Tales from the Darkside S03E15&16 (My Own Place, Red Leader)

Weary Way. Welcome back to Midnight Viewing, where this season we're taking a look at George Ramiro's nineteen eighty series Tales from the Dark Side. I am Father Belone and sharing the Midnight view with me are the culture cast Chris Tatue, Blue. Horseshoe, Loves Anacott Steel. And the Pretection Booth to Mike White.

Would you like some chicken Tiki Massala? Tonight, we're taking a look at two episodes from season three. Those are My Own Place and a Red Leader. My Own Place is season three, episode fifteen, originally aired on February eighteenth, nineteen eighty seven, Written by Ted Gershuoni and Perry Lang, directed by Ted Gershoni, starring Perry Lang, also Harsh Naire and Nancy Travis. This is either a clumsy take on the continuing treatment of immigrants in America or a modern remake of one froggy Evening featuring a Hindu man in a nouvou rich yuppie with half a conscience.

What'd you think of this one, Chris. I'm actually a little disappointed that neither Mike nor I said porkins get back here because of the title of Red Leader. Now I'm on the leader. What a fucking strange episode. Why what's happening?

So? Is it is his apartment, a portal, a gateway? How do they change places? Are they are their beds? Well?

How they change play? What is going on? Because I'm so unbelievably confused. But the episode doesn't seem to think anybody who's watching it's gonna because it just zooms right on past any sort of explanation, as if we don't need one for why there's just a Hindu guy walking around this man's apartment. But hey, these cutaways to a bunch of Indian people clawing at someone is apparently explanation enough.

This was a interminable episode of the show. I couldn't tell you what the hell was going So. He was an Indian guy? I thought he was a vampire. Was at one point, oh.

Okay him and Marshallcross used to be okay. Really closed that he has been in dead This is the ghost of the actual guy before he was a vampire. See how that were okay? All right? And I guess it's one of these never ending stories because there's the hole in the window and Lane gets thrown through there at the end, So it must have been caused by the last person that was here.

Maybe the last person was Indian or was another tenant. And when she talked about how cheap the rent was, I was just waiting for there to be like a hellmouth in the wall that they had to sacrifice people too, because we know the cheap apartments come with the price. Yeah, you got a bit of organic garbage. Yeah, on top of everything else. Who was in on it?

Is the question that I really want answered, Father Malone? What did you think? Episode? I think apartment living is a deep concern to the writers of Towns from the Dark Side that all sort of living, urban living is up for grabs and constant dread that everyone's going through. Yeah, this is just a clumsy metaphor for yumpies in New York and their treatment of immigrants.

Right, They're enjoying their culinary skills and letting them wash their clothes and basically pretending they're invisible for the rest of the time. That's what it seems like to me. Or was this all in his head? And wouldn't be great if it was all in his head? Because what kind of bizarre mythology to make up for oneself there's a Hindu man who appears only when I'm around, and he's really nice to me, and he tries to help me in every single way.

I can't fucking stand him. And he makes really good food that I've taken to as well. Yeah, where is he get the ingredients? Is that he's out there cooking? And I guess, Yeah, he's beating the guy's clothes with a stone to wash them.

Yeah, yeah, what is the problem here? Come on? I was waiting for the downside? Hey by, Yeah, here's Perry Lang in my mind. Hey Wally, it's my best friend and he's dancing.

Thank you. Where do I know Perry Lang from? Because as soon as I saw him, I thought he looks like he's been in something playing a blind man. And I could not put my finger on it. And the closest I got was he was in and he was in something where there was a blind character, but I don't remember him playing a blind like.

It was just like, was he in a TV show as a blind kid or. What must have been at some point right like everyone around it those days. He was in Jennifer eight, which is probably one of the worst movies I've ever seen. Mike go with the Uma Thurman, right, yeah, oh. Yeah, Andy Garcia, my best Friendandy Garcia.

Yeah, it's a garbage fick. It was real bad. Apparently they had one day of a setup in a park where they got to film a guy riding a bike to and from the camera. That was a big cutaway to remind us that this was on location at some point. At one point near the end, he comes in and he lays down, and they eighty yard the line and I'm tired.

I got to sleep. Thank god they had yarded in, or we would not have known what his intention was when he laid down. The show. Don't tell father Malone. Don't you understand, in this day and age of moving pictures with sound, why would we ever show?

Why would we do such a thing. Why would we like all about telling? Yeah, he comes home and immediately all right, as much as he hates him, as soon as he gets back to his apartment, he's always ram let me tell you about my day. Yeah, you don't seem really put out by the fact that this guy's here cooking you food and giving an interest in who you are, Like, I failed to see what the problem is. Okay, So we look at that and that, and also where is this connection even coming from?

It seems indeterminable to me. A window inside the apartment, Like I don't get when he's putting boards up on this other window, I'm like, is this where ram comes from? I guess are. The Is it the Indian lady that owns the building? But it is interesting that it's an Indian lady that sells him the apartment, but then it's a white lady that sells it to the next person.

So yeah, some lame John landis Twilight Zone the movie kind of thing where he's being forced to experience what the life was like of immigrants before they came here, because that's what it feels, is that number two eighty five somehow, so just to be a magic number. They're renting the apartment for only two hundred and eighty five dollars. That's like a big deal. That's the number. Like they don't give us a goddamn thing.

And it's really frustrating because I think it's really intriguing. Oh yeah, but that's about and that's but that's about it. That's the problem, right, because it's because that's where they leave it. It's just let's just ends up being an interesting idea that goes nowhere. Yeah.

Oh, and by the way, I'm sorry it's still the same Indian lady at the end. I just think it is the s say, isn't it the same? It's the same. Yeah, it's a white lady she's selling. To My take of what the episode is and again like maybe this is and again, Father Malone, is what you were hinting at.

My take on the episode is that there is more going on that we're just never keyed in on, and that the Indian woman who owns the building that we see giving the apartment to or twice is the one who's in on it. We're just not seeing whatever it is she's doing her machinations. Why, I don't know. It's like the episode doesn't think we would care or are interest or what have you, or maybe they it's one of those David lindelof mystery Box things where they create a mystery box but have no intention of ever opening it, and because it's a short form TV show anthology, they can get away with not and just go weird things happen entails from the dark Side, because that was always the Twilight Zones thing.

If you think about it. It's what's the explanation. It's the twilight Zone, okay, but that's just the explanation sometimes, And why is that not good enough? Here? I guess is the question right because I don't think it's done particularly well.

I think is the issue. Because it's done way too specifically. Here. It's like this Hindu family and he keeps flashing to this guy's life and apparently India. And then when when the guy finally when he finally banishes him or tosses him out the window allows him to suicide himself out that window.

Like when he flashes to India, he doesn't become the guy because the guy's dead in front of him. He becomes another thing who's being like marauded by I don't know, the guy's friends and family or something like, and they throw him out the It's so specific. It's like there's clearly a tail at work here, but they don't want to give us any of the information that can help us fill it in. And ordinarily I'm fine with not knowing, but this is so fucking specific. I gotta know something more.

Why Why India? Why Baby? Why India? I want what's why? For two hundred and eighty five dollars a month.

You expect a roommate, come on, and this guy's a great roommate. He's never there when when you have a woman around, he's not there. And when it's oh yeah, I used to listen to my sister and brother in law getting it on all the time, I'm like, okay, weird flex, but all right, thanks for not bothering me here. Yeah, and he allows you to tank the food he's made and fucking claim it that you cooked it, like you come up great for dates at that. I don't know.

God, Yeah, guy's better than Casper. And why is Rom dead? And why hasn't Lang ever bought any furniture for his house? He's a yuppie banker who's poor, right, Yeah, that was the other thing I didn't understand, Like why, like he's a yuppie banker who has no money. He's clear he really a yuppie banker.

Then we see him acting as a banker in one scene and he loses everything and he's calling please help me. So yeah, maybe this two eighty five place is the best he's ever gonna do. Rather ineffectual, Yeah, that's yeah, rather ineffectual. Yuppie banker. If only there were more like that.

Yeah, I guess, I just I guess I wish I knew what the moral of the story is here, because to both of all his points, Ted Gershooney seems to be angling at something I just don't know what, and if he knows, he hadn't made it clear to the rest of it. Is there just a scene missing where it's like a cutaway to that Indian lady just talking to somebody else and more or less like basil expositioning the entire episode, because that's what it feels like. It feels like we're missing literally one scene that's maybe forty five seconds long that would explain every single thing that's more or less indescribable that happens. I agree with you, but I would go further. Frequently throughout the episode, it felt like scenes were cut short, like like they were leading somewhere and there was some other sort of conversation that was about to happen, and then it cuts really abruptly into other things.

It felt like they made an episode that was too long and then fashioned it down into something that they could still air, and it made comprehensible sense, not as I say, I. Think they're giving themselves way too much credit for how much sense it makes, because I think it makes barely any sense. And there has to be some explanation for why it's India, because as someone who loves India and Indian cinema, you don't just go to India in nineteen eighty seven. That's oddly like such a specific thing, like, of all the places to go, why India? No explanation, all right?

I feel like that the actor was just hanging around after the Vampire episode and they're like, hey, we've got a perfect thing for you. Well, I hope that was it. Actually, I hope they were just like him something. I don't care what it is, just we're going to do it. We love this guy, harsh ni Are.

He's great. He's the best part of the episode. He's the guy that killed Gandhi. I think I brought that up the last time. I think you did.

Yeah, I am curious. I was just looking to see if Perry Lang is out there on the socials or anything. He's not. Unfortunately, he became more of a director than an actor. His last movie was directed in twenty eighteen.

I want to know if they've done this on God Awful Movies because he directed one called an Interview with God, and up and coming journalist finds his world and faith increasingly challenged when he's granted the interview of a lifetime was someone who claims. To be God? Oh boy, do I want to see that? I know? Right, Lesley Neil.

Who David Stratharn, who's a really good actor? Yead? I were going to say, like Leslie Nielsen or Stacy Keach. Or I honestly with that title, I expected Case Orbs, Rob Schneider or James Woods k. Storbes R Shnee JWU them all really undeserved.

Rob Dobby, I don't know how that Dove R Dob there you go. Robert Dove that guy? Oh boy, David A. R. White some of.

The cigarettes off of me and like just put him in his pocket and walked away. Doby Dick, Yeah, yeah, yeah yeah. What about John Voight? I've never check out this bowler? I got.

All right? Our next episode is a Red Leader. This is season three, episode six, aired originally on February the fifteenth, nineteen eighty seven, Written by Edith Swinson, directed by John Harrison, starring joe E Tata Right before he owned the peach pit over on Beverly Hills nine o two, also Armin and Coreed. He plays two different characters in the Godfather films, also Brioni Farrell and Peter Bramolo as a red leader. Anyone want to describe this one?

Yeah, I would like to take a swing at it. So you know how we were talking about Robert Dovey and John Voit a second ago. So imagine if you dan a trip more or less. It's just like what happens if a real estate asshole of the late eighties caught the attention of the devil, and the devil was like, you would be doing me a lot better of a job by just being in hell. Let come to hell.

And the guy goes, no, see, I'm like a good guy, but he knows he's not a good guy. I think, I assume, and it is. The entire episode is just the Devil trying to get this guy to either kill himself or allow himself to be killed and or die. It's how close am I father him alone? Close?

Ninety way. It's that you know that the guy thinks he has a chance of redeeming himself. The devil says that you have no chance. You should make a deal with me now. The problem is there's no moment of you got to make the deal now because if you don't, you're just gonna be fucked forever in hell with me.

And where's that? Yeah, there wasn't that. There was. Ultimately it turns into hooray, let's all do some evil together, which is fine. I don't mind let's all do evil together.

But there was no stakes that felt in the episode like this guy started on top and then continued on top and then ended on top. And I'm such a good guy. It is like you're an asshole. Like it's very obvious the way he's written, he's overwritten in a way. Words.

And then right before I die, I'll repent said who that wasn't a fucking asshole? Like what? There's no person who's ever said that in a fictional thing. That is not a villain. But then you can on the deathbed, I believe in Jesus Christ John sixteen boom.

Look look at Jimmy Saville. He never even confessed to what he did, so he got away with it and went to heaven for their rules. I don't know is that how this works? If You're never brought to burden on the things you do. They just not happen.

You just go to or heaven, like based on the things people know. I don't understand you can get thirty four fell into convictions and still just go right into the White House. You're okay, man, You're right. If I just kicked people at what if I kicked poor people out of buildings? What if we did that?

Could I redeem myself? It's God, it's so such of a time, but yet, man, that time still sticking around. Here's what I really liked about the episode. Here's what I've been liking about Edith Swinson in general, is that she comes up with fucking fantastic concepts. Like halfway through this episode, this guy's partner who he killed comes up out of hell and he needs to do better.

In Hell, he is just a fucking drone and he wants to be a minion. So he needs to prove to them what a cocksucker he was on earth. But by doing that, he will expose his living partner, and he doesn't need that because he thinks he still has a chance to get into heaven. I love that as a fucking center that could be an entire film as far as I'm concerned, these two guys each trying to get into either Heaven or do either do better in hell well or try to get into it. I don't know.

That was tantalizing. And then having his living partner instead advocate for all of his good deeds, which would be the end of any sort of Disney movie, like we're going to keep you out of Hell, I'm going to tell them all the good things you're doing. But instead it's fucking the guy by making his position worse in hell. Love that really, Yeah. There are some good ideas here, I honestly, between some of the ideas that they have, and then also the actual set decoration, which I thought looked very nice and very yuppie.

I think that they had their finger on the pulse there. So yeah, it felt like Patrick Bateman businessman type of thing. And you know what, that office looked very much to me like a morgue, all those draws. Oh yeah, it kind of reminded me of the the what do you call the Office where that guy who would turn himself into a cocoon because of the safety thing that he had so he could never get killed. Oh yeah, and lastly is and yeah, I forget the name, but yes, that was fantastic.

Yeah, Brioni Farrell is really sexy. I just want to say that. Oh yeah, oh my god. Especially when she takes off or what like the hat or whatever and shakes out her hair. I was like, oh, yeah, I always enjoy that.

Yeah, and we get basically like the living manifestation of the end of Creep Show with Ups and Pratt where the widows hope you die that. Yeah, we get it in the flesh kind of hair and which, by the way, I really liked that was clever, where the devil's just like, you know what, I don't think we need to negotiate at all. Let me get in. Someone here is just gonna fucking kill you. Here's the gun.

I made the gun disappear and now it's reappearing right in front of you. Wouldn't it be a shame if he used it? Like and then I like how she kicks his body down. Okay, so here's my favorite part of the episode. She's just what's that hole in the ground, and then by the end of it, she's you know what, not only do I not care what the hole in the ground is?

A fuck you motherfucker just punts his body into the hole after she's done shooting him. Like later, I'm just wow at this episode. Just I like it. Just it goes so far in each direction. But I enjoyed this.

I enjoyed this episode. I think the most of the episodes we've seen in a while, this one has some interesting ideas I would have I think to your point, Father Malone preferred it maybe be a little longer, take some of the wrinkles that they added to an otherwise straightforward idea, and expound upon them further. Even a little bit of John Harrison ingenuity here. At one point, the Devil in order to convince Joe it Tada of his past misty, it tanks a diamond and he spins it on the desk and it turns into a flashing red light and we just hear the audio of it, So we do get the visual in effect, because we're seeing this kind of clever thing that they're doing and hearing the audio. I thought that's a great workaround.

Yeah, that was really nice. I'd like that with that little spinning diamond as your audio device. I was like, Oh, that's pretty clever. I like that cut it, Yeah, big t. It's nice when somebody has some kind of style or something visually interesting to say, because it doesn't seem like a lot of people rise to the occasion when given the opportunity.

His episodes always look great. He always comes in and tells the story that's on the page, even if that story happens to be poorly constructed. All right, on the next episode of Midnight Viewing, We're going to take a look at the next two episodes of season three. Those are Everybody Needs a Little Love and Old Acquaintances that's old like old Old lang Zine. Midnight Viewing is a proud member of a Weirdingway Media group and our theme song was composed by HP with an as system by Donald or Rubinstein.

Until next time? What are you working on? Where can people find it? Chris Stashue. You can find everything that I work on over at Weirdingwaymedia dot com other than one other podcast that is a Patreon exclusive.

And I'm going to kick it over to Mike White because he's involved and he can tell you where to find. I'm very involved. It's called rankin on Bond and you can find that over at Chris and I's respective patreon, which is patreon dot com slash culture cast that's with a K or patreon dot com Slow Projection Booth. And let's not forget Father Malone's Patreon, which is available at patreon dot com slash Father Malone. Yes, thank you and keep it here.

On midnight viewing every Sunday and or Monday, we get the Father Malonees Weekly round Up where I take a look at the current things going on in the world. And every other Friday, now HP from Noise Junkies and Night Mister Walters and I are engaged in midnight viewings Fuseco Fast where we're taking a look at the works of screenwriter John Fusco. So far, we've got Crossroads and the Young Guns films. We're moving on to Thunderheart and The Babe, and we've been talking to John Fiusco. You might want to check out some future episodes.

It's that. Until next time, try to enjoy the daylight in La