Felix Johnson and Aaron Scott are on a talk show after their epic bout ended in a draw.  They seem like pretty good guys, but their girls — holy shit!  They snipe at each other and get bleeped.  It’s funny, but who is bleeping them?  Not HBO broadcasting TFTC.  Not the sports talk show that we are watching live.  But that’s a nitpicky observation.

We next see Aubrey Scott screaming at Aaron’s agent that he better start landing some Schwarzeneggarian parts or else!  And none of that Raw Deal or Red Heat ^[2] shit.  The conversation cuts to Andrea Johnson having exactly the same conversation.  And I mean exactly the same as the perspective changes in mid-sentence, although they do wimp out and pivot on a comma.

Fight promoter Wayne Newton is on the phone — wait, what?  Wayne Newton is a pompous, hammy, big-haired caricature.  Who cast this guy?  Some genius, that’s who!  He is a perfect addition to TFTC — what took so long?  He is enthralled when he watches the brutal Johnson-Scott fight.  The savagery increases when their wives are then separately interviewed.

Both are aggressively trying to land their husband the lead in the new Pulverizer movie.  Andrea calls Aubrey a slut and says if she wants to get her husband a role, it should be in Police Academy 10.  Aubrey suggests Andrea and her husband might be better suited to game shows than the big screen.  The host, who has a future on 1970s AM radio, says, “Be careful what you wish for guys, you just might get it!”  Well they didn’t really wish for anything, bub.  And if they had wished something evil for the other person . . . how would that hurt them?  And is it really so terrible to be in a long-running movie franchise or game show?  Neither one of these guys is going to be Robert De Niro (although both seem to have suffered fewer concussions). ^[1]

Newton has a great idea for the fighters — a Malaysian-Rules Deathmatch!  If that isn’t a real thing, it oughta be.  A lot of talking follows — most of it is from the wives, but isn’t that always the case?  But there is a lot of pretty brutal fighting, too — also from the wives.

Even though it took me 3 weeks and multiple sessions to get through it, I liked it.  The guys were fun even though it was clear that they were portrayed by actual fighters rather than actors.  The wives were so petty and scheming that I think they actually were actresses.

Other Stuff:

• [1] It’s about class, not politics.
• [2] Actually, I have seen neither.  It took me 20 years to watch Eraser and it was pretty good.

The first interesting shot in this episode is of Terry O’Quinn.  And since that comes after several shots of a topless stripper, that is a testament to Mr. O’Quinn.  It is interesting because it instantly transported me back to Lost.

Having John Locke show up as the fire inspector in short sleeves and a necktie just seems perfectly in synch with his Lost persona after being a Costco worker, box company clerk, substitute teacher, and house inspector.  If Juliet had been the stripper maybe they would have had something here.

He introduces himself as “Martin Zeller, Fire Marshall – Violations Inspector” but we know who he really is.  Bill the Assistant Manager tells Zeller he remembers his daughter Hiley working at the club, which is probably not a good thing to say to a bureaucrat with a badge.

Zeller goes into the office to see Puck, the manager.  He tosses some photos on Puck’s desk.  They are nudes of a Zeller’s daughter which Puck had been mailing to him . . . and Zeller has been keeping.  Puck disgustingly gazes at them and says, “been there, done that.”  Although the disgusting part is him wearing a vest-with-no-shirt ensemble.

Zeller says, “You think it’s pretty cute sending me this trash, don’t you?  Well, I’ve got a surprise for you, Puck.  Nick Ciola retired.  I’m the new Fire Marshal.”  Puck denies sending the photos, but Zeller says he’s shutting this place down.  Puck makes him the same offer that kept Nick from shutting them down — girls and cash.  Zeller says “Nick was a good Fire Marshal, but his flesh was weak” which is so John Locke.  He orders the club to be vacated immediately.

Zeller goes home to find his daughter Hiley arguing with her boyfriend.  For some reason, it is staged like a play.  It is widely lit, the ceiling is very high, the furniture is sparse, and the back wall is large, flat and bare.  It really is off-putting, like they were trying for something and just bombed. ^[1]  Her boyfriend storms out.

Hiley says she has been kicked out of school and her scholarship has been revoked.  Now her boyfriend has dumped her because his parents will think she is not good enough for him, not being in college.  I guess they were all cool with her shaking her yabbos on stage at the local titty bar, though.  She says even Puck and Bill treated her better than that.

Here’s where it gets a little too random.

• Ziller gives up his ethics and takes the cash from Puck so Hiley can afford to back to school.
• Hiley tarts herself up for a reunion date with her boyfriend.
• Ziller visits a guy with an ant farm.
• Bic, the ant farm guy, anxiously hides the ant farm before answering the door for no reason I can see.
• Then he sprays something all around from an aerosol can.  RAID, I hope.
• Ziller accuses Bic, saying he can smell smoke.  I guess the aerosol spray was to mask the smoke odor.
• Ziller finds the ant farm and says, “I thought they cured you!”
• Bic was using a magnifying glass to fry the ants.  Unfortunately, he is working in a dark room.  A few rays of sunshine are coming in, but not enough to kill an ant.  And I doubt a fried ant generates all that much smoke.
• He tells Bic that the nudie bar must be burned down because it is full of bugs.
• Well, wait, how is he going to pay for Hiley’s tuition now?
• Bic says, “I hate bugs!” although he seems to love that ant farm.
• Ziller says the time to do it is Sunday when it is closed.  Hunh?  This ain’t a Chic-Fil-A, although it will have the same number of gay dudes inside.  A nudie bar is going to be booming all weekend.
• Sunday night, Ziller goes to the club and the fire department is just putting out a huge fire.  He sees rows of body bags, but doesn’t seem surprised even though he said the club would be closed.
• Puck barely made it out alive, and is still smoking.  He says the club was having a special party for Hiley, and shows Ziller a charred bracelet that belonged to her.

One thing that does totally work is Ziller’s understated shock at seeing his daughter’s bracelet, and realizing she is dead because of him.  Huge kudos to TOQ for that scene.  But back to the griping . . .

• Consumed with grief about all the topless dancers he has left unemployed, and also his daughter, he kills himself.  This is also effectively done, but that is one crazy apartment:  The living room is like a stage, this bedroom is like a Bedouin tent with flaps (curtains) being billowed about by the wind, and the front door has a large frosted window like an old-timey office.
• Ziller points the revolver up under his chin.  When we see his body, the top of his head is intact, though.
• His answering machine picks up a call from Hiley.  “Dad, I eloped!”
• With Bill.
• What?  Where did this come from?  I thought she and Puck had hooked up at the club.  We only met Bill for a few seconds.
• Bill says her father should be happy because he’s rich.  I thought he was  just an assistant manger at a nudie bar.  Maybe not cash-rich, but to me, wealthy in so many other ways.
• She makes that phone call from a booth with all the glass broken out, and in a pretty sketchy neighborhood.  Why?
• At least one small plot-point is resolved.  We learn Bill took the nudie shots of Hiley and sent them to Ziller.  While she’s on the phone, he takes a hundred shots of here.  Seems like a crazy waste of film in the pre-digital era.

This was an unusual TFTC episode, with absolutely no supernatural element.  If you don’t think too much, it works thanks to Terry O’Quinn.  With anyone else, it likely would have been a snoozer.

Other Stuff:

[1] The wall later becomes transparent to show Hiley talking in her bedroom.  It is a nice effect, but is so artsy that it stands out just as much as when it appeared to be a stage.

I kept waiting for it to begin; then I kept waiting for it to end.

Samuel is tapping his cane along a hallway in a group home for the blind to find the bathroom, or so the other residents hope.  It sounds a little funny to him, so he feels around and realizes the doorway has been bricked over.  “He’s bricked up the goddamn bathroom again!  Son of a bitch!”  Think about that.  OK, I guess manager Arnie Grunwald is a cheap nogoodnik, but what is the end-game here?

• Was this somehow saving money?
• Things are going to get nasty without a bathroom.
• How was this done without the blind residents knowing?  What happened to that super-hearing?
• And we are told he did this again.  So did he brick it over before, unbrick it, and just rebrick it?

For more laughs, Grunwald rolls a bucket of marbles down the hallway.  The elderly blind man falls and Grunwald howls with laughter.  That’s just not funny . . . although it might have been if the freakin’ director had only pointed the camera that way.  At least Benny the janitor is sympathetic; to Grunwald’s disgust.

The home receives a new resident, a young blonde woman named Sheila.  Grunwald says the county has placed her there for six months.  He tells her if she knows what’s good for her, she will do things his way.  Benny takes her to the group bedroom which is dark and filthy.

She feels around for a window to sneak out of, but they are boarded up.  Samuel says Mr. Grunwald figures blind people don’t need light.  Their only DVD is, cruelly, The Quiet Place.  Then a train goes by which creates a deafening noise, shakes the room, and for some reason causes the lights to briefly flicker on and off.

Grunwald offers Sheila a way out if she will provide him a girlfriend experience.  She spits in his face, which is ala carte unless you purchase the premium package.  He has Benny escort Sheila back to the sleeping quarters.  She reveals to Samuel and a woman named Armelia that she lifted a pocket-knife off of Benny.  They escape their quarters along with a man who was attacked by Grunwald’s dog.

Another distraction: Why are they wearing sunglasses?  I know blind people wear dark glasses, but the usual reasons don’t apply here.  They are trapped inside, so inadvertently staring into the sun isn’t an issue. ^[1]  And there is no one else around but blind people, who is going to see them?  Grunwald and Benny, but they aren’t too concerned about looking good for those two idiots.  Although Sheila does keep wearing that snappy beret.

Of course, the escape attempt does not work, but the episode is too blah to continue.  It just doesn’t work that 90% of the episode is so dark.  I get the reason, but the way it was shot was not handled well.  Properly done, it would have been effectively contrasted with Grunwald’s lighted areas, and given some greater meaning.  Here, there was nothing beyond him having lights and them not.

The ending should have been fantastic with angry blind people getting revenge, a starving attack dog, walls lined with razor blades, and a girl in a beret.  Sadly, the look and the score just didn’t support the concept.

The same story was done much better in the 1972 Tales from the Crypt movie.  I actually gasped at the movie’s ending with the dog and the razor blades.  Watching that scene in both productions is a great illustration of what a little artistry can do.

Other Stuff:

• Title Analysis:  Hunh?  Revenge is the Nuts?  Was “the nuts” a thing in the 90’s like “the shit”?  It might have been worth this tedious episode if the killer dog had gone right for his nuts at the end.  If he had done it at the beginning, it would have been even better.
• [1] Is that even an actual reason for wearing the glasses?  They’re blind, not stupid.

The scariest part about this episode is the first scene where the geeky computer dweeb eats a candy bar, then carefully folds the wrapper up length-ways exactly as I do.  Luckily, this compulsive OCD lunatic tucks one end into the other to make a ring, whereas I tie the wrapper in a knot.  Totally different.

Nelson is a twitchy dweeb lacking in self-confidence, and is taken advantage of by co-workers.  He must never have gotten a Participation Trophy. In his case, an Existence Trophy might have been more appropriate.

Coming home after a rough day at work, though, there is a ray of sunshine.  He is getting the cute across-the-hall neighbor I never had (sorry, Karen).  She mistakes him for the mover, but it’s a start.  As he closes his door, a dude leaps out of his chair wearing a red smoking jacket and yellow ascot.  He is smiling like an idiot, clapping his hands, yelping, “Daddy’s Home!  Daddy’s Home!”  It is reasonable to guess that his dog somehow became human, but no.

This weirdo, Eddie, mocks the evening before them.  There is the telescope pointed at a 400 pound neighbor in her underwear, the microwaved leftovers, and surfing the internet.  Unfortunately, this is conveyed with Robin Williams style antics and voices.  But it is about as funny as watching Robin Williams after you know what happened to him.  Eddie chews him out for letting people at work take credit for his work.

They are interrupted by Nelson’s new neighbor Jane knocking.  The phone company did not show up, and she wants to use the phone.  In possibly the only gag that works in the episode, Nelson opens his door with the still-yapping Eddie behind it. He invites Jane in.  When he closes the door, Eddie is gone.  Bravo!  And not just because of the absence of Eddie.  But partly that.

OK, so Eddie is the suppressed wildman inside of Nelson.  Nelson and Jane go out for Chinese.  She is very impressed when Nelson orders in Chinese.  Oh boy, Eddie shows up again.  He talks in an exaggerated Chinese accent and begins feeling Jane up, though, she is unaware.^[1]  She says she is a psychologist and Eddie quite reasonably wants them to scram.

Nitpick:  Both Nelson and Jane are both socially awkward because they were years younger than their schoolmates.  Jane says, “I was the 3rd youngest person to graduate my college.  I can’t imagine what hell the other two went through.”  Hunh?  Actually wouldn’t she be the only one who could understand?

Anyhoo, she and Nelson have the sex.  Nelson and Eddie duke it out over whether to bail on her.  At one point, Nelson charges at Eddie.  I expected Nelson to 1) dive inside Eddie like Neo did to Agent Smith in The Matrix, or 2) run right through him and out the window behind him.  Again TFTC takes the mundane route — during the fight, Eddie just throws Nelson out the window.  This causes problems.

1. When Nelson flew out the window, it didn’t break, it just sort of shimmered.  OK, they couldn’t kill Nelson, but when did this become a dimensional portal issue?
2. At work the next day, we see Nelson, but with Eddie’s personality.  Nelson faded away, so when did Eddie physically become Nelson?  Presumably before he walked back into to the bedroom and continued boning Jane. ^[2]
3. How long before someone throws Nelson out a window because he has become such a f*** ing douchebag?

Meh, they should have made Eddie a dog like I first thought.  The weakest part of the episode is just that Eddie is sooooo grating, is it torture when he is on the screen.

Other Stuff:

• [1] He also does a little Elvis which is cool because the actor played Elvis in Forrest Gump that same year.  He also played Elvis again 13 years later in Protecting the King.
• [2] A commenter at IMBb says the Eddie actor assumes Nelson’s position at work but no one notices.  No, even with partial face-blindness, I recognize him as the actor who will go on to star in the dreadful 9th season of 24.

They are going for a meta motif tale about a sub-par story being handed in just before deadline at the office of the Tales from the Crypt comic book.  The episode seems even more meta than they realized.

In a dark seedy hotel room, Jerry calls floozy Velma to get in the tub with him.  Surprisingly, he is wearing a t-shirt and an open dress-shirt in the filled tub.  More surprising to him, I suspect, is the belt that Mr. Velma loops around his neck to kill him.  He strangles Jerry as he thrashes about in the water.  Thankfully, he not Porky-Pigging it but does have on some fabulous blue plaid boxers.  In the tub.  In the water.

The topless Velma cheers her husband Roger on as Jerry croaks; then dies.  The couple had used Jerry in a con, and were just getting rid of him.  Roger criticizes her for enjoying her work too much.  She admits she had some good memories.  Suddenly Jerry rises up and breaks her husband’s neck.  He says, “I’m glad you feel that way.  I’m all choked up!” as he reaches for her throat.  She screams, and that frozen shot dissolves into the last panel of the TFTC comic book submission from Rolanda.  Good stuff.

But what do I know?  Her editor Vern says he doesn’t understand.  Is Vern dead?  Is Roger dead?  Is one or both of them a ghoul?  “What kind of ending is that?”  Vern declares it “a piece of shit.”  Even with 2 hours to deadline, the story is deemed not good enough. ^[1]  He fires her and has security throw her off the elevator in a nice little uncushioned fall by Rita Rudner.  She comes back that night and blows him.  Away.  For some reason, 6 cops are waiting in the lobby and blow her away.

She wakes up the next morning to a sunny day, birds chirping, and complete lack of being dead.  The vignette with Roger, Jerry & Velma plays again, although notably beginning this time after Velma put on a bra.  Rolanda is stunned as the day replays just as it did before with Vern hating her submission and him having to use the story about the head.

Again, Vern calls her into his office.  This time she stops his hand from buzzing security; although it was later in the day when security killed her the first time.  I guess this, at least, saved her from being thrown to the floor again.

That night she goes back to see Vern.  To be safe, she leaves the gun at home.  Vern pulls his own gun on her, though.  In a scuffle, she ends up killing Vern in this iteration also.  She gets on the elevator and pushes floor 13 rather than 1 as she did before.  Wait a minute, I understand her not wanting to go to 1, fearing she would be shot.  But why go UP to 13?  Then what?  What’s the plan?  Why not just go down to the 2nd floor and take the backstairs?  No good, the cops are miraculously waiting for her on 13 and mow her down.

She wakes up the next morning to a sunny day, birds chirping, and complete lack of being dead.  Both Velma and her boobs are MIA this time.  Rolanda tears up her story and calls in sick.  While she’s on the phone, Vern rings her doorbell.  He came to tell her she’s fired, then pulls a gun on her.  Wait, what?  What is the motivation for that?  Sure, he is under pressure with the deadline, but he was under pressure in the other iterations also.

But he turns the gun on himself and fires.  Again, why?

Like all innocent people on TV, she picks up the weapon just as the cops arrive.  Surprisingly, they do not riddle her with bullets this time.  I assume she got a fair, though incorrectly decided, trial because she is facing a firing squad.  They fill her full of lead and that scene dissolves into the last panel in a new comic strip.

The scene reboots again.  The roles are reversed and she begins speaking Vern’s dialogue from earlier in the show.  There is a new bit about him using her likeness in the comic which does not belong because it introduces a new element.  When she calls Vern into her office to fire him, he says “Oh shit.”  But why?  This is his first iteration.  He doesn’t know what’s coming.

There really is a lot to like in a short episode here, but the story ain’t part of it.  And a tip to aspiring screenwriters, story is kinda important.

First of all, whose story is it?  OK, Rolanda does a bad thing when she kills Vern the first time around.  It’s not like she gets away with it; she is executed.  Is the 2nd go-around a Groundhog Day-esque shot at redemption or her own personal Hell?  In either scenario, why would the roles reverse at the end?  Ya might think, well, karma is going to force her to experience Vern’s death as well as her own — double the torture!  Interesting, but Vern’s “Oh shit” tells us he is now the one aware of the inevitable future.  How did this become his story?

Ya say, he committed suicide, ergo he is going to Hell.  Not so fast, then where is the resolution to Rolanda’s fate?  Did this get her off the hook somehow?  And don’t forget, this episode began in reality, then went into cosmic iterations with magic police and body-switching.  That dimension is where Vern killed himself, not in the real world.

One more puzzler from the reversal scene.  Vern is Rolanda and Rolanda is Vern.  OK, it makes no sense, but here we are.  Then why are the two other prominently featured characters, other TFTC writers, played by different actors, and one is now a woman?  Maybe it is the actress who payed Velma, but that would make no sense because she was a dramatization in the first iteration.  She is blonde, but has glasses, different eyebrows, and a different hairstyle.  If TFTC was trying to be clever by making that Velma, it would take CSI to prove it.  This possibility is also made unlikely by the fact that I have no idea who the new dude is.  He bears no resemblance to Jerry or Roger.

And what is the point?  I’m sure getting killed is no day at the park, but is it really cosmic-level Hell?  Vern takes it in the melon.  Rolanda gets hit by a fusillade of bullets.  Both had to be pretty quick and painless.

The episode is only 20 minutes including credits and the odious Crypt-Keeper.  Maybe they could have ironed these issues out; they had a couple minutes to spare if a scene needed to be expanded or added.  For example, why are the cops magically waiting for Rolanda on the 13th floor?  Ya might say they are the cosmic enforcers; they will appear wherever Rolanda is to mete out her punishment.  True, but they could have made it credible.   For example, what if Rolanda had used my 2nd floor strategy, and the cops were waiting for her?  I would think “good strategy”, they split their team up, expecting such a ruse.  However, I don’t think they had 13 teams in position.

And yet, I liked it.  I stand by my theory that the writers giddily pitched a meta story about deadline pressure because they had to come up with a story quickly after they spent all their time smoking pot and campaigning for Bill Clinton.  But then it came to life when the other creators performed magnificently.

Richard Lewis and Rita Rudner were more known as stand-ups.  In fact, this was Rita’s first TV role.  They both totally nailed it, seeming to understand the show better than most of the producers.  The whole production was beautiful.  The office and workers had a 1950’s vibe, but was populated by dandies and hipster doofuses that I could imagine in the comic book biz.  The suits, suspenders, and fat colorful ties created the perfect atmosphere.  The pacing was brisk and there were a number of wonderfully composed shots.

If the screenplay had made a lick of sense, this could have been a model for what TFTC was supposed to be.  As it is:  Slightly guilty pleasure.  But a pleasure.

Other Stuff:

• [1] The replacement story is about “a guy who wants to be head of the company, so they cut his head off.”  That’s how bad Rolanda’s story must have been.
• From the writer of Outer Limits’ Alien Radio a couple days ago.