Glynn Fennell has his titular ear against a safe as he listens for the tumblers.  He spins the dial as frantically as me when the 1-877-Kars-4-Kids jingle comes on the radio.  It doesn’t help that there is an alarm blaring, and a Ray-Ban Wearing French New Wave hipster nagging him to hurry.  It also doesn’t help that the hipster knocks him out.

The hipster is revealed to not be French as he is named Henry and not Henri.  And knocks a dude out.  He is just a black-turtleneck, Ray-Ban-wearing rando; not even a randeau.   The lights come up, the alarm stops, and Henry rehangs a picture over the safe.  He apologizes to his boss, Mr. Lawson, for wasting his time auditioning this loser.

Mr. Lawson says, “I’m not ready to give up yet — I’m a problem solver.”  The solution apparently involves tying Glenn spread-eagle on the pool table and breaking a cue across his chest.  Lawson had expected Glenn to use his safe-cracking skillz to pay off gambling debts that he owed to Lawson’s gangstas.

Kate Lawson enters.  Mr. Lawson says, “Her beauty is not so much a tribute to the hand of God as to the meticulous craftsmanship of some of this country’s finest surgeons.”

Mr. Lawson again proclaims his disappointment in Glynn.  As he is leaving, he orders Henry to kill him.  Hey, what happened to Mr. Problem Solver?  Señor Solucionador de Problemas?  And what was the point of tying him up, anyway?  Its almost like the writer had never written anything before.  Or since.

Glynn explains to Kate why he couldn’t open the safe.  During his last stint in prison, he was beaten so badly that his hearing was damaged.  Due to the abuse in prison, he can no longer function as a safe-cracker.  Or any job that requires a lot of sitting.

Kate lines up a pool shot, aiming right between Glynn’s spread legs.  This looked to be a fun bit of business, so naturally they did nothing with it.  Jackass got there first anyway. ^[2]

Mrs. Lawson has an idea for Glynn.  She whispers it to her husband and he orders Glynn freed.  Mr. Lawson says if he repays his debt in 10 days, he can live.

With time and money being critical, Glynn naturally hangs out at the pub.  Mrs. Lawson finds him there.  She dips her shades and he sees that she now has cat eyes, with vertical slit pupils.   She wants Glynn to break into her husband’s safe and promises, “You’ll never have to worry about money again.”  She says he better agree because her husband is going to kill him in 5 days.  Wait, has he just dicked around for the first five days?

She drives them back to Casa de Lawson, and makes an appointment for Glynn with her surgeon.  Then she gets completely naked.  Her husband wasn’t kidding about the surgery!  The boobs have had some work, but overall, Mrs. Lawson is amazing!  Kudos to TFTC for going out with a bang. ^[1]

Blah blah blah.  Frankly, anything after that nude scene is going to be a let down.

Like the writer, the director has no other TV directing credits on IMDb.  There were, however, a few flourishes that I enjoyed.  Most of the cast did their best with what they were given, especially the wacky surgeon.  An over-the-top ending redeems the episode.  In fact, if they had taken more crazy risks like that, the season would have been much better.

Other Stuff:

• [1]  This is the last live-action episode of the series.  I need a new series, stat!
• [2]  Actually, Jackass started 4 years later.  Also, I know the clip is of them using a croquet mallet, but close enough.
• Even the novelty / relief of this being the last episode was not enough for me to be interested in this episode.  Maybe because I still might watch the animated finale.

Note to director . . .

Police detectives find another girl with her head cut off.  Kudos to this frequently dreadful season giving us a little gore.  Unfortunately, they squander that goodwill with the line,  “I can see the tabloids now — headless girl in topless club.”  C’mon, that is a blatant rip-off of the classic 1983 New York Post headline “Headless Body in Topless Bar“. ^[1]  Very cheesy, guys.

Warhol (I’ll ignore that appropriation since it seems utter pointless) Evans, the alleged head-chopper-offer, is quickly caught in an alley.  The officers send for Jack Lynch to do the interrogation.  He is known by all to be the bestest detective ever.  They find him also in an alley, doing a few lines — bowling I mean.  He comes to the station still carrying his ball-bag in his hands (hee-hee!).  

Lynch begins interviewing Evans.  He immediately denies the charges and tells the detectives they “will be drinking a shit shake through a crazy straw.”  More plagiarism as I believe McDonald’s trademarked this phrase years ago.  Evans seems to think he’s a big-shot because he wrote an episode of Tales from the Crypt.  No, seriously, that is in the episode.  Can you appropriate from yourself?

Lynch aggressively accuses Evans of being a serial killer despite a complete lack of evidence.  He had been nabbed washing his hands in the vicinity of the last murder.  If that is considered an extraordinary event in London, then God help their COVID-19 stats.  

. . . it is now possible to put 2 actors in the same frame. Did the SJWs decide a “master” shot was racist?

Evans arrogantly refuses to call in a lawyer.  He says he has written scenes like this, so knows exactly how it will go.  He even magnanimously offers to find the real killer, lifting a ploy from OJ Simpson.  Lynch notes that last night Evans purchased a book entitled The Satanic Scriptures — a lazy way to invoke the murder-scare associated with The Satanic Verses. 

Evans says it was just research.  He is working on a script about a satanist who is reincarnated as a serial killer who — wait for it — only kills other serial killers.   Let’s be charitable and call this an homage to Dexter.

Evans does go on a pretty good (and original) analysis of crime scene photos.  He believes the killer might be frustrated at having been passed over for promotions — like Lynch.  And having a strong right arm from tossing a bowling ball and carrying it everywhere with him — like Lynch.  Good stuff.

Lynch discovers a massive amount of pornography at Evans’ flat, which also seems very familiar to me.  I just can’t place where I’ve seen such a cache of . . . oh, yeah.  However, Evans also has books on how to make pipe-bombs and land-mines, and Antifa for Dummies.  Again, Evans says it is all for research.  There is also mention of him assaulting a little girl years ago.

For the big finish, Lynch puts a satchel from Evans’ closet on the table.  He opens it to reveal a misshapen head in a large glass jar.  OK, hold the phone — this is a direct steal from Ray Bradbury’s The Jar which was adapted for Ray Bradbury Theater, The Alfred Hitchcock Hour, the 1980s revival of Alfred Hitchcock Presents. and a very special episode of Benson.  ^[2] Evans says he bought it at freak show because he thought it was funny, but he knows he’s screwed.

SPOILER

Lynch has proven Evan’s guilt to everyone’s satisfaction.  He is again hailed as the bestest detective ever.  He goes home, and unzips his bowling ball bag.  Nothing in there but a ball.  However, he lifts the top off the hollow ball and pulls out the dead woman’s head.  He puts it in the fridge with 2 others and has a beer.

There seemed to be a lot of references to other stories, and not in a winking Scream-like way.  More in a Joe Biden campaign speech way ^[3].  Other than the brief scene where Evans does his analysis, there’s not much going on.  This should have been released as a movie.  Not because it is good, but because it feels 90 minutes long.

By coincidence I saw Eddie Izzard (Evans) in Get Duked! yesterday.  That would be a much better use of your time.

I rate it 4 out of 10 frames.  However, Get Duked! earns a respectable 8 frames.

Other Stuff:

• [1] Great as this is, they will never top “Bezos Exposes Pecker“.  It has more levels than Amway.  Just retire the trophy now.
• [2] To be honest, I’m not sure it was explicitly a head in Bradbury’s jar.  But, c’mon, what else would it be?  BTW, the AHP episode was directed by Tim Burton.  What?
• [3]  The big news in that link is that Newsweek still exists.
• Very timely:  This episode is directed by the director of Bill & Ted’s Bogus Journey.
• Ciarán Hinds (Lynch) was Mance Rayder in 5 episodes of Game of Thrones.  He was the white guy with the beard.  [UPDATE: I finally Googled him, and he seems to be just about the only guy other than Bran without a beard.]

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.

This episode is cited a few places as being the worst of the series.  I have to put up a weak defense.  Not because it is good, but because there has been so much other crap.

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.

The episode is redeemed, momentarily, by the appearance of Daniel Craig.  Wait, what?  Yes, young Daniel Craig, playing Barry 007 years ^[1] before his first appearance as James Bond in the great Casino Royale and subsequent erratically-timed disappointments.  He proudly proclaims to Jacqueline that he has no portfolio or pitch to make.  He says that he has the same swagger as she does and should be hired on that basis.  Apparently that plus tight jeans, a leather jacket, and dreamy blue eyes is enough.

WTF? Is that a Cable Ace Award?

In his first meeting with a client, he attacks his agency’s own presentation as boring.  Jacqueline agrees and tells him to be ready with his own ideas in the morning.  We learn he is in cahoots with Jacqueline’s former boss, Alistair Touchstone, ^[2] who she forced out of the company.  The old man gives Barry a device which causes minds to be very receptive.

At the meeting, Barry clicks on the device and shows Jacqueline a boring picture with the Chalmer’s Chocolate logo on it.  She immediately chows down on some chocolates he thoughtfully brought in.  He shows the same picture with Amazon Cola’s logo, and she grabs a can.  The same picture advertising Alanis Lipstick causes her to grab a luscious pink-hued tube, and an ad for Moonlight Condoms does about the same.  Barry foolishly shows them the device that is making them so receptive. ^[3]

Barry is assigned the prestigious Chalmer’s Chocolate account.  The current Ad Exec asks what happens when Barry’s gadget breaks down.  The ex-Exec gets sacked, and not in the good way.  On the other hand, he can probably walk out with a gross of those prop condoms as severance cuz womens love unemployed guys.

Barry goes to see Jacqueline and says he has a message from her old partner, “Drop dead.”  What follows is utterly incomprehensible.  Barry, covered with blood, tells Alistair he killed Jacqueline and framed Alistair for it.  The sacked Adman suddenly reappears and says, no it is Barry whom the police will arrest!  The cops do show up and chase Barry through the building.  Inexplicably, he leaps out a window to his death with no parkour, jet-pack, or parachute-wearing metal-toothed ectomorph to save him.

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]

Wait, Alistair had demonstrated the device by making Barry imagine rats — his biggest fear — climbing all over his body.  Wouldn’t the device now have also made the whole group paranoid about cops?  After all, they were conspiring to commit a murder.

The client cheerfully agrees that the advertising firm can keep her account, which is a little strange.  She just sells chocolate, you wouldn’t expect her to be so callous to the suffering and death of a member of her team.  It’s not like she’s selling iPhones.

There really was no point to this ruse other than it was necessary for the episode.  Kinda like there was no reason for this episode other than it was necessary to squeeze a 7th season out of this lumbering mess of a series.  Finally, Jacqueline suggests they celebrate with a drink.  The client says, “Suddenly, I’m dying for one” and they all howl in laughter.  Yes, a guy is dead, but this is a real non sequitur.

There were good performances from Ute Lemper (Jacqueline) and Daniel Craig.  However the lazy writing and somber tone make this another failed effort on the order of Quantum of Solace.

Other Stuff:

• [1]  Oh, alright, 010 years before.  But it was one of those “facts” too good to check. You know, like you see on MSNBC.  Or NBC.  Or ABC.  Or CBS.  Or PBS.  Or CNN.  Or Fox.
• [2]  An unrecognizable Belloq from Raiders of the Lost Ark.
• [3]  The device brings up the Bewitched paradox.  OK, it casts a spell on the client in the office to think the ad campaign is genius.  Maybe they even put the ultrasound in commercials.  But it won’t be playing in the store, and the effects seem to wear off immediately.  They don’t even have Elizabeth Montgomery as a distraction.
• [4]  Easily the best feature of the episode is the sound and visual of Barry hitting the pavement.  Kudos!
• [5]  Unlike Microsoft, Adobe and WordPress, apparently this device’s upgrades actually make the product better.
• Title Analysis:  What smoke?  What wrings?  What crypt?  They’re not even trying.
• Ute Lemper?

Elliot and Arianne are walking through the cemetery.  Elliott has a contraption that he wants to hook up to a dead brain.  Dude, Arianne is right there; and she’s no rocket scientist!  Quite the opposite, she ridicules his narrow focus on “physics” and “facts”.  She believes metaphysics has the answers.

They enter a mausoleum which holds the body of Valdemar Tymrak.  Elliott says he is #13 in the World Class Psychos Trading Card set.  Literally — Elliot pulls out the rookie card with his name on it.  He reads, “26 certified kills, 19 women, 7 men.  Tymrak was a renowned mesmerist who apparently hypnotized his victims with a single stare.  Under his control, they were made to commit terrible and depraved acts before he murdered them and bathed in their blood.”  Elliott believes Tymrak’s powerful brain makes him a good candidate to hook up to his device.  Some people might have preferred final revelations from Gandhi or Hawking or Einstein or Jeffrey Epstein, but they didn’t have no trading cards.

Elliott opens the tomb and Arianne winces at the smell.  Elliott explains that the smell is formaldehyde.  Well, wouldn’t it have smelled worse without formaldehyde?  For any trip to a exhumation, a COVID-19 N95 mask dipped in camphor or catshit would probably be a good idea.  Anyhoo, I happily suspend disbelief and accept that this guy’s machine can read a dead man’s thoughts.  But after being embalmed?  C’mon, man!

The whole time, Elliott has been a little snippy because he suspects Arianne stole some research papers from him.  Arianne says she has no interest in such things.  She uses a red marker to draw a heart on the palm of his hand and says, “You’ll always have my heart in your hands.”  In a good episode of TFTC, that would literally have come true.

He hooks Tymrak up to the device.  While adjusting the settings, he sees his stolen research papers spill out of Arianne’s bag.  Fortuitously, she happens to be putting the other headset on her own noggin.  He angrily cranks up the volume causing her to scream.  Once she starts shrieking, he suddenly becomes very concerned.  Well, what did he expect?  He pulls the headset off of her and she stops screaming, but I suspect that heart drawn in his palm will be smudged in the morning.

Oh, Arianne was killed.  Elliott wakes up in an asylum due to his guilt — especially after he learns Arianne only took his papers to submit for an award for him.  He dreams of Arianne and 2 other topless women, but seems to have actually awakened before flies land on his window and assemble in the shape of a new circuit.  Elliott uses this new circuit to upgrade his device.  Like every WordPress / Excel / Adobe upgrade in the past 5 years, it is a disaster.

Maybe I fell asleep and missed something — I admit to the falling asleep part — but nothing after this point makes any sense.  He, of course, decides to use his new device to resurrect Arianne.  He appears to have procured 3 dead women for the process, none of them Arianne as far as I can tell.  What are the 3 women for?  Was it just because he dreamed of them?  I dream of topless women all the time, but they don’t show up at my job.  He turns on the device and papers start swirling around the lab like Nakatomi Plaza.

Arianne appears in a ghostly form, then hardens just like Elliott.  That is not the way I expected her to return.  He was working on a scientific approach, not supernatural.  He is OK with it, apparently, as within minutes he is banging her.

Unfortunately, the device must remain on, and Tymrak returns through the same gateway.  Although, he seemed to take a different off-ramp.  Arianne and Elliott are in the bedroom when they hear Tymrak tearing things up.  They rush back to the lab, and Tymrak breaks down the lab door to kill them.  Well, wait — wouldn’t he have also materialized in the lab?  Where did he go?  There was no English bird waiting to have sex with him — he killed them all.  It’s just that lack of foresight that kept him out of the Top 10.

Anyway, Elliott has to shut down the machine to get rid of Tymrak, and Arianne is lost in the process.  A few days later, Elliott is found to have committed suicide.  He is bloody in the tub, probably from trying to scrub the smell of formaldehyde off his wiener.  I guess we are to assume that he was distraught after killing Arianne twice, something not even Tymrak ever pulled off.  Or maybe this was his attempt to join her in the after-life.

However, we also see a sign that she returned to him.  The police notice a heart drawn on the window, but I still can’t figure out what they are getting at.  An officer says to a detective, “It’s on the window sir.  There’s something written in the dew.”  Well, drawn not written — there is a heart.  The officer seems to think it is strange that it is on the outside, and that all the windows are painted shut.  I get the callback to the heart she drew on his palm, but what is the big deal about the dew being outside and the window painted shut?

Of course we are meant to assume Arianne came back and drew the heart, but how?  There was no fore-shadowing of an ability to come back yet again.  Why can’t Tymrak come back?  OK, Elliott was reading a book about talking to the dead, so did he actually find a way bring her back without the device?  Why did he bring her back outside?  Was she floating outside his 2nd floor window?  Can she fly?

Another missed opportunity.  The pacing is humorless and plodding; however, the actors are great in their roles.  Tymrak’s make-up looks like a drunk 3rd grader put it on in the car; however, when combined with the editing, it is surprisingly effective.  The episode is done in by the complete lack of self-awareness, irony, campiness or gore that is supposed to be the sine qua non of the series.

Other Stuff:

• Title Analysis:  Hunh?  There is a grave — or at least a mausoleum — but no report is filed from it.
• Great comment on the You Tube version:  Any less pixels ……………….. would make this radio.
• The awful screen-caps above are from the DVD.  I mucked up the color somehow.