Sawyer’s con-man boss asks why he needs to borrow the seed money to finance his latest con. After all, he has run some scams that he brought him some big scores.
The line as delivered makes no sense. The point is to convey that he likes to spend money. Surely, it was supposed to be “I like spending it as much as I like earning it.” As part of “earning ” it was banging his victim’s wife, there is enjoyment in both sides of the transaction.
I don’t really get the whole fraternity concept. But then I’m not much of a joiner; also not much of a being-asked-to-joiner. The episode starts off with almost-naked Wesley Crusher in just his tightie-whities scrubbing the floor with a toothbrush.
For anyone thinking of doing their own blog, let me offer this advice: If you are viewing this episode at Panera Bread, sit with your screen facing a wall [1]. I also have to think Subway would be a little sensitive to this scene also after recent events.
We open at the frat house, populated as always on-screen by drunk bullies reading naughty magazines. Kevin Dillon enters swinging a pledge-paddle — another tradition I don’t get. Wesley, kneeling, addresses him as “Grand and Glorious Pledge-Master Wilton, Sir.” Dillon helpfully points out the dog poop that he has just tracked in. Before Wesley can get to work, Dillon tells him to kiss the bottom of his shoe. The last pledge who refused was hazed to the point of having a nervous breakdown.
Polynesian Night? What the hell kind of cultural appropriation is that? Trigger warning!
Mona from Delta Omega Alpha drops by offering her new chapter to be a sister to the frat; although a sister you could totally do it with. She invites them over for dinner just to assure them it isn’t a “doghouse.” That night, Wesley and 2 other pledges are blindfolded and taken to a haunted house.
Then some stuff happens, and the episode ends. Its all perfectly fine and perfectly predictable. The fake haunted house is really haunted. Well, not exactly haunted, but there will be blood. The ending is a non-sequitur, not the ironic twist you hope for in a good TFTC.
The high point is Kevin Dillon who is excellent, really getting into the campy spirit of the series. The rest of the cast covers the talent spectrum, but there are some brutal line-readings here.
I rate it a 1.5 out of π.
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Peter Talley of this episode: 4.
Brought to us this week by CH Masland & Sons, makers of Masland Beautiblend Broadlooms.
Peter Talley has a shingle outside his shop which states, “I have what you need.” On the window, it specifies Curios although surely they also sell knick knacks, bric-a-brac and give a dog a bone. Is it possible to have a 2-for-1 sale on bric-a-brac? [1]
Reporter Tom Carmichael stands outside; as a customer leaves he makes notes. This being the old days, the reporter a) wears a trench-coat, and b) actually exerts a few calories and confronts the shopkeeper. While he is there, a dapper old man comes in to pick up “what he needs.” Maybe this is set in Detroit because, in his case, it is a pistol. He hands the shopkeeper $5,000 which is what I need.
While we all might occasionally need a pistol once, Carmichael notes that he has seen people leaving with an egg, rubber gloves and a test tube. Presumably not all for the same guy unless he works at an in vitro fertilization clinic. Getting nowhere, Carmichael takes a different approach and says that he would like to be a customer. Talley does hand him what he needs and asks that he not return to the shop.
Turns out, what Carmichael needed was a pair of scissors. He shows it to his thoroughly unlikable, unsupportive, unattractive and uncreditted [2] girlfriend. I think I know what he needs the scissors for. While he is nagging his publisher for an advance to pursue the story, his necktie gets caught in the printing press. He really needs a pair of . . . wait a minute! His publisher grabs the scissors and cuts him loose. Of course, had he not gone into the shop and gotten the story, he would not have needed the scissors.
At the end of Act I, we get a commercial from CH Masland, makers of carpets and now hunting gear. The announcer shows off their new fishing vest which he points out has many pockets suitable for fishing gear and cigarettes. He also points out the many rings for keeping your hands free to handle fishing gear and cigarettes.
After the break, Carmichael comes back to the shop. Talley says that he was a scientist with an interest in astrology; maybe the only one. That led him to invent the machine which gives people “what they want” — when the orgasmatron didn’t take off, he invented the What-You-Need machine.
Carmichael is not happy to just be alive, he plans to blackmail Talley into sharing his secrets with him. Talley sends Carmichael a pair of shoes which cause him to slip and be hit by a car. Overcome by guilt, Talley smashes his machine — the one that he earlier said had been responsible for the invention of the polio vaccine [3]. Sorry, kids.
So while Carmichael really was an asshole and a member of the media, Talley was ready to destroy a machine that stood to save millions of lives via a polio vaccine and who knows what else. Who do you root for in that stand-off?
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Another director with RBT as his only directing credit. Usually, the episode that follows makes this understandable. In this case, however, the episode immediately got off to an interesting start. The dust flying from the chiseling of the titular tombstone, then the car silently going across a bridge. Mix in some interesting camerawork, and this had potential.
Walter and Leota Bean are in town looking for a hotel room in an unnamed city (presumably not Tombstone). The first one they try has an inexplicably repulsive guy renting the rooms. It is a little bizarre as Walter goes to what is clearly just a room at the hotel with the word OFFICE on it. No front desk, no ledger, just a guy in a stained wife-beater with a Bud in his mitt. Even at this dump, there is not a room.
When he goes back to the car, he is berated by his wife Leota, who you would expect to be getting by on her personality. As a funeral procession goes by, Walter says there ought to be at least one room free in the city [1]. I guess this is Hotelville where everyone lives alone in a hotel.
At the next hotel they try, Walter is nearly knocked over by a man running out. They get the last vacant room, but when they are taken to it, they see a large, black, oddly phallic tombstone in the middle of the room. It was left by the running man who was disconsolate over misspelling Whyte as White on the stone. Why the man chose the 2nd floor of a hotel to chisel the 2,000 pound block of marble is not mentioned.
Leota is convinced the room is haunted, but they stay there anyway. That night, the chiseler comes back to retrieve the tombstone. As he chats with Walter and Leota, in the background we see the 60 year old clerk take the stone away on a handcart. Either this ain’t a real tombstone, or this guy possesses the alien technology that enabled the building of the pyramids.
Turns out that another person has croaked and just happens to have been named White. As the Beans are checking out, Walter notices that Mr. White had the room below theirs.
The ending is kind of a mess. So Mr. White had the room downstairs — so what? The noises the Beans heard which Leota interpreted as haunting were clearly from the living Whites below. The noises from above might have been questionable, but the Whites were not staying above.
Mrs. White takes possession of the tombstone locally. Strangely, the hotel clerk is even on-hand, apparently having more jobs than Kirk on The Gilmore Girls. So why was the local couple staying in a hotel? And yeah, I watch The Gilmore Girls.
As the Beans get back on the road, Walter swerves to hit a black cat. Hunh?
There is a shot of a Maryland license plate clearly intended to trick the audience into thinking this was not another New Zealand production. However, the last shot of the episode has the car going past a big sign for NZ alt-band Bailterspace.
Thus endeth 6 seasons of Ray Bradbury Theater.
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There is a new manager at the bank. When a customer begins chatting with teller George Piper, he mentions that the source of his income is from playing cards and getting his opponents get drunk (just like casinos). Piper tells Mr. Manett that he should keep that quiet because the new manager might not approve of such immorality and could close Manett’s account. Of course, this was the old days before a bank could piss away billions and be bailed out by corrupt politicians and tax-paying suckers.
Piper goes out to lunch with a much younger girl in the bank. He looks older than his 47 years, and Millie looks younger than her age of 30. George, despite being a bald, pudgy, bow-tied bank teller is apparently quite a player. Millie notes that he has asked out a lot of the girls at the bank, but nothing — I assume meaning marriage — ever comes of it.
That night, we see George on the phone with another girl, Barbara. He is wearing a lovely smoking jacket over his still bow-tied shirt. His brother Fred drops by — taller, thinner, hairier and wearing a straight tie. 
Fred has dropped by with an investment opportunity, and doesn’t seem too concerned over where the capital comes from. That starts George thinking. If he were to embezzle, steal or extort some cash, where would he hide it.
The next day, Manett comes into the bank to get $15,000 in cash out of his account. That night, Piper goes to see Manett at his home. Piper says he thinks he might have given Manett too much cash. To his credit, Manett seems to be a pretty nice guy. He doesn’t question Piper coming to his home, and pulls out the cash to recount it. When Manett produces the cash, George shoots him.
The next morning, George places the money in the safest place he can think of — the bank. Not in the vault, but hidden in a drawer. A detective shows up investigating Manett’s murder. He asks George if they know the serial numbers on the $15,000 he withdrew. The branch manager is concerned that having such a shady customer will hurt his chances at becoming a vice-president at the bank — this isn’t HSBC, after all. So not only as this a time when banks were honest, this was apparently a time when 75% of the employees were not vice-presidents.
The branch manager fires George for not telling him where Manett’s money came from. He brings in another man and gives him a field promotion to head teller. He won’t even let George balance out his drawer — which now contains an extra 15 large.
I’m not a stickler for logic or even reality. In fact, the old bald guy getting all the young chicks is sounding better and better to me. But there was just too much bizarre in this episode to give it much grounding. I don’t know that banks ever cared where their customers got their cash. Having a customer murdered would certainly bring no disrepute to a bank — we’re not talking about drug dealers and terrorists here.
There really is no through-line of suspense or dread or anticipation as there usually is in AHP episodes. And why would anyone — especially a teller with 30 years experience — ever think the best place to hide money was in the bank?
Really just a lazy outing. Still, I’m sure it is better than what is coming tomorrow.
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