Starring M. Emmett Walsh and Audra Lindley, my first thought was Christ, don’t let there be a love scene.  I just saw one with Tony & Carmella Soprano and my stomach can only take so much in one week.

Walsh is a surly, bitter old man who has just faced mandatory retirement after 47 years on the job.  Now he and Lindley have more time to spend with each other, and that is not good news for either of them.  Lindley is probably legitimately nuts with her animal obsession, and this makes Walsh even nastier.

Eventually he takes up a new hobby — taxidermy — and the ending pretty much writes itself.  His first object d’art is a dog that Lindley had named after him.  He stuffs it, and further horrifies his wife with a remote that can make the eyes light on and off.  Tacky.

The only question is which of these 2 annoying characters will end up stuffed.  You’d hate for it to be Lindley because she seems to have a real psychological problem.  You’d hate for it to be Walsh because . . . well, that would actually be OK with me.

Yet another botched ending as the character who gets stuffed absolutely should have been given the same blinking-light eyes that the dog had — leaving that out was just sloppy.

Post-Post:

• Directed by Mary Lambert the same year she directed Pet Sematary.  Nothing much interesting since, although Mega Python vs Gatoroid sounds promising.
• Co-written by Battle Davis who IMDb says died 5 years after this aired, at age 42. Also co-written by A. Whitney Brown; a very funny guy who seems to have disappeared from comedy.  Maybe this episode is cursed.
• Please let this have been a joke, just so this episode has something going for it (even though there is no pike in the tank).