircase famous from one of L&H’s movies. She had been filming a commercial there earlier in the day. Inexplicably, the crew left a piano case there, but nothing comes of it.
Then they go to a diner and and commence one of the longest, least erotic public displays of affection in movie history. It is even more uncomfortable when done by a couple role-playing 2 dudes. Not that there’s anything wrong with that. However, that is followed by a really nice montage of their courtship.
Then things get weird. Alicia takes John to a fleabag hotel promising to play the titular Gotcha! game.
She gives John white pajamas to wear, lights a bunch of candles and tells him to remain completely silent until the alarm clock goes off. There is a nice shot where she is standing at the end of the bed, and we are seeing John’s POV. Alicia says “Gotcha” and sinks as if through the floor, although the bed blocks our view.
After several largely pointless shots of the candles, John, the alarm clock, and the shower head, Alicia suddenly reappears with a pasty face and puts her bony fingers on John’s face. “Gotcha!”
The alarm goes off and she is her cute self again. “Gotcha.” John is terrified, in tears, and she apologizes. For reasons unknown, he goes with her back to the same diner. He seems to be PTSDing pretty hard. She asks if everything is OK, if he would like to play the game again tomorrow with the roles reversed.
He says no, but as she is leaving dejectedly he says, “Gotcha.” He says it with the blankest possible face, and it is impossible to attach any valid analysis to the ending. Sadly, botched endings are becoming the hallmark of this series.
Post-Post Leftovers:
- Alicia says that the original scene with the piano case was filmed 4,000 miles away in Los Angeles. Unless this episode takes place in Ecuador, that is just about impossible.
- It is weird that they made the effort to have the crate be so similar to L&H’s in some ways (placement of the THIS END UP stencil), but not in others (placement of the cross beam).
- Brad Turner went on to direct 46 episodes of 24 — almost 2 full days — so he is forgiven.
- The Laurel and Hardy theme song, used way too much in this episode, is Dance of the Cuckoos.
I never did understand this story. I could come up with some very satisfactory answers, but nothing I was sure of. There was a Doctor Who episode called Midnight about an alien who steals people’s words in order to gain control of their souls. The lady in this story was saying “Gotcha”, then it transferred over to the guy as if some kind of possession had taken place. I will see if I can watch this story again as it has been over 25 years. But, I hope I can find some explanation for it.
Having watched it now, I don’t think aliens were behind it. It was witchcraft.
To really describe my version of what happened would require several full pages to point out everything.
Things I noted:
The lady dressed as Laurel, but was alone, and without anyone in a Hardy costume.
The game had to be played in a motel in a bad location of town.
The lady told the man in the hotel that this was the last night of his life.
The lady she created the game, “…well almost.”.
The lady said the man had to be good first, before they could play the game.
The lady could not understand the man’s horrific reaction to the game.
The lady showed no intent at any given time in this movie to hurt the man, with the possible exception of when her form changed briefly, and her hands were around his neck.
When the lady’s hand were around the man’s neck, a voice (likely the lady’s) said “Gotcha!”.
A spider had appeared on the man’s hand right before the final act of terror.
The lady invited the man to play the game again, reversing their roles. She also seemed surprised when he said no.
There was something else, but I forgot.
I’ll let anyone reading form their own conclusion as to what happened. Seeing these facts, its easy for me to understand where Ray Bradbury was going with this most of the time. However, the ending is still very eluding, and it even challenges every suggestion or idea I have it.
The train stops here for me for now. But, my quest to find out exactly what the ending meant will resume later in life. In 10 years, I will be much smarter and wiser, and will watch this again. Maybe then, I will grasps for sure what happened.
BTW, no one on the Internet could come up with anything plausible.
I think the final Gotcha was directed to the audience, for expecting an entertaining final twist. Or a good episode.
Ha! Well-played!
That sounds right!
Hi, I just now finished watching “Gotcha!” for the first time as I have no recollection of seeing this particular episode when TRBT aired on Cable TV.
My best attempt at explaining “Gotcha!” and it’s abrupt ending would be to say it’s a metaphor for relationships. Anyone who has lived through a few of their own, would agree that the beginning of a relationship is full of feelings of passion, excitement, mystery, and joy. Sooner or later, the fog of a new relationship burns away to reveal, more or less, the horrors of reality that were always there but were shrouded by daft optimism or perhaps love.
I think the game Gotcha is the story’s way of showing what happens when one or both persons begins to see the forest for the trees. The other person turns out to be somewhat annoying, disgusting, or even loathed by the other. Maybe one’s idea of sexual adventure comes across as offensive or taboo to the other. Suddenly, as if a horrible transformation takes place, the spell of puppy love is left broken.
Think about it.
Maybe Mr. Bradbury would tell me I’m way off in this metaphor. But I have a feeling that’s the general idea he wanted to dance with in this episode.
You NAILED it; it was about the relationship.
notice that the dark turn, with the term “got’cha”, occurs only, and immediately, AFTER he questions the dynamic and permanence of their relationship.
seems to me that, his questioning implied, to her, an impending abandonment/dumping, maybe something she’d experienced previously, thus the “…well, almost”, in reference to creating the game. i’m guessing that the creator “got’cha’d” her.
the game, then, was her way of inducing the kind of terror in him that she, herself, had experienced. to me, the cheap hotel and cheap refreshments seemed to suggest a cheap, temporary, meaningless, tryst.
was that how his questioning made her feel?
I just watched this episode on Amazon, and at first I was confused. Considering the line about it being a celebration of Olly’s last night alive, and the roach motel, I’m assuming that somewhere in the hotel scene are clues that Olly took his own life.
Okay that’s a stretch, I’m just confused what am I talking about… I liked the episode regardless.
Indeed, Craig’s comment from 2/19/18 is well on point (i.e., nothing to see here folks!). lol
A brief explanation at the end of the episode would have taken only a few seconds to comfortably settle the intent of the episode in a viewer’s mind. Alas, it was not to be…
My initial take was:
A. Alicia laughs at John’s well-acted one upmanship, John laughs, and the two live happily ever after, or
B. Alicia does not laugh and is I annoyed that John ruined her desired fun and sharing of her game and the relationship ends, or
C. (I believe less likely) the relationship spirals into a series of each partner trying to outdo the other with cruel pranks/games.
Of course, demon possession (of John by Alicia) fits the unexpected terror theme “Gotcha!”
Having an ending open to speculation is not bad per we as it gives people something to speculate about, but the ending in this particular episode does not engender in me that type of inquisitive feeling, just a sentiment of an unsatisfying experience. Oh well…
You are missing an opportunity to really analzye this episode’s imagery. I personaly believe John is dead — or at the very least a “living dead” entity. I presume “Alicia” is one such entity and they are converted to that form via this “Gotcha!” ritual.
The entire scene in the motel room reminds me of the film “1408” featuring John Cusack and Samuel L. Jackson. The original short story was written by Stephen King and both versions detial the ritualistic attempts of a magic room to consume anyone who enters it. There are multiple alternate ending of the film where the rooms succeeds and kills Cusack’s character or he survives but not completely unscathed as he does in the original US theatrical release.
In this episode the room is a vehice for a ritual just like in “1408” except the entity performing the ritual is visible (“Alicia”) and was able to leave the confines of the room to entrap her prey. For starters once he enters the room and drinks the champagne nothing he experiences can be said to be “real”. I would interpret all that imagery from that point on as metaphorical. During the ritual, we hear sirens outside the motel when the electricity and water start acting up in John’s room. These are ambulance sirens and perhaps also fire truck/police sirens. My guess is the room is either really on fire and John burned to death while intoxicated by that “champagne”. “Alicia” directly told him that this was “the last night of [his] life”. The candles represented his vanishing life force drawn out slowly over the “30 minutes” he spent sitting their in silence. My guess is silence is an invention of the “Alicia” entity as she portends earlier that she “kind of made up” the game. It is an ancient ritual but these entities must regularly update their tactics to continue preying on others as time goes on. If the victim stays silent they cannot call for help or — in the case of people aware of what is going on — shout encantations that could harm the entity. John is dead definitively once the candles go out. He assumes the coffin position laying down face up (“Alicia” said she was preparing a “Chinese coffin” remember?). The part where “Alicia” grabs his throat and screams “Gotcha!” one final time ma indicate the completion of the ritual or just a sadistic add-on by the entity. John cries, though I do not know if it is because he realizes what has truly happened. He never made it to the 3 minute mark as the clock started spinning out of control –inidcating he is no longer in the world of the living but in another dimension where time does not function as it does here. It is up to interpretation whether or not “Alicia” is truly remorseful or as it seems to me incapabe of understanding why John is upset. She took his life, but perhaps to the entity taking the life of mortals is as natural as eating is for humans. Also, though she scared him she made him fall in love with her first so perhaps in the eyes of the entity everything should be going swell: she gets to consume the life energy of a human and the human gets to spend eternity with someone he loves. The pesky issue seems to be the fright caused by the ritual!
In the very last scene they are eating alone in the diner they previously dined in at an earlier point in the episode. The diner is completely devoid of any other presence. There are no guests and no employees. This suggests once more that JOhn has transitioned to the world of the dead — no longer interacting in the same plane as the rest of us. “Alicia”s eating seems performative and John’s reaction suggests that it is in fact no longer necessary though he is overwhelemed with PTSD and may be unwiling to try to eat because of that.
You guys are thinking too much. There is really a simple explanation for the ending and episode. What Alicia failed to take into consideration is John’s extreme fear of the dark…. Nyctophobia.
He experiences real hallucinations because of it. Alicia’s placing her hand on his, is perceived as a spider to him. That’s the tip off to his reactions to everything. In the dark she moves around, turning on showers, shutting windows, blowing out candles. This is magnified in John’s mind as terror, just like a little kid would experience. At the end he experiences at total psychotic break, as evidence by his thinking she was a witch when she sat on him and shouted “gotcha”.
Finally, in the final scene in the diner, we see him staring at her food. God only knows what he imagines he thinks she’s eating. She tries to make up with him, to no avail. When he says “gotcha” at the end, you know he’s officially a psychotic mess and the relationship is over. He’s a man who put his complete trust in a woman, and now that is gone and dashed. “….Laurel and Hardy we would be forever, or almost forever, until everything went to helll…”
Russ seems to hit it right on the head. He very clearly went nuts and had a sychotic break. I am not sure he is scared of the dark because he was fine at the party which was at night. He was genuinely messed up, but when offered to play it with the roles reversed he ended the episode by saying Gotcha like she did at first when she said they were gonna play it. What I took that to mean was He decided he WAS gonna play it with the roles reversed after all. To take his turn at scaring the hell out of her.
GOTCHA!!!!!!!!😆😆
In my opinion the Gotcha at the end was him suggesting he wasn’t taken in by her at all and he was just playing her
There is also the fact that John is in the car stating that the laughter would have to end sometime, though. To me it seemed a turning point perhaps he was considering ending the relationship. Alicia’s reaction almost seemed to be worried, or angry. I almost wonder if either she was always apart of his mental hallucinations, maybe another personality of something (he was obsessed with laurel and hardy) that he wanted to let go of; and maybe he did commit suicide; his demons (mental illness finally won possession. The end maybe symbolic that the demons are still being feed, he is not (no longer alive). At the end his seems just gone, so I don’t believe it was actually him at all… This does seem like a story that came from a book though, like significant facts left out, like significant of location of hotel, and type of funeral.
I think hotel room scene played out just like it showed &, understandably, it really messed him up. In the diner she kept asking if he was ok, then if they were still good & he said ok. I wonder if his “Gotcha!! ” was to him saying they & the relationship, were ok given her reaction.
I’m a little late to this but I was searching for this conversation about this episode. I agree with Russ herbrucks interpretation. I think his fears got the best of him and he imagined all those scary things. My one idea about that ending is…. was he maybe pretending to still be messed up (not eating, looking freaked out at the diner etc) in order to freak Alicia out to the point where she thought he wanted to break up….then when he said “gotcha” that meant he was actually OK and he was getting her back for the night before. Making her think he was so disturbed to the point of breaking up and then saying “gotcha”…..
Correct
I wish ray bradbury would explain the whole story and meaning of it to us all dodo heads .. lol
I think that at the end, when he says “gotcha” he letting her know that just like her, he is the same way and that she can expect the same disturbing experience from him.
Was she a witch but liked him💕❤️💕❤️
Kevin you are correct. I saw it tonight and was dissatisfied and confused. Thank you for this website since I believe I have it figured out now. She tells him to prepare to die. It is implied they know her when they go to the motel because she has brought earlier victims, and that other witches feast here on victims. She takes him through all the steps necessary to kill him, but does not. She says gotcha to express she concealed earlier she was a witch. He is wrecked because he expected midway through the event that he was finished. Instead he walks out knowing she loves him enormously. The gotcha at the end uttered by him is not similar to her gotcha. It was him saying I got you – I have you. He knows she is a witch and that although she originally targeted him as her next victim, by knowing how to dress to attract him at the show’s opening and when to move to the meeting place with him as he was leaving the party, she loves him. He will be fine and will adjust. The ending is a play on the words gotcha and got (have) you. Hope I am right.
In my opinion the Gotcha at the end was him suggesting he wasn’t taken in by her at all and he was just playing her
You’ll be interested to know lead actors Saul Rubinek and Kate Lynch were married in real life (1973-1987). They had recently divorced when they starred in this episode of RBT in 1988. Backstory, or context? Or both? You decide.
I think it was a true vision of how a narcissistic relationship is viewed. You end up just like John.
it was a flat and sad ending to me
Greetings from Argentina. The end is quite peculiar, isn’t it? It’s not like the original story. In the tale, he just could’t trust her anymore, and that was clear. But in the tv episode is different. I thought different explanation for the final “gotcha”:
First, he says Gotcha because he achieved to terrify her by making her believe that he turned out psychotic. But…
a) And his allucinations when he was in bed?
b) And why the protagonist began the episode telling us the story? Why he then doesn’t continue with the narrative anymore?
So, I think that maybe this “gotcha” is for us. For the viewers. He says “gotcha” to us. He just told us a story and made us believe that he was shocked.
After watching this today (it was on the Comet Channel for Halloween) and picking up possible clues from near the end, I re-watched it online and looked for more clues. So I may be reading more into it than is really there, but hear me out.
First, the main clue that got me started: she gave him white silk pajamas to wear, and she specifically said it was for a Chinese funeral. This is accurate; at such events they usually dress the deceased in a white burial robe, and they may also use white candles in the ceremony, as she did.
There are many Asian Yokai spirits that assume the form of a beautiful woman to seduce men. Such as the Nü gui, of which Wikipedia says, “Nü gui is a vengeful female ghost with long hair in a white dress. In folklore, this ghost is the spirit of a woman who committed suicide while wearing a red dress. Usually, she experienced some form of injustice when she was alive, such as being wronged or sexually abused. She returns to take her revenge. […] On the other hand, some ancient folktales tell of beautiful female ghosts who seduce men and suck their yang essence or sometimes kill them. This type of female ghost is likened to the Succubus.”
She was wearing a white dress when she was playing Gotcha!
And she could have been feeding on his Yang essence….
Wikipedia notes these characteristics of Yin and Yang:
“Yin … negative/passive/female … shaded orientation … covert; concealed; hidden … negative”
She was definitely covert/concealed/hiding….
“Yang … positive/active/male .. open; overt … belonging to this world”
The guy was left out in the open, and seemingly unlike the girl, he belonged to this world….
So, the two first met as Laurel and Hardy, which could be taken as a metaphor for Yin and Yang, which Wikipedia describes as, “a concept of dualism, describing how obviously opposite or contrary forces may actually be complementary, interconnected, and interdependent.”
In her apartment at 7 minutes in, she has huge wall art of Laurel and Hardy’s faces, which could be a stand-in for a Yin-Yang symbol. And there is what looks like maybe a bamboo plant next to that. I’m not certain about it being bamboo, but it definitely looks like some kind of Asian bamboo-like plant, so more Asian symbology.
Is that a stretch?
Well, then at 9 minutes, there is a screen that shows The Great Wave, which is a very famous Japanese woodblock print, showing Mt. Fuji in the background. There’s no doubt there’s some Asian symbology happening here….
At 15 minutes in, when the guy is preparing to play Gotcha, there is dripping water from the sink. That made me think of Chinese Water Torture, which Wikipedia describes as, “a mentally painful process in which cold water is slowly dripped onto the scalp, forehead or face for a prolonged period of time. The process causes fear and mental deterioration in the subject.”
Yup. You continue to hear dripping water throughout the “game,” especially near the end.
She also tells him he must remain silent. This is similar to a feature in some of the Yokai tales, like of the Snow Woman (Yuki-onna) or the Spider Woman (Jorōgumo) — who also happens to live by a waterfall (running shower?). Those yokai sometimes let a man live (possibly because they fall in love with him) but they insist that he must never tell anyone about meeting them….
So… it’s possible that the lady is some kind of Yokai, even though she doesn’t look Asian — but these spirit are usually shape-shifters (maybe she just keeps the Asian art and plants in her apartment to remind her of home). She fell in love with the man, and was happy with him, but perhaps when he suggested that “all good things must come to an end” she began to realize that it was true (if she’s and immortal spirit, she will definitely out-live the man), and so she remembered her true nature… and knew that she must feed off his Yang essence to stay alive; he was a mortal, and this is just how it had to be. Like he said, it would end some day no matter what. So perhaps that’s what the whole Gotcha game was about. She gave herself 30 minutes to feed from him, but she does really love him, so she doesn’t want to kill him.
Of course, this was a truly horrifying experience for the man, and it cracked his sanity (like in Lovecraft stories), and it just broke him. The lady looked very upset that it had hurt him like that… but she never apologizes or says she’s sorry (this is just who she is — she can’t be sorry for that). She just says, “don’t cry.” And later at the restaurant she wants to be sure they are “ok,” because she still wants to keep him as her lover (and food source!). And there’s the symbolism of her eating ravenously in the restaurant… she had been “feeding”….
What about the ambiguous ending? Well… as I mentioned, these spirits sometimes instruct a man to never tell about what had happened, but the whole episode was the man telling us, the viewer, about what had happened. He looks right at the camera at the end to tell us, “Gotcha….”
Do we interpret this as him just telling US a scary story that isn’t real? Maybe.
But here’s what happened to one of the men who met the spider woman yokai:
“Initially he kept the secret, but as days went by, the need to spill the story burdened him. And finally at a banquet, while drunk, he told the whole story. Feeling unburdened and at peace, he went to sleep, but he never woke again.”
Happy Halloween!
I’d say that John’s “gotcha” was taking back that he was okay and basically saying, “don’t let the diner door hit ya where the good Lord split ya.”
I think Bradbury was in a hurry to make a script deadline. 😉
For what it’s worth, here’s my two cents. I believe gotcha means more than just a game – it means “I’ve got you,” as in we’re married. I think the episode is, in essence, an analogy for the rise and fall of a marriage. My evidence:
1. Throughout the episode the couple demonstrates that they’re ok with not engaging in typical male-female roles.
2. The concept of permanence is referenced multiple times
3. When the female lead introduces the idea of a vacation, she seems to delight in the idea the male lead will be scared
4. The male lead narrates that “..things went to hell”
5. Male leads blank stair and elusive comment “gotcha” is resignation that his single life is now DOA