Tales from the Darkside S01E12&13 (In the Cards - Anniversary Dinner)

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Darkness is coming for you. That's the fear that taunts me. Dark Destinations by fatherm Alone at Weirdingwaymedia dot com weird We welcome back to Midnight Viewing, the horror anthology podcast, where this season we're taking a look at George A. Romero's nineteen eighty series of Tales from the Dark Side. I'm Father Malone and sharing the Midnight view with me are the projection booths, Mike White Yes, and the culture cast Christashier.

I don't know if you know this, but I have a deck of tarot cards here that I would love to share with you. How apropo, Because tonight we're taking a look at two episodes from season one. They are In the Cards and Anniversary Dinner. In the Cards is season one episode twelve. It originally aired on January twenty seventh, nineteen eighty five, Written by Ted Gershuni, based on a short story by Carol Kucia Satrina and directed by Ted Gershuony fun fact about him married to Mary Warnow.

This Is What stars Dorothy Linman and Carmen Matthews and Terry Kean. Carmen Matthews is the edel old woman who switches to tarot cards on her She started in nineteen fifty her acting career. She was on six episodes of Alfred Hitchcock and the original Twilight Zone. This is the story of a phony psychic who isfted or grifted a set of tarot cards that always predict tragedy. What did you think of this one?

Chris? Not to jump ahead, but I'm gonna say this the next time you ask me what I think of the next episode? What a bunch of mean episodes of the show we're watching all of a sudden because the conceit of this episode is interesting. I think it feels beyond hilarious. It's hilariously set bound in a way that it could have been an on stage production.

To the fact of we're gonna use noises offset Oh my god, did you hear that car crash outside. It's it. I don't know. We talked about this a lot when we did Chronicles from the Crypt about that show looking setbound, and this episode of this show is set bound. Boy, it's not.

I actually found this episode to be not great because the way it concludes is just means spirited. I'm I don't know, like this episode and the next one are both very mean spirited, but I think this one much more so. So. It's very weird. This show normally doesn't get this mean.

What about you, Mike. I thought it was great seeing one of my favorite members of the Mama's family cast on here with Dorothy Lyman. Yeah, I agree with Chris. It is very set down. I'm okay with it being mean.

I'm not exactly sure. I can't remember why Madam Marlena gifts quote unquote the cards over to Catherine. She's taking her client tell away, oh okay, And she herself has gone through this little process with the Tarot cards because she herself was just giving people, letting people hear what they needed or wanted to hear. It's the thing. It follows of it all very very it follows.

Yeah, I thought it was all right. It didn't really strike me as one thing or another. It really seemed to take a long time before she was upset enough to actually start to investigate and figure out what the hell was going on. Otherwise it was like, oh, I'm here for a reading. Oh I can't give you a reading?

Oh why not? Shin shring, And it's like, okay, that the sound effect whenever the bad cards would come up, the swords crossing ship, Yes, you don't have that on speed dial fall theom alone. I was expecting you to tell us the history behind the sound effect we hear a million times in this episode. Yeah, no, I no, I don't want to hear it again, nor do I inflicted upon our listeners. Yeah, that sound just for the Night of Swords.

That's the card that she now has to turn over at the end of everyone's reading. The Night of Swords is being held responsible for our own impulsive behaviors and accountable for our actions. You're right, Chris, this is a very mean spirited one because she's given really no chance to make up to make amends for this thing. And you know what, it's actually a little meaner spirited than that, because she is given a chance to make amends. Really, all she has to do is pass those cards onto another phony psychic and then walk away.

But what she the problem is she's dumb because at the end of the when the first woman comes in to have her cards read, she allows Dorothy Linman to read with her own cards, and then when her back is turned, she switches them so she gets a genuine reading from her and then avoids being read with the death deck. Here, Dorothy Linman switches the cards before she gets her reading, damning herself. I that's a weird one because it isn't just necessarily I would agree with you, Chris, this was too dark if she had done everything right and then got stabbed in the alley. But she doesn't do everything right. She actually doesn't learn anything by the end.

Yeah, I'm just I'm surprised. I'm actually it's not that she dies in the end, just the way she dies. A guy just walks up and stabs her and then walks off. Yeah, it's exit pursued by a bear like. Literally, all of a sudden, a knife wielding, handy hoosed headed man comes in from stage life, stabs her and exits exit stage right, no exaggeration, go watch the episode, and then we have an extended zoom in shot of her just dead on the ground with a knife sticking out of her side, and it slowly zooms in on the Night of Swords.

Ooh, it's I don't know. Yeah, I just like it to me, like, what is that? There's no payoff, there's no it's just I don't know this. This segment had an episode I guess had really very little to say by my approximation. Yeah, it's very meandering.

It's we get to meet a bunch of her clientele. We don't necessarily need that many. It's like, Mike, we've talked about this on a night Gallery and toilet Zone a bunch of times, Like we get the premise quicker than the characters in the show. The characters need to watch up visually. They're picking up things way faster than you're writing them.

We don't need to see her perform the same feat over and over again. She should know just by putting the deck out. Every time that card comes up on her own. She tries to burn the deck and it doesn't work. Like at that point you call your friend who's a fellow psychic, and go, what the fuck is going on with these cards.

You don't continue giving readings to everyone who comes to your shop. They're all going right, unless you're doing it to then steal their money. Like that's what I thought. I thought she was gonna start like like, oh, I'm gonna put my name on your will and then I like again like prove that I killed you with the deck of cards, Like, oh, you can't. But again, if you're like putting your name in their will and then all your dead, like again, I thought that's where it was going.

AKA. I gave the episode way too much credit because I thought there was something interesting at the core of this. At the core of it, Dorothy Lyman just dies because yeah, she's kind of a bad person or more of just an idiot, I guess, like she's just she's not smart. I mean, the way the character's written, she's not smart. To Father Malone's point, she literally hands someone a gun and says, put a bullet in it.

Please click click click click, Like, what what are you doing? It's just so weird to me. I don't know, like a lot of these episodes feel like they have something to say, and this one just like, well, you want to see this Tarot card reader who's not actually reading cards get her come up in okay. If she had been actually smart, she would have sat down at Madame Marlenez and said, I'm going to read your card, read your right, and she started putting the deck out, no matter what her complaint be. But again, that would have been actually putting in some effort into the story.

She just goes to her and says, why did you do this? She goes, because I did the same thing you did, and you're a piece of shit just like I was. But I don't have to worry about it anymore because you've got the cards. Like, okay. I do want to mention Carmen Matthews again here.

She's only in like briefly two scenes, but in that opening scene when she comes in, there's so much mischief in her eyes and just so much menace just underneath this sweet exterior. Good god, damn, I loved her. She was great in this episode, and she was fantastic. Yeah. Yeah, it's too bad that she's only in two scenes, because she's pretty good.

I would have liked to have seen an entire battle between these two. These just set it up quick, like, oh, clearly it's Madame Marlene across the streeters doing this to me? Psycha have some sort of rivalry, I mean two fighting psychics, I think would be pretty boss. Yeah, all right, tell us some dark start two point zero. Here we come.

Why not everybody's into anthologies these days, as it should be? All right? Our next episode is entitled Anniversary Dinner. This is season one, episode thirteen. It aired originally on December the second, nineteen eighty four, Written by James Houghton from a story by DJ Pass quick Word about James Houghton.

He became the head writer on The Young and the Restless and wrote, I'm not exaggerating fifteen hundred episodes of Young and the Restless over the years on thousand, five hundred hour long dramas. Put in God's work, putting in God's work. This one was directed by John Strissik, starring Alice Ghostly Mario Rapuzzo, who I'm sure you two fellas my my co host, are very familiar with this man to six episodes of Barney Milleck. But you know he was on one episode of ten Speed and Brown Shoet. Of course I did well.

He was on an episode of BJ and the Bear. Sure it was but my favorite performance of his is Keiko in The Monkey season one episode sixteen, Son of a Gypsy. This one also starts ferder Rica Duke, and it's about an aging emptiness couple who welcome a young woman into their home just as their twenty fifth wedding anniversary feast is approaching. Which you think of this one, Mike made me hungry. I mean, I've spoken with Frederica Duke in the past.

I kind of wanted to eat all the flesh off of her bones, but this really made me want to do that. So this so reminded me of like an old Bugs Bunny cartoon, like the two fighting chefs that are trying to cook bugs Bunny and they keep putting them in the bath quote unquote and putting carrots and stuff in there, and he's just like, you know, washing and everything. So reminded me of that. I mean, it was ridiculous what they have regetted to a I fucking pot. That would have been funny, That's what I was funny.

Well, they do, don't they. I Mean, that's not the end of it. Vegetables, it's just a hot I wish it was like a giant in vegetables. I mean that was hilarious. Yeah, yeah, her face, you're throwing broccoli in with me?

But what are you that stupid? Yes? That was too funny. Yeah, this one went on for way too long. It's such a simple premise and they just stretch this out so much.

I mean, yeah, Mario Racuzzo really like him. Love Alice Ghostly one of my favorite of Sam's ants on Bewitched. But yeah, it was like, Okay, you've got four characters here. They don't even need four, You probably just need three and mant o, man, just get through this like a lot faster or do something. It just needed something else.

This felt like our common plight, felt like a Blackout skit. Well you, Chris, you're a fan of the Blackout sketches? Oh boy aren't? I? One might say I'm the biggest fan.

This reminded me of the episode with the what is it the Grandpa where he just won't stay dead? Oh yes, with Stubborns. Yeah, case of the Stubborns. It reminded me of that because it's like, like we mentioned on that episode, like how many times? How long does this have to go on?

It's look, it doesn't put a lot of strain no pun intended on the plot, but their last names are Callander guys, Like, fucking come on, it's it if you don't get what's going on the moment you see her get into this giant hot tub and then just like stand around it. I don't know what to tell you, but I love The Wikipedia synopsis for this episode is hilarious. The last line is, unfortunately, Sibyl, the couple plan on serving a very revolting dish for the occasion. Revolting. I don't think it's revolting.

If they're willing to cook a human being, they're clearly not revolted by it. And I'll say, man, that's a lot of food for two people. M way too much food. My god. That the leftovers are going to last for months.

I hope they have a big enough freezer. It's a fucking weird episode because, like again, cannibalism is always weird, because you really do have to imagine Mario Rakuzo eating this woman's like limbs, because like that's what they're saying is gonna happen. It's like, I just this is pretty mean again, pretty mean spirited even for this show. But this is funny, mean this is funny, like funny er I guess than the last one. Yeah, this one's dark, but it is more comedic, I think.

And Frederica Duke is thirty years old here and boy, she looks it. This is clearly supposed to be like an eighteen year old girl or something coming in like that. These characters are, like I said at the top, empty nest, like they're talking about their children through the entire thing, like that their children are gone and they miss their kids, and so this is supposed to be like a replacement. And like I didn't get how old she looked compared to what she should have been. Oh no, it's me expectation versus what they delivered.

This is a West Coast episode, including a why don't I look it? Yeah, including a location they actually they go outside here we see nature on the Telson the dark side. That one that was nice. We I look. I did not for the majority of the episode was unaware that they were captains.

I thought they were treading down a path that tewnsend to crypt would many times, which is this weird lecherous triangle. Oh yeah, sure that was that's a beat. Now they'd be like you want to bang and be like there's no they're eating something, but they're not eating well never mind, no, they would be, and they really lean into it because they there's a moment where the husband is like, oh, let me in your bathing suit, right, so, like, oh, what's the hell's going on here? And like in the end, he's checking out how much meat is on her and like all of their conversations about their children end up being worked. Did they even have kids at all?

Or are they just referring to all of the children they've eaten over the years, like those are their kids? I mean they're in the trophy room, the hidden trophy room slash hot tub room. Frederica du you ought to know a little better than to go into the trophy room. It's again like it's it's hard to feel bad for a character this stupid. It's like the character in the last episode, like you you she's dumping vegetables in to the hot tub with you.

Do they have to spell it out for you? Like yes, so I guess so hunk right, Like that's the excuse to yours And they've gotten her completely drunk, and now while they're throwing vegetables and she thinks it's hilarious. It's not that she's like a ditzy moron at the end. I mean, look, you shouldn't have gotten in the not hot dub anyway, but but I don't think it's quite that they did. He's baked in a little bit of an inebriation thing here.

I will say this is a bit Frederrico doo. She reminded me of Karen Black here, which she has a bit of her quality here. But you know, she's a victim in this episode, and Karen Black is no victim. Even if she is, she'll come back as the aggressor. I was happy about the lecherous trio that we would keep seeing in Tennison the Crip, which became so boring.

Like I was actually happy when it turned out that they were cannibals. That's the weirdest thing I've ever said. I was happy when it turned out my neighbor was a cannibal. Sign it's nineteen eighty four, socks rolled up over the jeans, pant legs. Good god, I know it's that she shat I love.

I can't can I mention? And I think we talked about this on Barney Miller The Life and Times of Captain Barney Miller speak of Mario Rakuzo. Here's a great What does a Benizio del Toro say in Fear and Loathing? I'm admiring the shape of your skull. He's a very interesting head, especially when it's viewed from a certain angle.

It looks almost like cone head disc. I know in Barney Miller there was this one of the shots where it's like, whoa, that's yeah. But I love how he wears a hat though, because his hat is like like four feet off the top of his way up there. That's way up there. Well, I sent you that image of the mad scientist that was trying to kill bugs Bunny speaking of bugs Bunny, trying to kill bugs Bunny, and he had that huge hatchet and stuff.

Come here, mister bunny Rabbit. Like, that's so what he looks like to me. He's got this tiny little face and this big head. Yeah, he looks like he could be a spitting image puppet or that from England's Oh Boy. Yes, I wish.

I guess. I wish that the episode had more to it, But since the shock is the cannibal of it all, I guess they had to leave it a mystery until the final moment. But I don't know. To go back to the opening question that you asked about this being or mentioned this a blackout sketch, it really is a blackout sketch, and there's nothing to be mind here because even the secondary twist where it's like their children are just semi rotten heads in a closet, Like what does that even me? Yeah, it is a bit of a black guess it's there's one line in the in this Alice Ghostly says, Oh, I love having the children for dinner, Like that is just the bottom of the New Yorker cartoon.

Like, right, that's all we needed anytime anyone says for dinner like in this day and age, like that person's going to try to eat you if they have you over to your house. Right, Oh yeah, I'm like an old friend for dinner. Yeah, Like, I don't know. She had every opportunity to leave, is I don't know. I was actually expecting there to be the twist too, of Mario Racuzzo had killed her like boyfriend, Like I was thinking maybe that would be the twist, But no, the twist is just they killed her and cooked her and ate her like okay, and I guess the boyfriend isn't like looking for her at all, Like come back, I guess you wouldn't come back to that house because the old man came out with a shotgun beginning, Well, it wasn't that guy a prick.

Just makes me like not like her, like makes me want her to be dinner because she has such terrible taste in meth. It's true taste. Get it. It's another Oh that one was you were saving that one? Oh?

Oh, that was a way Homer Hi on the way home. On the next episode of midnineth Vierian, we'll be taking a look at two episodes from season one. Those are Snip, Snip, and answer me until next time? What are you working on? Where can people find it?

Mike White? You can find everything that I do, including the Projection Booth podcast, over at Weirdingwaymedia dot com. Put out a weekly movie show. There. Some people like it, other peoples don't.

But give it a shot if you haven't heard it Weirdingwaymedia dot com. How about you, Chris? Yeah, same. You can find all but one thing I do over at Weirdingwaymedia dot com. That one thing that I do also happens to be something that Mike does as well, and it's over at patreon dot com slash culture cast or pro boot Oh Jesus Orclaire Sorry, Father Malone or Patreon eh orpatreon dot com slash Projection Booth where you can find rankin on Bond, which we do once a month with our friend Richard HadAM where if you don't know, if you can't imagine what we're talking about, the bond in question is James Bond and you can find that over on our patreons.

But everything else over weirding Way Media. What about you bottom alone. I'm also over there at the weirding Way Media where you can hear my show Dark Destinations. That's a radio drama I write and produced, and you can hear me on night Mister Walters the Taxi Podcast hosted by HP, Thank you all for joining us here at midnight viewing. Until next time, try to enjoy the daylight midnight viewing.

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