Little Brian seems to be a bit of a firebug. When we first meet the 7-year old, he is getting quite the little campfire going in the backyard, but he ain’t camping.
His sister Julia, who calls him “The Mutation” wishes that he would actually torch the house so she wouldn’t have to stay there anymore. Their mother, who Julia refers to as “Der Fuhrer” comes out and turns a hose on the little fire (not to be a grammar-Nazi, but wouldn’t she be Die Fuhrer”?). Mom reminds Brian that she has told him not to play with matches. The 7-year old outsmarts her by holding up a lighter. If the matches ain’t lit, you must acquit. His mother laughs and gets all kissy-face at his dangerous insolence.
Julia says that lately she can’t even look at her mother without wanting to stab her repeatedly. [1] She hates being there so much she takes out a small cassette player and says, “I hate this place.” She likes it a little better when she sees a local slab of beefcake mowing the lawn. Well, not lawn so much as he is mowing a wooded area whose chief vegetation seems to be dead leaves on the ground.
At lunch, Mom throws the lighter at the Dad, blaming him for Brian’s indiscretion. Mom repeatedly protects Brian against suggestions from the others that some punishment might be in order. Quite reasonably in this crazy family, Dad breaks out the scotch at lunch. Julia opines that “Dad is like an echo. A tiny pathetic reflection of whatever mother says.” He certainly echoes her attire — both sport an odd pairing of flannel shirts covering a turtleneck.[4]
According to Julia, her father said he bought this place to get away from things, but she thinks what he really wanted was to get away from his family. Again, understandable, but why would buying a family vacation home accomplish that? Claim you have to go out of town for work. Or send the kids to camp — that Camp Crystal Lake has a nice brochure.
Julia sees the handyman still working in the yard. She wants to take him a drink, but Mom tells her to knock it off, that he is here to work. Julia later sees the handyman drilling holes in 2 x 4’s. She unbuttons a couple of buttons on her blouse and approaches him. He doesn’t acknowledge her. In fact, he walks toward the house and passes right through her like a ghost. The man, his wood, and the drill all disappear.
Julia tries to tell this to her family. Brian says Mom says there is no such thing as ghosts. Dad says he has heard Mom say that. Julia correctly points out that the hunky handyman always seems to be working here but, like Ralph and Alf [2], he never seems to get anything done. She concludes that he must be a ghost.
Julia is pining away for the “10” woodsman in her bed that night, dreaming of being drilled. She hears a noise, and sees the man pounding nails into the wall, which is almost as good. She tries to speak to him, asking how long ago he died. It is only after hitting his thumb with the hammer that he can see Julia, so apparently profanity pierces the veil. He flees the room.
The next day, Julia asks her mother why she never believes anything she says. Julia’s case might have been stronger had she not lied about crying 3 seconds earlier.
The next day, she sees the handyman washing his ghostly SUV. He gets in the vehicle and Julia jumps in the front seat, unseen by the man. When she touches his face, he suddenly sees her and crashes his SUV. He screams that he just wants to be alone, that he is not responsible for what happened to them, that they’re dead . . . dead!
Julia is suddenly transported back to the house. Now she sees that it is a burned out shell. Brian finally burned the house down. She realizes the handyman was horrified seeing her dead body, scarred by the fire. Mom is able to convince her to accept that they are dead. Once Julia buys in, they all continue living in the sunny day on the lakefront vacation home for ever and ever.
The basic story has been done countless times — one notable example is The Others which opened just 2 weeks before this episode aired. But originality is overrated, it is really more interesting to see how the story is presented.
The actor portraying Brian is just unbelievably awful. For a 9-year old, though, this is really more about the casting and direction than his talents. Plus he was playing a 7-year old, so at least he had range. The father was written as a non-entity, but I’m not sure why. Maybe grief over what happened to his family, but he seems to be more a victim of depression and a nagging wife.
On the positive side, the Mom was very good even if I often found her 
motivation baffling. Julia (Marla Sokoloff) really carried the episode, though. She was in every scene, sometimes just providing narration. She also played a few years younger than her age, in 20+ minutes convincingly portraying anger, teen angst, indifference, insecurity, crush-love and finally acceptance of her reality. She has a great career in shows I never watch.[3]
Overall, a very enjoyable outing; and with Bitter Harvest, a very solid episode.
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- [1] Julia attributes this line to “a girl in some TV show.”
- [2] Shamefully, there are no decent clips available of Ralph and Alf from Green Acres. Internet, pfff! Here is Hank Kimball instead.
- [3] Except when she was Joey’s sister in an episode of Friends.
- [4] When grabbing pictures, I finally realized that Brian shares this sartorial quirk. Mom, Dad and Brian do share a bond that Julia does not, but how this corresponds to flannel, I have no idea. Sadly, unlike Mort’s in the Bazooka Joe comics, Brian’s turtleneck does not cover his mouth.
- Title Analysis: Presumably a take-off on the TV show that had gone off 5 years earlier. Maybe that was the show.[1]
For anyone who thought the 
One day, as he is sneaking to the fishin’ hole, he checks out behind the barn just to be sure. There is indeed a mound of fresh dirt. Well, looks like dirt on You Tube, but I’ll give Shane the benefit of the snout when he says it is just 
The next day as Shane is working on the horse, or whatever it is that you do in a barn, Jennings shows up. He tells Shane’s father that the boy has been naughty — Shane has been trespassing on his property to fish. The thing about causing him to have his arms chewed off does not come up.
The next day, when Shane goes to Jennings’ house, the old man is bobbing for soup. It is just very sad to see his face covered with food, and him have to ask Shane to feed him. On the plus side, Jennings does say it is time to do some auguring. When it jams, Jennings suggests that Shane stick his arm in there.
A woman is hit in the hat by something too small to be a dead bird, and the doorman sees a pair of eyeglasses shatter on the sidewalk. Clearly neither of them needs glasses as they are able to spot Carl Adams on the ledge 17 floors up. I’ll say this for people who go out onto ledges — they always seem to pick the ledge that has the best exposure. No one ever threatens to jump into the alley or down into an obliette-like courtyard.
Police Sargent Barrett climbs out on the ledge to talk him out of jumping.
In another flashback, the man finds Liz unconscious in their home with an empty prescription bottle in her hand. He finds a suicide note. “
A couple of antique store hustlers spot George Hanley at the door immediately after mentioning an “unsuspecting sucker.” They manage to high-pressure the rube Hanley into buying a brass lamp for $20 which is worth millions if properly used.
He is greeted at home by his motley (or 
Hanley sits at a piano and mopes. He spots a girl hiding beneath the piano who claims she is too young too drink. “In the years, I am a child. But I think I am mature.” This potentially interesting — and felonious — interlude is cut short when the girl discovers that Hanley is not a producer, just a stage-husband. Hanley discovers Ann is having an affair with her leading man Unable to get the girl even in a fantasy, he is yanked back to reality.
Back in reality, Hanley finally comes to a decision about what to wish for. We next see the brass lamp being retrieved from the garbage by a hobo-American. When he rubs it, out comes the Genie formally known as George Hanley. He has not only increased the Genie unemployment figures by one, he has diluted the wish-value by going back to three, and has embraced the Genie stereotype by dressing like 
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Little things matter. Usually little things matter correspondingly little; but you never know. Thus, it was not taken as a good omen that the packaging for the series was among the worst in history, or at least since the 
The Inside: Opening the case creates two disappointments. The first is immediate as a little black rubber ring falls out onto your lap and rolls under the desk behind the power-strip where it is difficult to reach and you realize how long it has been since you vacuumed (your yardage may vary). This is used to protect the the facing DVDs from scratching each other — that would be the double-sided flipper DVDs with no listing of the Titles on them.
The very first shot is simple but feels perfect — a nicely composed muddy road with the remains of a snowstorm still piled on the sides. An SUV roars by carrying the brain-trust of Point, Lemon, Diego and Navarro. Lemon is taking care of the injured Navarro in the back seat. Telling Diego to stop smoking like a chimney might have helped. We are left to put the pieces together, but it is pretty clear that they had a Reservoir Dog Day Afternoon — just with a lot more flannel.
After a few interesting shots of Lemon dragging the canoe across the snow, they arrive at an old fort. Again, the show exceeds expectations — this is not only a great, substantial wooden fort, it has an unsettling array of animal horns and antlers plastered across its face. As with every show I’ve watched for this blog, the men have no hesitation in opening the door and walking right in.
Virginia, quite the little Rambo, then manages to whack Lemon in the head and string him up by his feet. Point finds a room full of license plates hanging by strings. The girls have been luring men, and not in the good way. What appeared to be pieces that had fallen off the truck were actually junk left in the road by the girls to force stranded travelers to their fort. As long as they feed the creature, it will stay within the fort and not go out into the world. That is the titular sacrifice the girls have made.
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