So the train pulls into the station. For some reason Henry Taylor is hanging his head out of the stairway like a dog in a car. Why would he be doing that? He doesn’t jump off before the train comes to a complete stop, so he isn’t in a hurry. No one is chasing him. He risks losing his fabulous fedora (and maybe his head as in Hereditary). So why?
He asks the world’s oldest station master if any other strange men have come through lately; men who strangely hang their heads out of trains, I guess. He slips the porter $20 and tells the old man to call him at the Grand Hotel if any strange guys show up at the train station — a bribe known in the train business as a “Kevin Spacey.”
Henry walks to the Kirkland Mercantile Bank, and we see that he has a gun. He asks to see the bank president, William Spengler. Henry pulls out a Letter of Credit and says he would like to deposit it, so I don’t think either of these guys knows what a Letter of Credit is. He is in town researching a book on unsolved crimes.
Arnold Mathias was just killed while escaping from prison with his cellie Thomas Henry. Mathias had worked at the bank 3 years ago. He was hired by Spengler’s father-in-law, founder of the bank, over Spengler’s objections about his juvenile record (oddly, as a token gringo in Menudo). After the old man’s stroke prompted his retirement, Spengler kept Mathias on because he had been a good employee.
Then in 1957, a construction company transferred $500,000 to the bank from their St. Louis branch to cover payroll on the flood control dam at the basin (kudos on the attention to detail here). Holy crap, that’s a lot of cash for the local economy — $4.5M in 2018 dollars! Well maybe not if you are Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez. How many f***ing guys are working on this thing? Are they being paid in cash? Are they using $1,000 bills to plug the leaks? Is the mayor building a new house with a basketball court and swimming pool? Did he buy a Maserati? Did he join Scientology? Did his wife go missing?
A few months later, Spengler got a call that his wife had suffered a heart attack. He went to his car to go home, but it wouldn’t start. He went back inside and said to Mathias, “I can’t get my car started, can you give me a push?” The next morning, it was discovered that the construction company’s remaining $200,000 was missing. Despite being defended by the best attorney in the state, Mathias was convicted of the theft. Henry reminds Spengler that the loot was never recovered.
What follows is Henry dismantling Spengler’s story with Columbo-like precision. Both men give excellent performances, but much credit goes to the person who cast them.
“Henry Taylor” led Spengler to believe he was Mathis’s cellmate, escaped convict Thomas Henry. After Spengler confesses, he reveals that he is really a prison guard named Henry Taylor Louden. I get that he cleverly used the name Henry to plant the seed that he was Thomas Henry, but isn’t it just silly that Henry is his real name too?
Really, there was no name on the Letter of Credit? Spengler’s father-in-law is right — he is a boob. Is this like those bearer bonds at Nakatomi Plaza that somehow could never be traced or voided?
What was the point of the model sailboat in Spengler’s office? Louden seems to know that Spengler had never removed the cash from the bank. I guess Spengler could have bought it as a reminder of his retirement the way I keep cans of cat food and a refrigerator carton.
Louden reveals that he is the prison guard who shot Mathias. I don’t know if that is a great motive for his quest to establish Mathias’s innocence. What he is effectively doing is making sure he shot an innocent man. Most people would want to prove they shot someone who deserved it.
Louden does a fine job of nailing Spengler, but he is a prison guard, not a cop. Will the police believe him? Wouldn’t this all be dismissed as hearsay [1] in court?
It was established earlier that one of the best defense attorneys in the state is a life-long friend of Spengler. He’ll never go to prison unless he tries to steal back his Heisman Trophy.
Despite all that belly-aching, it was a good episode.
Footnotes:
- [1] Who approved this word for release? I get that it literally describes the basic act of you say something and I hear it. But it is in the wrong order. I can’t hear it before you say it. And WTF asked you anyway?
- AHP Deathwatch: No survivors.
An agrarian society on the other side of a mysterious portal which is being secretly researched by the military. Night Visions knew what to do with that premise — an awesome episode entitled 
Slater says two months ago, this facility was a particle physics lab, nothing unusual. During a wormhole experiment, there was an explosion and they discovered this phenomenon. They put on some welding goggles and Slater opens the vault door. The awe-stricken McAndrews gasps. “My God!”, even though all he can really see is a bright light. Slater says they brought in top scientists from all over the place — Cornell, NASA, JPL — but they are baffled by the quantum fluctuations, the gravitational anomalies, and talking to girls.
He is outfitted in a spacesuit and climbs through the gate. He loses contact with the general within seconds and collapses. He awakens in a wooded earth-like area, and finds one of his predecessor’s gloves. He soon meets Captain Kincaid and a woman who appears to be Amish. They take him into a farming community. McAndrews asks, “What is this place?” Kincaid answers, “Call it Heaven!” but I notice he’s stepping pretty gingerly through that cow pasture.
Janet McKay is the ideal, adoring 1950s housewife. Even better, this is 1994. She cooks a nice breakfast for her husband and gets him off; to work, I mean. She returns home from the grocery store wearing an adorable little dress and finds a less adorable woman in her kitchen. She says she is a CIA agent and tells Janet her husband was a contract killer. 
paint, 2) in this otherwise immaculate basement, and 3) which had been left open just long enough to congeal just enough to prop up the gun. When Shelley runs away, Simone fires with the paint can still on the muzzle. The director cuts away quickly, but we are led to believe she was killed in an explosive backfire; deadly, albeit in lovely Sherwin-Williams Rhapsody Lilac.
Of course, Shelley Hack was great. I never understood why she wasn’t a bigger star. The others were also very good in their roles. That includes, to my surprise, Corey Feldman. I’m convinced he could still come back big given the chance. Unfortunately, William Sadler appeared only in the Cryptkeeper segment.