Professor Vanya, believing he will succeed tonight where that dolt Isaac Newton [1] failed, is attempting to turn lead into gold. He tells his daughter Margaret, “In a few moments, I will take out of this oven the dream of every alchemist since the days of the great Flaubert in 1382.” That was 500 years before Gustave Flaubert, so I have no idea who he is talking about. Unless Flaubert also invented time travel.
His daughter is skeptical of his ravings, but he claims they will be richer than Croesus who invented the pants-pressing machine, and richer than Midas who founded a chain of muffler repair shops. For the time being, though, he is a little short; also doesn’t have much cash.
He gets a visit from his downstairs neighbor Hodges asking for the 2,000 francs Vanya owes him. He threatens to take Vanya to court if he doesn’t have his francs by Monday.
When the timer goes off, he asks Margaret to open the kiln door. She pulls out a tray, but it is mere slag — 15 years wasted. He is so distraught, he drinks from a bottle of poison. Margaret runs down the hall to get her fiancee Charles — a real scientist. It must have been that 24-hour poison, because he is quickly back up and pseudo-sciencing the shit out of that stuff.
Margaret is afraid the constant failures will destroy her father Vanya. The next time he has a batch in the kiln, she secretly replaces the slag with a gold ingot she has purchased — for about $5,000,000 given the size of it. When she and Vanya look at the next day’s results, he is ecstatic to find a block of gold. That night, Margaret secretly sneaks in and puts the same gold ingot back into the kiln so Vanya will think he has succeeded in making a second bar. Margaret is able to continue the ruse until Vanya tells her to sell a ingot to pay Hodges back. Charles gives her the cash to pay back Hodges.
That night, Margaret leaves another gold ingot in the kiln for her father to find. Unfortunately, that night, Hodges breaks in and steals the only real gold ingot.
The next morning, Hodges shows up and asks for his francs. Margaret was going to take the gold to the “gold market” that morning to pay him back. He sees the gold ingot is gone, so concludes she must have taken it. At this point, he believes he has made at least seven ingots, so couldn’t she have taken one of the others?
Margaret and Charles fess up. This drives Vanya into a rage and he has a heart attack. After he croaks, Margaret and Charles find that his last batch actually did create a gold ingot.
Post-Post:
- [1] Really, what the hell was he thinking?
- A rarity — I have never seen a single one of these actors in another show according to my big bag o’ SQL.
- Gene Lockhart (Vanya) was the father of June Lockhart (Lost in Space).
In a small Italian shack in a small Italian village, a mamasan or mamacita[1] or whatever the hell they have in Italy is praying hysterically. The bambina Francesca is sick. The womenfolk call for the menfolk to go get the doctor while they weep and pray hysterically.
The simple Bianchi family are wary of this whippersnapper looking at Francesca. They seem to have a hard time accepting that the young man is a doctor. He examines the child and determines that she requires immediate surgery despite having no insurance. Her father refuses to allow the procedure, still insisting that she needs the real doctor.
Post-Post:
Bette Davis
The next night as she is ignominiously forced to walk her own dog, Vanessa leads her down a dark alley. Dark alley in the 1950s meaning well-lit and clean with a couple of tidy cans. She is attacked from behind by a man in a hat. Repeat, suspect is 
Sgt Kirby shows up as Eddie is leaving. Davis tells him about Eddie asking for $50 the day before. She is a little upset that Eddie did not take her $500 offer. She says she can still feel his jacket as he choked her. Eddie protests that he did not take her ring. She IDs Eddie as the thief.
Bob Spindler has just closed some sort of big deal that is not important enough to describe to the viewers. It was big enough to score him a commission of $1,500. That’s still only $3k today. A nice payday, but not life-changing — unless you’re Bob Spindler.
From this point forward, good structure would dictate that everything happens for a reason, leading to an logical conclusion. Unless the desired result was confusion, this was not the case.
A stranger bathed in angelic light like Warren Beatty[2] offers to put up the remaining $100. Spindler buys himself a bar! He drunkenly tours his new kingdom. The customers suddenly become motionless or very slow — why wouldn’t it be one or the other? Spindler passes out and awakens in a busted-ass, dusty abandoned building — the bar he bought last night. So I guess beer-goggles work on real estate too.
In the big picture, he did bad. He is consigned to eternity in this abandoned bar where he will be eternally tormented by the sunny reality he can only see through slits in the shuttered windows. I’m totally on board with that; I’m just not sure why we needed more dead ends than 
Jackie (Eric Bogosian) is not much of a burglar. He has just scaled a rope a) in front of a museum on the side facing the street, and b) left the rope dangling behind him. Maybe that jerk can climb a rope, but I’m smarter. Whoa, gym class flashback.
In the next scene, after some unspecified period of time, Jackie is in a white suit on a stage. He has wisely started going by the name Brother John — a faith healer just like the ones on TV; except legitimate. He is kneeling before a girl in a wheelchair and asks for her to be healed. The young actress seems like she couldn’t care less. She does at least give a smile when BroJo yanks her out of the chair and she is able to walk.
Pop Quiz: Is it a Cop, a Construction Worker, an Indian, a Cowboy, a Soldier, or a Biker? This is Hollywood — of course, it is the mystical Indian because all Indians have magic powers. Or, in this case, Mexicans playing Indians as is the actor Joaquin Martinez.[1] He has come to get the Healing Stone which is sacred to his people. BroJo is ready to return the stone, but Harry refuses. The Indian, tells him that after this choice, his path might not be pleasant.
BroJo walks away from the church. He has a renewed sense of caring for people which will last until his Mafioso pal puts another bullet in his gut for not curing him.