NOTE: This is the 2nd episode of the final season. Like last week, it is an English production.
An elderly couple thinks they have solved their problem by feeding their son to the dogs. It is the ancient trope of the Monkey Paw again, but that’s OK; it is always fun. They used their first wish to bring their dead son back to life. Seeing the horrific results (i.e. he is a millennial who demands to live in his old room and stay on their insurance), they used the 2nd wish to send him to the Dobermans.
The interesting thing is that we are told nothing about the first wish or their son or the Monkey Paw. The scene takes only a few seconds, and has little exposition. TFTC has trusted us to fill in the blanks to set up the story. I appreciate this new confident and economic storytelling, but if they had been a little more efficient, maybe we could have skipped this atrocity completely.[3] Anyhoo, the woman thinks she is doing a smart thing and impetuously uses the 3rd wish to wish the Monkey Paw to another owner “who really deserves it.” Although, if she were really a humanitarian, she’d wish it back to the monkey. Unfortunately her wish means the current owner must die, so the dogs attack them. I’m out!
Bloody hell, there’s more.
At Mr. Fingers’ Curio Shoppe and Massage Parlor, Yvonne is either tidying things up or making them messier. It is really hard to tell the difference in a Curio Shoppe. She wants to expand their inventory to bring in more customers, but her sister Delores doesn’t want to cheapen their fine reputation. Among the curios is a glass casket containing their dead father.
Somehow this devolves into Delores being criticized for not being married. Yvonne says, “There’s a good reason no man will have you and it has absolutely nothing to do with that ugly hammertoe of yours.” I don’t care for these English productions, but they can be funny. I just can’t see Brooke Shields selling that line. She says men avoid Yvonne because she is dull, “Duller than Buckingham Palace.” Although she is clearly forgetting the excitement when Prince Philip said, “Prince Harry is marrying a what?” [1]
Delores and Yvonne want to sell the shoppe, but the younger sister Marlys refuses. They discover the aforementioned Monkey Paw in a shipment from the estate sale of the couple seen earlier.[2] Luckily, they already know the legend, so we are spared hearing it its origin again (cool, it only took the Spiderman movies 20 years to figure that out). Even knowing the misery that has plagued every single owner in history, Delores makes a wish for one million Pounds. Shockingly, the uber-literal Monkey Paw did not add the pounds to her ass.
Seconds later, the phone rings. Their father’s lawyer tells Marlys she has inherited 750 pounds. This is an interesting bit of misdirection 1) to get us wondering why it is 250 Pounds short, 2) to show us that Marlys actually owns the shop, and 3) to show her sisters do not like her (although, being cute and 10 years younger, we could have guessed that). Wait, so why do Yvonne and Delores want her to sell the shoppe if they are not part owners? After that crazy-ass Entail in Downton Abbey, I’ve given up trying to understand the English. Especially the Welsh, literally.
That night, Marlys is in a car accident and dies. Delores discovers Marlys had a million Pound insurance policy. Delores is distraught that her wish caused Marlys’ death. Yvonne advises her to destroy the Monkey Paw, but she is convinced that she can beat it. Before Yvonne can stop her, she shouts out, “I wish Molly was the way she was just before the accident!”
Seconds later, the phone rings. Yvonne answers, the Funeral Home has asked them to come there. Delores is giddy, but Yvonne knows this ain’t good. Delores goes, but finds Marlys is still cold, pale, and stiff as a board; and not just because she is an English chick. She had crashed her car because she was shot in the head, so “just before” the accident, she was already dead.
This is wrong in 2 ways. First, unlike traditional Monkey Paw wishes, this one has really not caused any damage — Marlys is still dead. Second, the coroner did not notice the bullet hole before? JFK’s coroner couldn’t have missed that. Surely they are not saying that the Monkey Paw increased its scope of work to include this murder. That’s not how the Monkey Paw works. It is Union all the way. If it is not in the original contract, fuhgeddaboutit.
The story further flouts the traditional rules, and for no good reason. The ending twist is a good one, but could have easily been accomplished without playing the pronoun game.
However, TFTC won me over this week. The move to England, which was so off-putting last week, was a actually a feature this time. Starring 3 British babes instead of Bob Hoskins probably helped. A good script and fun direction also helped, but then — note to Hollywood — they usually do.
Other Stuff:
- [1] That might not be true, but he does say some crazy shit.
- [2] It is a sad commentary on the quality of TV that the reintroduction of the Monkey Paw and callback to the opening strike me as brilliant.
- [3] Completely gratuitous — it turned out to be quite enjoyable. But at that point in the episode, I was worried.
- Delores refers to Ozzy Osbourne as Iggy Oswald.
- The Monkey’s Paw story is more traditionally told in the 1972 Tales from the Crypt movie.
Dr. Mark Crest is working on a teleportation device. Bets are being taken on the outcome of today’s test using animals. I appreciate that the betting pools on the board are:
He finds himself back in time, 18 hours before the test. And wearing the same shirt, BTW. Cleo is in a different outfit, so what gives? [2] He chalks it up to deja vu. Julie flirts with him, but Cleo interrupts them. She is already steamed that Mark hijacked her idea for disposing of toxic nuclear waste and corrupted it into a transporter. Here’s an idea: transport it!
Spinster Miss Lowen is playing solitaire with all her friends when the doorbells rings. How exciting, it is the winner of the 1960 Emmy for Worst Casting in a Drama or Limited Series, Stanley Adams! Tonight, Mr. Adams is playing the role of Detective Berger. Although an interesting character, this big, fat guy never once struck me as being a real police detective.[1] He was more like a Peter Lorre character who wandered onto the wrong soundstage in search of a better buffet. Nevertheless, he and Miss Lowen did take a very talky first act and make it fly by.
He demands food which Miss Lowe provides. He drinks the milk straight from the bottle; and that’s in addition to being a murderer. She does not risk spoiling the ruse by offering him the leftover 
Miss Lowe admits she knows the phone number and calls her. She has cleverly called Detective Berger though. Who knew Miss Lowe was capable of such deception? Collins catches on, though. He grabs the phone, but she brains him with a candelabra. If she were Jewish, he’d be dead. He awakens after the police arrive. They bandage him up and haul him away.
Matt and Sally McCoy are celebrating their wedding at this elite cafe named Ray’s Bar. I guess the reception was held there because Newland was diddling the cake earlier. Adding to the class and sanctity of this blessed event, a couple of dudes have attended in their work-shirts with the name of a moving company on the back. Sally is dancing with a bunch of the guys who are Matt’s friends, but everyone seems happy.
Matt pulls the car over, and Sally gets out. She runs to a beautiful cliff overlooking the ocean. [2] She is darting about as if confused and in a trance. Matt asks her what is wrong. She says,”Who are you?” Even stranger, she has lost her accent quicker than Elizabeth Olsen in Avengers: Infinity War. She runs back to the car and — LOL — takes it, stranding Matt.
She says she was murdered by Dan Stapler who she used to be married to. The doctor knows that Dan was never married. Sally — oh sorry, she’s identifying as Karen today — says they kept the marriage secret because her mother hated Dan. Her mother’s instincts were correct as Dan soon bashed Karen’s head in and threw her off the cliff.
My only real beef is the bit where Karen said the doctor asked her to marry him four years ago. It is bizarre how that is shoehorned in, given no reaction, then dropped. I can only figure that 1) a scene was deleted for time, and/or 2) that was supposed to explain why the doctor just happened to have an 8 x 10 glamor shot of Karen Wharton in his office that was not an X-Ray of her skull.