Tales from the Darkside S01E20&21 (It All Comes Out In the Wash - Bigalow's Last Smoke)

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Isn't cost zero dollars guarantee to make you smile. Hey, Welcome back Midnight View. Welcome back to Midnight Viewing, the horror anthology podcast. For a season, we're taking a look at George A. Ramero's nineteen eighty series Tales from the Dark Side.

Sharing the Midnight View with me are the Culture Cast Chris Statue. I'm addicted to nicotine and cigarettes. Someone please help me? And the projection booths. Mike White, Angien Chinese Shuh Yeah.

I wanted to say no Ticky, no laundry, but like that felt a little too on the nose for James Hong and he doesn't. Even go that far. None of them go that far, but we were all thinking it. Tonight, we're taking a look at two episodes from season one. They are it All Comes Out in the Wash and Bigelow's Last Smoke.

It All Comes Out in the Wash is Season one episode twenty. It originally aired on May twenty sixth, nineteen eighty five. Written by Harvey Jacobs, directed by Frank to Palmer so When, it stars Vince Edwards and James Hong. It is the story of an unscrupulous real estate developer and the laundry service he uses to wash away all his sins. Which you think of this one, Mike, I found it to be interesting.

Oh, by the way, how dare you forget Ellen Winthrop as Ginger? What a standout performance. Yea's a great chest I've heard, Oh boy, good board. Yeah. I had a good time enjoying it.

I had a good time watching this one. Seeing James Hong so many years ago is kind of disconcerting because I always picture him as being old. I think it's probably because of Big Trouble in Little China. Like what they did with his face in that movie is basically what he looks like now, except maybe like without so many like headdresses and things. Let's not feel it as chew in Blade Runner.

They aged him up there too, So I always I always thought he was an elderly man, right, Yeah, I want to nice. I thought the same thing about Maxwan Seedo for the longest time because of the Exorcist. It was like, yeah, old man, right, Nope, no, he's well he didn't. I mean, at least James Hong looked better as an old man in those movies than maxwon sidot It in the. Exorcist, that's true.

And yeah, Vince Edwards looking a lot better than he did. Just when was that just a few years later? No, it's like the next year. Was it for a deal of the century. He looked really bad there, but he looked somewhat decent here.

Man, oh man, these business guys, I'm so glad when they get their just desserts because they just think that they own the world. I'm so glad that things have changed so much since then that we don't have to worry about businessmen like this anymore. Especially in New York City of all places. Right exactly. You imagine if we had to worry about convicted felons being businessmen now.

Just imagine, chemiss No, I'm glad that that is all a thing of the past. Just imagine if someone like that had access to James Hong's laundry service now in real life. Guess what he could do with it. Apparently he doesn't need it. Yeah, well that's what I've been told.

The whole Powers thing is a little sketchy for me. I'm looking forward to talking about that later. But yeah, I think I enjoyed this one, even though I think it's a common complaint that we've had so many times before. Felt a little long. I think it could have been like a little bit shorter, but that's not how the show works, all right, how about you, Chris?

I think it was okay. I mean, James Hong is great. He's not on screen nearly enough, but I mean I feel like you could say that about most of the time you see James Hong in anything. I think overall, it's an interesting story. I mean it, I don't.

I mean, look like you said, Mike, it's ultimately a story about a unscrupulous business dickhead getting his just desserts because he sees this as an opportunity to, I guess, go full hog piece of shit like which, Hey like, okay, I get it, like, I get the premise, I get the setup. I don't know why it needed to be so goddamn setbound, but it is. I don't know why Vince Edwards doesn't take it further, but he doesn't. I mean, he kills one person that's it, and then bias his stock like you would think this guy being given essentially the keys to a sin eater is what we're essentially being not heth Ledger as a sin eater. James Hong is a sinator.

But again, like all of it happens, it feels like so much of this episode happens on the phone that it's like a radio play almost like I don't know, it's very it felt very setbound, but I would almost say it doesn't even feel like it needed to be a video component episode. You could have done this as a radio drama, and I think you would have gotten the exact same away from it. And I think, ultimately before I kick to you, father alone, I think Mike's right, this is way too long for this to be the soul gag here, So yeah, what did you think, Father Malone? I think if it had been a radio play, we wouldn't have been privy to that high tech wall panel sliding open to ourvial who oh whiteboard. Totally.

I enjoyed this one mainly because it reminded me of Ups and Pratton. They're creeping up on You and Creepshow, same sort of setup with this guy in one location and he's a megalomaniac rich man just trying to get richer and fucking over everyone you can fuck over. Yeah, setbound, definitely. They do an exterior interior at the beginning. They sort of try and create the little alleyway outside.

Chow tings that that looked bad, inside of the laundromat, that that didn't look great, The house didn't look great. You know. The pricing was interesting because I don't know if you were like committing murder, which is effectively what we're led to believe about this character. Somehow, spending like six hundred dollars for a suit to be dry cleaned, when you can put that suit on and never feel guilt, that's that's pretty good. You know what, even if you were to double that price, even if you were to triple that price, you know, I think that the pricing issue that they keep adding to this as as the episode progresses, it becomes more and more difficult for this guy because he because because Chow keeps raising his prices, but he's a fucking multimillionaire.

If this had been like a. Street level criminal who needed to get rid of the guilt somehow. Then that could have been something when the prices go up, but I didn't understand that at all. Also, this guy, since I was since I was thinking about creep show, I was thinking about ups and Pratt because that's a one man show too, And I was trying to understand why I like ups In Prattz so much and why I wanted this man to burn. I feel bad when ups In Pratt gets swarmed over by those cockroaches.

I know he's a prick of a human being, but I still feel bad for him. This guy, I was, oh, man, I was sharpening my knife well, and his. Come up and say isn't enough? Like he throws himself out of a window, okay, which is out of the blue, Like yeah yeah, He's like I'm gonna I'll leave a stain, oh okay, Like and now we're going back to laundry, allusions to laundry, Like why. I don't this guy is really horrible?

Like, first of all, he in the initial scene he gives up the friend who told him about the place fucking him, and then like he starts, he calls the guy that he fucked over, who by the way he's having an affair with that guy's wife and is in this impression of chowting. Is like, ah, right, when I told him he nearly dropped his chopsticks. Hah, Like, oh, on top of everything, that was. The best line in the entire episode. I was like, he dropped his chaps, Like, oh Jesus good.

But I like this. I like to turnaround at the end when James Hang is saying goodbye to him and he says syonara and he's liken't even Chinese, like, yeah, you've been played the entire time. You're moren Like that leads me to believe, like, was this just a psychosomatic thing? Well, that's the thing I was curious about, is like have we seen him unable to get his laundry done? And he starts to feel guilty about stuff, and then like the secretary comes in and says, oh, we got a delivery, and he puts on a shirt and then it's just like you know, like suddenly he is a different person.

Then he becomes the ruthless businessman again. It's like he starts to maybe be a little nice to people and. Maybe call somebody and apologize to them that he treated them so poorly, and then he puts on the new shirt. He's like, wait a minute, what what Why did you call me? Fuck you?

I mean it's basically the same thing if you worked in an off us in the eighties when people were doing cocaine like crazy. I mean, that's the kind of people that you worked with where you never knew who's going to be coming in in the morning until they had their happy dust and then you're like, oh, okay, well this is a different guy. Sign it's nineteen eighty four, and we can. Always get Yingfu. Maybe we'll always have ying Fu.

I like that, I will always have Yingfu. I like, I like to think it's psychosomatic. I like to think that chouting is just like these guys are all just they bought into this bullshit and I'm just taking them, taking them for a ride. But then at the end of the day he's like, I won the lottery. I'm out of here.

I mean, haven't you won the lottery by bilking these idiots for all their money? Like, isn't that was that? It is that it is a supernatural thing, because you know, part of the part of the rules are that you can't contact me will know. Basically, we'll detect when you're sinning and then we'll come by and pick it up. And that's been going on for a while, so I'm assuming there is a supernatural.

By the way, what I found really funny is he has the price list. If you look at the bottom of the price list, it says pick up fifteen hundred dollars, delivery two thousand, and he immediately tells him you can't ever come back here or call. We'll only deliver. So whatever he's being charged for the shirts, he's also being charged to two thousand dollars. So he's spilking him in every which away.

Rifter, It's gonna drift because there's that whole thing at the beginning where Chouting's like, oh I was watching the show and this wheel was spinning around and isn't that interesting and don't you want to know if she won? So there's that whole like chance thing at the beginning. So when he wins the lottery, I was like, Okay, well that's a call back to that, but it still just seems like an odd touch to hand there. Yeah, veryou It's. Not like the bud Court Carol Caine thing where it was like part and parcel to the kind of plot of the episode.

Yeah, when he wins the lottery, I was like, but why but who cares? Like by need to with the prices he's charging, That's. What I'm saying, Like, is this not the lottery already? That all these idiot yuppie businessmen dickheads think that by being quadruple charged to have a shirt laundered, that my sins are somehow gone, Like this is just the way I would read this, Like, like you said, brother Milian, clearly something is going on its tails from the dark side, so we can't discount it completely. But if it were me writing it, I would just be like, there isn't anything going on, and this guy is just bilking these idiots because grifter is gonna grift baby, Like who cares that?

I mean, he's taking advantage of pieces of shit Like. Well, it would certainly make more sense for the ending when the guy realizes he's been duped and it's just like, well. Fuck, the authorities are at your door, pal like. And then out the window. Sure, yeah, but not just I'm just going to kill myself because.

Why does he ask him for a financial statement at the beginning when he's paying in cash. Yeah, I don't know, he can't come back and pick it up, and he's never gonna interact with him again. Like it's kind of weird. It's it's like an amusing bit in its context, but you know they're not drawing directly from the bank anyway, so it's just I don't know, it's just very silly. It's just something to to I don't know.

I liked that he had a secret Princess slim line phone in his drawer for the just for the mistress is a direct line. You can also tell he's a dickhead by the way he talks to his son. He addresses his son by his first name. He's like, you even turned my son against me, like coach Jesus. That was so weird.

Yeah, a lot that was strange. Yeah, yeah, encouraging the son to take a piece of of of his bully, who was not a bully at all. By the way. What happens is the kid says, your father's involved in nefarious dealings, and then the father's reaction is you need to fuck that kid up and may mate and bring me a trophy. And I'm now going to have his father murdered.

Right and cut off his ears and bring one of the ears. Yeah, God, yeah, it's I murder builds character. He says that that's a line of dialogue in this murder character. And yet this guy decides his own fate at the end of the episode, Like I don't I don't know, Like it doesn't seem his punishment does not feel at all, like not deserved. But it's not at the level of which the crimes he's been committing throughout the episode, with the I mean, with the wanton disabandoned for everybody else.

That's the thing he's kind of reveling in it. I mean, like you said, murder builds character. Who the fuck says that? Like? How many deals with the Devil episodes have we seen on the various series we've covered over There is quite a few, I'd say a.

Lot, and it only the second most type of episode we've seen, if not the first most type of episode we've seen. Oh, because it can always be good, right, But what I found really amusing in this episode is like where most characters find a bit of a moral quandary when it comes to giving up their eternal soul to the devil. This guy calls is never asked for his soul and just says like, oh you want my soul? Okay, you have a deal. Get over here, right, We don't have traffic and souls, mister.

Yeah, what was the thing to Like? His name is Harry Gropper at least in the credits, but then everywhere else they call him something that starts with the C and the Carl Carl, and he's even got the C on his mug. So when the name came up at the end, I was like, Harry, when't it? Or Henry? Where did that come from?

Oops? Maybe Carl's name. I think the episode's credits are fucked up because that's where it is literally everywhere else but there. Yeah, or yeah, it could be Carl Henry Gropper. Quotations stend him a stuffed bear with a black ribbon around it.

Yeah you're all class, buddy, Yeah he is. I wasn't there an episode of Twilight Zone eighty five that was similar to this with the deal with that we deal with the devil thing? Yeah? I mean you said it best one. I'm like, there's so many at this point, it's like hard to keep track of them.

I was thinking of the guy that goes into the old Chinese shop and he gets lost in the back. That's what it was. Yet, yes, Wong's lost and found or whatever, that's what this reminded me of. But I don't I you know, beats the shit out of me if that if that episode was good or not, I couldn't remember. So that one was bad.

It was it was a polemic about racism. Ultimately it wasn't. It was not very good at all. I'm like misplaced rage and whatever. Here's something they need to stop doing, particularly in these kind of episodes, because we keep seeing this kind of episode where the scenario here is his friend quote unquote Sam Larchmont, he gets off the phone with our protagonist kills himself and then within two minutes the secretary Ginger comes in and says Cropper.

He says, oh, Sam Larchmak killed himself. So the fucking guy killed himself, and then somebody walked into the room and with Jesus Christ call called her Gropper right, because they did this in like the I'll Give You a Million earlier in this season where his friend Keenan Wynn's friend died and the immediately gets a phone call like, stop doing this. That's all public service announcement. Oh wait, you know, Chris, earlier you said about New York. And if you look out this guy's window, clearly they're in New York except all the establishment of the Los Angeles Skyline.

They've got like a cyclorama outside his window of like these New York buildings. And I was like, wait, I'm pretty sure. I just sat downtown lap brought my chopsticks. I'll tell you. Jesus.

All right, Okay, moving on Bigelow's last smoke. This is Season one, episode twenty one, aired originally on June the ninth, nineteen eighty five. This one was written by Michael McDowell, story by Kenneth Wayne Hanns and Craig Mitchell, and directed by John Harrison. This one stars a Rich Ramanas, the only jerkof who will still lend Johnny Boy any money? Remember Mean Streets.

Sam Anderson is also in this one. He was Bernard on Lost and Forrest Gump's principle and how dat is also in this one. They sure made sure to point that out on the Wikipedia. Huh I was the principal in Forrest Gump? Oh did it?

Yeah? Forrest Gump. Yeah, it's like and in film he was known as Forrest Gum's principal. Oh, the one that bangs Sally Fields. Yeah well yeah, yeah, he looks in his IMDb profile picture, he looks so much like Kenneth Tiger.

It's crazy. He kind of looked like Kenneth Tiger anyways. Yeah, like when he comes on to the TV. But then I was just like, man, I'd rather it was Kenneth Tiger. I like him better.

But well fair, this was like early Sam Anderson, because yeah, that guy's been in a ton of stuff. He's one of those. I mean, he's basically a modern Kenneth Tiger, even though Kenneth Tiger still shows up and stuff. I mean, case in point, the Avengers. Now, this one is about smoker Frank Bigelow, who's discovered a peculiar method for quitting smoking.

A full disclosure, I watched The Small Consuming Nicotine, So my analysis might be fuzzy because you know that's what happens early in the morning, which you think of this one, Chris. I was under the influence of caffeine, so probably not fair either. How dare I it was fine? I don't know, like, didn't we see something like this in twide Zone eighty five, where the guy has had the worm to deal with alcoholism. Yeah, well, you know, you know, done better there, I think is maybe what I'm alluding to.

The hell hell might Yeah yeah, I like the idea, But I mean this, this, this, this isn't that I rephrase it. The way that they're painting it is essentially like you're in rehab. It's like it's not really that big of a deal. So other than the fact that the guy can't leave his room, which makes it prisen. I mean, I don't know.

Like this, let me put it this way. Smoking was a big deal in nineteen eighty five. You look like a cool teenage with the cigarette egging out of your mouth, like it feels very tongue clucking. It feels very much like Kentucky Rye. I it was fine, but like one fucker wants to smoke, Let the fucker smoke.

Like, you know, I don't know. I'm not somebody's mom or dad. I might be somebody's daddy, but I'm not their mom and dad. Like, I don't care if some guy wants to smoke three packs of cigarettes a day. If he does, that's a different story.

I mean, FM, didn't you just recently cover Cat's eye on one of the special episodes? I sure did with Quitters Incorporated. Oh boy, that's what I was thinking of. This is like the toothless version of Quitters Incorporated. I was waiting for somebody's finger to get chopped off.

I was waiting for that floor to be electrified. What was up with that weird smoke detector that's. Four feet across and head large inside of it? Yeah, that was the best visual in the entire episode is Richard Raman is looking like a small child disemboweling a massive, massive detector. Rips it off of the ceiling.

But then the smoke detector goes off again, even though I don't think he was smoking at that point, it goes off again, and I'm just like wait, and they show him amongst the wreckage. I'm like, is there another smoke detector? What the hell's going on here? And yeah, I didn't realize that that smoke detector was four feet wide, so that was something. Yeah, this one I was not a big fan, because again, I just kept thinking of the other the Quitters Incorporated and I'm just like, why, why is this happening to you, like you did you want to quit?

Do you need to quit? Or is it just this guy showing up on your wall at some point and apparently you got moved while you were sleeping into this cell that looks exactly like your apartment. I was flummoxed in not too pleased with that. It's really weird that this was whittten by Michael McDowell, considering he adapted word Processor of the gods, he had to be aware of the story. So with quitters incorporation, there's no way he didn't.

Right now, when Stephen king is calling him one of the finest writers of paperback originals in America today. That's true. He was, uh, well, I just to your point, like, there's no way, like he no, of course he fucking new. Like so I'm wondering if even there weren't a phone call involved, like, hey, I'm writing this thing. I mean, it's he's rewriting somebody else's teleplay, so like I'd let him off the hook there a little bit, So okay.

Effectively, Richard Ramanas has been kept in prison until he quits smoking, but they give him cigarettes as a temptation. So this is apparently like a whole attrition. Thing, like they're gonna wear him down over over a length of time, except as soon as he lights a cigarette, it's a fucking rave smoking the merits and giant smoke detectors and grateful dead light shows. Look what the And it's apparently causing him pain, right, that's what we're led to believe, because because he kind of grimaces real hard every time the lights hit him, like he's being shot with some sort of sonic weapon. Just do that for a day and keep giving him cigarettes like they at one point do this flash dance parody where he's sitting sitting in his chair and it rains cigarettes from the ceiling, Like why do they keep giving you a cigarette?

And then they keep taking stuff away? You notice, like the furnishings keep disappearing over time, like all the books and everything, Like are they taking his food away? Too? Like there are easier ways to get people to quit smoking. My god, just give him some Nicgorette.

No smoking is bad for you, don't you understand? I mean, there was a so I want to say, even in Tails from the Crypt, there was a cigarette episode Smoke Rings in the last season where it was like Daniel Craig was trying to figure out why cigarettes were killing people. It's like I don't know why. Like I mean, I know why cigarettes were a big deal. But at the same time, as I recently alluded to like I'd give a shit of people smoke, it's like I don't give a shit if people drink, Like, not my problem.

If you want to do it, cool. So these kinds of stories to me always feel very moral majority It's like, yeah, okay, if you don't like smoking, you think smoking's bad, this story might be something you're interested in, or if you're a smoker. I guess again, like if I were a smoker, this is not how I would go about quitting, Like, this is not the way anyone would go about quitting. This is the way that you would go about getting some sort of horrifying PTSD from the experience of being more fucked up in the process because they were taking your furniture away and they were such like treat it like waterboarding, like sound bombarding you. And so it's just again like I really don't like these kinds of stories because it comes from a moral high ground that I do not empathize with.

The guy smokes three packs a day. That's a lot, right, that's way too much, Matt, That's okay, I mean sixty cigarettes. Like when is he breathing oxygen? I don't even know. He's like a dock worker or something.

Well, once he said that, I was like, Okay, he kind of needs this treatment. But there are easier ways than recreating the man's apart and keeping him locked in there with the with the Tails from the Dark Side lighting package just sitting outside the windows. Uh, cheaper ways too. How about hey, one guy to walk around everywhere he goes and smack the cigarette out of his mouth, Like that would work. Who's paying him?

Why was he there in the first place? Was? Did his boss want him to quit? So he wanted to go. He went.

So that's the thing. They kind of like hang a lantern on it. He's like, I don't remember. Oh wait, no, I do remember. I asked for this to happen.

It's like his father died of lung cancer and he got scared and signed up for this program. But they had a long waiting list, so he forgot all about it and he just woke up and it was already happening to him. You just signed up for the shits sight unseen, like you didn't know what they were going to do. Court is incorporated as a better story because it pushes it pushes the issue. It actually says, like, well, if you were actually being threatened, what is it worth to you?

This is like who gives a shit? Because at the because at the end of the episode, ultimately it's played for a dumb, fucking gag. I think probably my biggest issue with this episode is the way it ends is dumb, very dumb. Oh, now you're gonna be off caffeine? Did he go in there for that?

What is that? Like? Now you guys are just keeping him hostage? Okay, so this was all a fucking lie anyways, Like I don't I don't appreciate those kinds of narrative twists because it makes the rest of the thing make no sense at all whatsoever. A word about stopping Early in the episode, before he's figured out that he's in prison, he has no idea still, he's just wondering where his cigarettes are.

He goes to the coffee maker and he pulls the carafe out while it's still parcolating, and he puts his mug under the percolator just to catch any drips. It was one of the most realistic human moments I've seen on any series ever. God bless Richard Romans. You know, that wasn't in the script. That was that was some observed human behavior, and I really appreciated it.

About that giant smoke detector, which was a real big surprise for me too, a big surprise. Now once he pulls the first panel off that it looks really fake because you can still see the tape where it had been stuck on there. But once that cover comes off and it's just all of these oversized diodes and like the the guts of any and I thought that looked great. And then when he's pulled the entire thing down and he's sitting in the in the debris trying to light a cigarette. I thought that was a pretty fucking beautiful image.

So the episode succeeds in a lot of ways, but not so much in plot or story but imagery, I mean. And then they do the you know, oh it was all a dream at the end, you know that look we got to get that, and like. No, you're right back in it. And then one guy, you've got the old Bob from Twelve Monkeys in there like, oh, hey, I need a cigarette. Oh I've got a match, she got a cigarette, like that whole weird negotiation between the wall and stuff and like, what where's this going?

He did see that was obviously a trap. That was not an obvious ploy. Fll like for real, Yeah, it just happened to you know, guy to you. Who has no cigarettes? Also, really get the fuck out of here.

That apartment has a million packs of cigarettes in it at one point. Are we to believe that they're removing those as well, or we believe that he's gone through the process of trying to smoke all of those cigarettes. And he's down to his last pack. Yes, the world will never know. It's just lazy.

It's I'll tell you what lazy. I do. Want to listen to that radio program he was listening to about household pets that smoke that sounded. We used to have a cat that would get high with my wife's former roommate. She would smoke down and blow the smoke into Misha's face, and then whenever she came over me, she would just come running just like, oh cool, let's get high.

Hey man, my cat gets high with me all the time. He sits downstairs with me when I get and he'll just be like his the most chill. So animals get high all the time. Man, it's cool. The animals that deserve it, probably more than we do.

So yeah, they have hard lives. Listen, hey man, you don't know what it's like out on the street for them. I know what my animals are like. They have fucking spoiled brats. One other thing I really liked in this episode.

Early on again, before he's realized his situation, the television is just on static, and every time he's unaware, Sam whatever his name is, Sam Anderson's face sort of pops up like peering at him, and I thought it was really creepy and super effective. I like that. Yeah, it doesn't make up for the other things. I'm just naming the things I liked about it, because overall I liked it. I mean, I didn't have a problem with it.

It was weird and unexplainable and obtuse, but sometimes I just enjoy it. It certainly didn't suffer what the last one did, which felt like it was going on for too long. The other one needed a b plot or something to get that one motivated in some way. This one, I didn't feel it, and which is weird because it's just a guy trapped in one room for twenty two. Minutes, talk about set pout.

Oh boy, But. Richard Ramanta should have been a bigger star, right, he should have been in more movies and stuff. He's he's got a weird intensity to him. I really enjoy him. It looks good in a pair of shorts, very short shorts.

Right at the end of the episode, I'm wearing those shorts. I could not help the laft because he's a very tall man and those are a very short pair of shorts for a very time. And then he's wearing like a dress shirt too, So he's he's just living his best life, stuck in an apartment he'll never get out of to die. And I guess what's next, I mean, what's after the caffeine? Then what do they let him go?

You're not eating well enough, sir, right to the proper weight. Oh, you know, masturbating too much, sir? Like you're doing yeah, like you're you're breathing air too much. On the treadmill. Please, sir, we need to get your top form.

By the way, They're gonna let this guy back out into the world who no longer smokes, but he also doesn't have a job or a place to live or any. Friends, probably because he disappeared for how long who knows. Yeah, I was thinking a lot of Old Boy while I was watching this one, too, because I was like, this almost feels like that, Like is he going to get out and find the people? Is he going to find Sam Anderson or whoever and track him down and take revenge on him? Well, it's like that to Japanese game show, right Nasubi?

The guy stuck in the room, the naked guy with the look like eggplant. Yeah, that's what this is like. But you know, with Richard Ramanis instead, I wanted to like this episode more, but again I have a real distaste for when they start clucking their tongues at us, real hard people who smoke whatever, people who drink coffee, whatever. You do? You now, what was it Bruce Willis at the beginning of Twilight Zone eighty five with Shatter Day, I mean, different kind of idea, but still like, where is that line between you and your responsibilities and where your responsibilities are aren't yours?

Because that's ultimately where the question this episode is right, like, when you're unable to do it yourself, how much of that are you giving over to somebody else? This episode doesn't give a shit about answering that question in an interesting way. It's just a joke, so that's fine. No, I don't think it's interested in answering any questions at all. I think it's just here's what it feels like.

To quit smoking. I guess it's the ultimate goal of the episode, and it does feel that way. Well. Hey, the last time we had a Michael McDowell written episode, it was another barn burner where a woman got killed by her phone. I actually like that.

If we're comparing these Michael McDowell episodes, I actually liked that episode more. I think that was a more effective episode in terms of being just balls to the wall weird. Well, that one made sense. It was who's ringing the phone over there? Oh no, it's alive.

This one was like, wait, why is he there? Wait? What are they doing? Are they he did hisself? Oh?

My god? Yeah? And then like there is one other shot by the way that I really liked. There was a transition between scenes where he gets up and leaves the room, and it focuses on the television which shows all those packs of cigarettes lined up in the kitchen, and then he comes in and tries to grab them all and then we go into that television shot into the kitchen. It was it was John Harrison, just flourishing.

But I thought it was beautiful anyway. Better than I don't. I don't not recommend the episode, but I don't necessarily recommend this episode for hardcore fans only. Oh boys, completionist get in on this line. Are you a fan of huge smoke detectors?

This is your shit? This is pretty much I think the only avenue if this is If that's your thing, Like, I think those people have already found this episode. Huge fan, huge fan. On the next episode of Midnight Viewing, we'll be taking a look at the final two episodes of season one. Those are Grandma's Last Wish and The False Prophet.

Until next time? What do you working on? Where can people find it? Mike White? I work on everything over at Weirdowaymedia dot com except for one thing, which is ranking on bond where it is Chris and Richard HadAM and I and we get together once a month and we talk about James Bond on our respected patreons.

Well, Chris and I. It's not Richard HadAM. I don't know if he's got a Patreon or not. But Patreon dot com, slash culturecast, Patreon dot com, slash Projection booth. How about you, Chris.

Oh, just Weirdingwaymedia dot com is where all the stuff I work on can be found. Yeah, other than the ranking on Bond. Yeah, Weirdingway Media. It's everything I work on, most everything all three of us work on. So yeah, that's where you can find my stuff.

What about you? Father them alone? Not same? Thank you all for joining us here on midnight viewing. Until next time, try to enjoy the daylight.

Midnight Viewing. The Horror Anthology Podcast is a proud member of Weirdingway Media. Our theme song was composed HP with an assist from Donald Rubinstein and Erica Lindsay. If you want to hear these episodes early and commercial free, become a patron over at Patreon. Dot com slash follom alone.

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