I must be getting old. I really don’t like shows that start off with a lot of yelling. However, because every episode of TFTC begins with the grating, odious Cryptkeeper, the first proper scene is always going to be an improvement. In this case, a screaming woman giving birth in the first scene is welcome to everyone except maybe the priest who knocked her up. They are on thin ice, though, when the midwife looks at the baby and joins in the caterwauling. Luckily, the scene quickly cuts to a lovely young woman getting out of a carriage “sixteen years later.”
Reverend Jonathan is discussing his new book with his agent. His wife Sarah tells him a young woman claiming to be his daughter is here to see him. Young Angelica says she and her twin sister were told by their adopted mother that Jonathan was their father. Their mother Emma had worked for him as a maid before being a good sport and dying in childbirth.
Angelica steps outside and Sarah blasts her husband about his sexual indiscretions. She threatens to go public and ruin him, but he reminds her that she would lose everything too. So, in a sociopathic exchange for wealth and power, she agrees to ignore his decades of adultery with secretaries and interns, credible accusations of sexual assault, and visits to Epstein Island.
Jonathan’s first inclination is to send the girl away. Before Sarah can arrange transport to Fort Marcy Park, however, he changes his mind. He calls Angelica back into the room and tells her that he wants her and her sister to move into his house. He feels that having a family will be good for his image, will increase his book sales, and maybe Angelica will have friends over for a pajama party.
Angelica moves in, but Jonathan still has not met her twin sister Leah. She says Leah has locked herself in the bathroom because she feels that Jonathan abandoned them. That night, Angelica enters the gas-lit room where Sarah is practicing her scowling for the next day. As she comes closer, Sarah can see it is Leah. Her face is disfigured, her hair is a fright, and that dress! Sarah recalls that Jesus visited the home of Simon the Leper, but also that he used his sandal to lift the toilet seat. She gasps, “What in God’s name!” Leah shouts, “Silence, blasphemer!”
Leah accuses Sarah of finding her “hideous, foul, ugly, horrid.” Leah tells her to judge not, lest she be judged, and asks when she last lay with her husband. Then she raises some beads in the air and curses Jonathan for visiting harlots and abandoning his kids and watching Fox News. Sarah decides it is a good time take a few days off. Jonathan approaches Angelica about the encounter, but a few words from the cute sister make everything OK.
Later Jonathan is dictating his latest book to yet another secretary. After a few sentences, they begin having the sex and Leah hears them. When Leah later catches the secretary alone, she slits her throat. This is exceptionally well-done and a much bigger shock than the twist that is to come.
Sarah returns from her trip. She screams in horror because Jonathan’s new secretary is a good 20 years younger than her; and also sprawled bloody on the floor. Jonathan walks in and accuses Sarah of killing the secretary. Sarah says, “Your little hell-spawn did this!” For some reason that eludes me, Jonathan then strangles Sarah to death. Again, this is well-done with the neck-wrenching signified by the delightful sound of a bunch of celery stalks being broken. Kudos!
SPOILER
Blah, blah. After yelling at Jonathan, Leah attacks him. Jonathan pulls a huge crucifix off the wall, and it is finally useful for once as he kills Leah with it. As she rolls over, we see that she and Angelica are conjoined twins with each having a face pointing in opposite directions.
As I said, the kills in this episode are really better than the reveal. This is in spite of the fact that the director made no effort to play fair. The logistics just make no sense in most scenes, but I don’t really care. Despite exhibiting the leaden tone and complete lack of TFTC-ness that this season has often shown, I kind of liked it.
Scientist Jeff Conover is placed in a vacuum chamber to simulate the conditions 10 miles above the earth, except he is more comfortable than a Delta passenger. An experimental drug enables his cells to store oxygen, so he can survive without breathing, which would be good on some of those summer flights.
took 3 – 4 seconds to relive the 4 hours they were at the dance, which is the opposite of how time passes for me at a party.
Dane Ross enters Klemm’s watch shop and is taken aback by the overwhelming sound of ticks and tocks and clicks and clacks of a hundred clocks stacked chockablock like knick-knacks and bric-a-brac on the shelves. He should be wary of this place as it would be impossible to work here without going insane.
After dinner, Lisa walks Ross to the door, and he asks her out. She says she can’t because her grand-father is so protective. However, the next time we see them, they are at a German restaurant where, it is safe to say, they are not there for the food. Ross has been promoted and asks Lisa to move with him to Seattle, which was part of the USA at the time. But she won’t leave her grandfather.
Alarmed by Jack’s report and the newly proposed $.05 postage rate, Ross returns to Klemm’s shop, to find it boarded up. He busts in and finds Klemm slumped dead at his desk just like I expect to go. He has left a note that says he was willing to give his life for Lisa to live. Ross goes into the back room and finds Lisa sitting in a wheelchair. Ross is thrilled to see her there, eyes wide open. But she is lifeless as a mannequin. He hears a ticking and puts his ear to her chest. There he clearly hears the clockwork ticking in her chest.
Minna has purchased the house for her brother Paul and his daughter Ann to live in after the death of his wife. 
Later, Minna tells Ann she needs to be patient with her father who, after all, just lost his wife. Of course she is an 11 year old who lost her mother and a delicious glass of lemonade, so she is the rock in that family. Ann says she knows her father wishes she had died in the accident instead of her mother.
Of course, the magical Song cracks the case. He tells Paul that Ann just pretended Jennifer, Rose and Mary were the dolls to wrap her head around the fact she was living with dead people. “Nursery occupied by something other than dolls,” he explains. In the 1920’s, three girls died from a gas leak in that room. They too had a nasty father, so they are guiding Ann to soften Paul up.
The first scene is yet another example of how the producers did not understand their own program; especially after the bastards shipped it across the pond. It has all the ingredients to grab the audience and make a great first impression. We are in an advertising agency. What better place for some dazzling creativity (well, around Super Bowl time, anyway)? Various admen, adwomen, adLGBTQ, adnauseum are making their pitches for the latest new & improved toothpaste. To be fair, the editor got it, as it was finely chopped between each brief presentation. Sadly, the performers are so lifeless, and the music so insipid that the setting and editing are squandered. It just sits there like the Queen.
On the sidewalk where he just plopped, [4] Jacqueline, Alistair, sacked Adman, and a client are huddled, clearly in cahoots. Turns out there were no cops; that was just a suggestion implanted by the group using the device. Jacqueline says, “You’re right, the silent version is much more powerful” even though v1.0 also made no sound. [5]