Maybe One Step Beyond finally realized that there is just too much sameness in the episodes.  It is a problem that I harp on in every OSB post.  Repeatedly, I use the real estate or pizza metaphors to describe the narrow slice of the genre they exploit.  I point it out every week (i.e. year).  I mean, it just goes on and on ad nauseum.  Nobody likes to hear the same thing over and over and over and over, especially The Piña Colada Song (not even linking). ^[1]

So, host John Newland broke the 4th wall ^[6] this week like Rod Serling in A World of His Own and Ray Bradbury in that episode that I’ll be damned if I can find.  Although, Serling did not do it out of desperation, and I think Bradbury wandered off in a Bidenesque moment of dementia.

While his wife is shopping in Mexico City, Newland goes to a cellar bar where Jose the Porter fortuitously introduces him to an hombre with a paranormal experience that will allow him to write-off his entire vacation.

The drunken man says he was once handsome and could have been manager of a enterprise, or at least an Alamo or Budget.  He tells Newland his tale:

Irishman Michael Berry (the drunk mentioned above (but did I really need to tell you that?)) is waiting on his wife, Countess Ferenzi, as she gets dolled up for a night out.  Just as with Elaine Stritch in TOTU two weeks ago, she has all the dough and abuses her husband.  She treats her combination maid / scribe / hairdresser / bookkeeper Grace even worse.

While brushing the Countess’s hair, Grace hits a snag.  The Countess snaps,  “After all those centuries, could you at least learn to comb my hair!”  This makes no sense as these are humans, not vampires or immortals or DC politicians.  I admit, it did give me a brief, tiny thrill of hope that this episode might be something special.  Spoiler:  It passed.

The Countess orders Grace to fetch ^[5] her priceless necklace.  Michael is finally allowed in the bedroom to put the necklace on her.  Michael then goes to bring the car around since the sexist Flunkie’s Local 130  black-balled ^[7] Grace for being a dame.  After the Countess takes time to call Michael fat, useless, money-grubbing and beyond his prime; and to call Grace plain, jealous, and incompetent, the necklace strangles her to death. ^[2] As she lies dead, we see the necklace on the bed — in stop-motion — curling up.

Michael and Grace go to the attorney’s office for the reading of the will.  Michael refers to his late wife as Contessa, not Countess.  That Italian word is strange suddenly coming from an Irishman about his Austrian wife as they live in Mexico.  Only in America!

Her will leaves the house, necklace, everything else to Grace.  Michael is bequeathed 30 centavos for bus fare to see, “his young lady friend” across town.  ZING!

Some time later, Grace invites Michael over to her new mansion.  We learn that it was a double-ZING as the bus fare had increased to 40 centavos!  Well played!  Grace says the Countess had no right to treat Michael that way, but I notice she isn’t handing over any of the titular inheritance, or at least the extra 10 centavos.

Grace says Michael’s girlfriend is too young, the Countess was too old, but that she is jussssst right.  However, she spill the frijoles by knowing the girlfriend’s name, age, and pronouns.  She runs into the bedroom and Michael angrily pounds on the door.  Grace puts on the necklace and it begins strangling her too.  When Michael breaks in, he finds her dead on the floor.

Michael goes to see his girlfriend Nina.  He has the necklace with him.  Before Michael can sell the diamonds off one by one, Nina insists on trying it on.  The necklace, of course, begins strangling her.  Michael is able to tear if off her neck.  He carries Nina to the bed, then sees the necklace on the floor curling up by itself.

Back in the bar, Michael is moaning like George Costanza, “It moved.  It moved.” ^[4] A man in the bar says Michael spent 8 or 9 years in casa de locos after that.

This was no great shakes during the story, but the ending is just a trainwreck.  OK, seeing a necklace move by itself could be unnerving.  However, Nina did not die, so he still has a hot girlfriend with a Belichickian age gap, and a necklace worth millions.   His plan was always to sell off the diamonds individually, so no one else will die unless they choke on one.  So what’s the problem?  He should be more worried about what the policía have to say about his proximity to 2.5 murders.

Dutifully, John Newland tries to hammer this peg into OSB’s round hole.  He says there have been other necklaces that acted like this.  “Perhaps the vengeful spirit of the Countess managed to impart some sort of life — an evil life — into her necklace.”  OK, smart-guy, but it choked the Countess before this life-force would have been downloaded.  And, really, WTF did Grace ever do to deserve her fate?

Knowing he is on thin ice, Newland continues, “If you want a more rational answer, as Jose the Porter says . . . who knows?”  WTF?  Well, he does say it in Spanish, if that helps.

Not up to OSB’s usual standards.

Other Stuff

• [1]  Seriously, damn you Sirius XM!  The 60s & 70s Channel plays this f***ing thing 10 times a day.  Released in September 1979, it barely even qualifies.  Seemingly the same length as Der Ring des Nibelungen, it is insufferable enough to drive me to Yacht Rock.  Hypocritically, I’m happy to make exceptions for the heavy rotations of American Pie and Hocus Pocus.
• [2]  In another non-sequitur, Grace picks up the phone to call nueve-uno-uno.  The operator says, “Bueno . . . Bueno?”   After 25 years in South Florida, I thought I at least had bueno, hola, and puta down. ^[3]
• [3]  I was double-checking the definition of puta in MS Copilot.  For half a second, it said: prostitute.  That immediately blinked out and I was instead given this BS PC response:

• [4]  I purposely did not link.  I really hate those annoying cutaways to memes on You Tube — looking at you, Critical Drinker — and am trying to wean myself off of them.
• [5]  Pedantically, according to the Oxford English Dictionary, only items with a value less than a flagon of mead may be “fetched”.
• [6]  Well, I guess those two broke the 4th wall every week when they spoke to the audience.  In these cases, they took part in the story, so I’m out of walls.
• [7]  Behind the Scenes:  Originally, I thought the phrase was eight-balled and translated it as ocho-balled.  At 7:50 this morning, I realized the phrase I was thinking of was black-balled.  I won’t be translating that one.
• Hey, it’s TV’s Iphigenie Castiglioni (Countess Ferenzi)!  I wonder if that is the same Iphigenie Castiglioni from The Veil and Thriller .
• Jose was played by Jose Gonzales-Gonzales, but I’m sure there are a lot of Gonzaleses down there.  If you saw an Iphigenie Castiglioni-Castiglioni, that might be a problem.
• Because OSB disappeared from Amazon-proper, I was forced to subscribe to a streaming service within Amazon called Best TV Ever for $.99/month.
• This is Episode 2.6 per IMDb and Episode 2.12 per Amazon.