History Recap / TalesFromTheCryptS3E11SplitSecond

->'''Crypt Keeper:''' ''(dressed as a lumberjack and sharpening an axe)'' Sometimes, life can be such a ''grind''. Know what I mean? That's why I like to get out every now and then and ''(throws the axe)'' ''swing'' a little. ''(the axe hits something offscreen, causing a man to scream)'' So much for ''his'' family tree. ''(cackles)'' Tonight's tale concerns a young woman who's about to do a little ''swinging'' of her own. She wants to prove that a good man is hard to find, but easy to get rid of. I think you'll like this little ''chopping'' spree I call: '''Split Second.'''

Liz Kelly, a woman with virtually no morals nor any shame, has ended up stranded in a logging town in the Pacific Northwest, where she has taken up work as a barmaid to save up for a bus ticket out. During her shift one day, lumber camp manager Steve Dixon saves her from being harassed by a rowdy patron, and marries her on the same night. Things go well in the duo's married life until Liz shows up in a skimpy outfit in front of Steve's workers, which turns him violently jealous. A new lumberjack named Ted Morgan shows up looking for work at the camp, hoping to train for a local woodcutting competition. His muscular physique instantly grabs the attention of Liz, who knows full well what Steve could do to the guy, but nonetheless puts her plan in motion, all to rid herself of perpetual boredom.

!Tropes
* AbhorrentAdmirer: Steve becomes one to Liz, marrying her on the night she met him. Once his men start taking note of her and her attractiveness, he becomes insanely and violently protective of her.
* AllergicToRoutine: Liz does pretty much whatever she wants without thinking of the consequences solely because she hates boredom. Case in point, she gets bored of her marriage to Steve incredibly quickly. When Ted comes looking for work, she decides that the cure for her boredom has arrived, and proceeds to seduce him despite being married ''and'' knowing about Steve's violent temper.
* AssholeVictim: Steve and Liz. They both end the episode BoundAndGagged inside hollowed-out logs, as the now blind Ted cuts the logs with a chainsaw.
* AwfulWeddedLife: Liz quickly becomes bored in her marriage to Steve, and seduces Ted to entertain herself. On the other side, Steve's marriage quickly turns him into a highly toxic and homicidal lunatic who is willing to kill anyone who makes even the slightest crack at his wife.
* AxCrazy: Steve Dixon. He's verbally and physically abusive to his workers once he marries Liz. He attacked Artie for making a crack at Liz for being a tramp in her past, to the point where Snazz had to pull him off the poor guy, and later beats up Ted after catching him sleeping with Liz, using an axe to permanently blind him. What's worse, one of his men says that Steve was "a helluva guy" before he got married.
* BattleCry: Snazz helps the blinded Ted work a chainsaw by repeating "Do it, Ted! Amputate! Make it pay for its mistake!"
* BeCarefulWhatYouWishFor: Liz wanted to find a cure for her terminal boredom her entire life. When she's about to be cut into pieces by the guy she indirectly made blind, she narrates that Steve's workers finally found it.
* BedroomAdulteryScene: Steve catches Ted and Liz in bed after Liz seduces Ted.
* BenevolentBoss: Steve starts the episode as a pretty nice guy to hang around with. When some environmentalists' protests get in the way of current operations, he decided to relocate to the north side of the mountain rather than lay off any of his workers. He's also quite chummy with his men... before they see and react to Liz.
* BetweenMyLegs: The episode's comic cover is a scene of Steve attacking Ted viewed between Liz's legs.
* BewareTheNiceOnes: Artie and Snazz. They put up with Steve's abuse at first, but once he blinds Ted, they take him at knife/gunpoint and uses him as a practice log for their contest.

** Steve stops Banjo from forcing himself on Liz.
** Steve accuses Artie of sleeping with Liz and grabs him. Due to what had happened the last time the guys made a crack at Liz, Snazz immediately intervenes by admitting he was the one who made the joke that got Steve all riled up in the first place.
* BloodSplatteredInnocents: Ted gets splattered as he unknowingly saws a hollowed out log with a bound and gagged Steve inside it. The other lumberjacks get blood on them also as they cheer Ted on.
* BoundAndGagged: Twice near the end of the episode. Steve and Liz are given this treatment and placed inside hollowed-out logs. After the story ends, the producer of the show is given the same treatment by the Crypt Keeper, only he is tied to the outside of his log.
* ChainsawGood: Steve and Liz, trapped inside hollow logs, meet their ends by chainsaw by the lumberjack the former blinded.
* CreatorCameo: The wraparound segment at the end features Joel Silver, a producer of the show, BoundAndGagged to a giant log on his birthday, as the Crypt Keeper cuts into him with a chainsaw to give him a "final cut".
* DeadpanSnarker: Liz isn't only deadpan in her snark, she's deadpan in pretty much everything.
* DiedOnTheirBirthday: The Crypt Keeper cuts into his producer on his birthday, giving him "the final cut" as a present.
* DisproportionateRetribution: Artie laughs at Snazz's joke about Liz giving blowjobs for a nickel. Overhearing it, but getting wrong who said it, Steve responds by assaulting Artie and shoving a sharpened piece of plastic in the guy's mouth, to the point where he coughs up blood and can't breathe.
* DistractedByTheSexy: Steve's workers let out catcalls and wolf whistles at Liz when she walks into their meeting in skimpy clothing. It makes Steve violently snap at both them and Liz.
* TheDogBitesBack: Ted, at first unknowingly, cuts up the abusive boss who blinded him, and the flirtatious wife who seduced him and encouraged the beating.
* EmotionlessGirl: Liz displays practically no emotion for the whole episode, since she's constantly engaged in a battle against boredom.
* EyeScream: Steve's attack on Ted after [[BedroomAdulteryScene he sees him in bed with Liz]] renders Ted blind.
* FirstPersonSmartass: Liz narrates the story as it happens, and not once does she let off on the snark.
* ForTheEvulz: Liz is a loose, uncaring, unfeeling skank who has slept with many men without second thought because she's constantly bored, and in her opinion, there's nothing in the world worse than boredom. She purposely seduces Ted, knowing full well how jealous and possessive Steve can get. When [[BedroomAdulteryScene Steve catches Ted and Liz in bed]], she falsely cries rape, which leads to Steve beating Ted with an axe and rendering him blind. Liz doesn't really feel any remorse for the situation she caused, which, again, she did solely because she was bored.
* ForWantOfANail: Had Banjo backed down and respected Liz's wishes, Steve wouldn't have come to her rescue, they would've never gotten married, and they wouldn't have been cut to pieces by the workers they wounded and rebuked.
* FourthDateMarriage: Steve and Liz marry on the very same night they meet.
* GoldDigger: Downplayed. According to Liz, Steve boasted that he had a good amount of money when he proposed. Though liking the idea of being taken care of, her narration indicates she had a "Meh, why not?" flippancy to the proposal rather than immediately seeing dollar signs.

* IdiotBall: Ted sleeps with his boss' wife, knowing full well that he's unhinged about her, and he does so right in his cabin, where he can easily walk right in.

* {{Irony}}: Steve doesn't want any women around the workers except his wife. He comments that women cause trouble in places like this. Later on in the episode, guess who ends up actually causing all the trouble?

* ItsAllAboutMe: Liz basically focuses on engaging in one one-night-stand after another to keep herself from being bored, showing that she basically cares only for herself. And even then, she voices it in a way that makes it seem she doesn't even care about herself.
* JumpingOffTheSlipperySlope: Steve's not exactly wrong to be concerned about Liz being around his men, given how she was immediately greeted with a WolfWhistle and derided as a slut for her sexual history. Of course, he immediately takes it too far by attacking Artie (who simply laughed at a comment that Snazz had made). He gets even worse from there.
* LackOfEmpathy: Liz has virtually no evidence of a conscience whatsoever. No remorse, no empathy, no sympathy, no morality, '''''nothing.''''' She observes the workers helping Ted work their equipment after he's been blinded by Steve when she seduced him, and rather than express any shred of sympathy for the situation she helped cause, Liz finds it strange and thinks that the workers must have nothing better to do.
* LoveAtFirstSight: Steve fell for Liz as soon as he saw her, even marrying her on that same night.
* LoveMakesYouDumb: Ted does realize that sex with Liz isn't going to end well, but unfortunately for him, he ends up listening to the wrong head and loses his eyesight for the trouble.
* MightyLumberjack: All the male characters are strong, hardy, and (mostly) physically attractive lumberjacks, since the episode is set in a logging community.
* MrFanservice: Ted has a lean and muscular physique, which he uses to cut a huge log in two with only an axe in the span of seconds. This catches Liz's attention, and she decides to seduce him despite being married to the jealous and insanely violent Steve.
* MyGirlIsNotASlut: After we see Steve flip out over a joke made about her sexual history, Liz's narration reflects on this trope.

* NervesOfSteel: When Steve shows up at the bar angrily insisting someone's been sleeping with his wife, Snazz is the only one standing up to him, since everyone else is too scared (although you can't really blame them for that).
* NoEnding: Regarding the woodcutting contest that Steve's men strenuously prepare for, the episode ends before it even starts.
* OhCrap: After cutting the supposed tree trunk amid cheers, Ted has this expression during a close-up, as he's apparently realized what actually happened. He gets over the shock, though, and joins the cheers before gearing up to cut the next trunk.
* ReallyGetsAround: Liz's is known to nearly all the men in town as an absolute slut, to the point Snazz quips that Steve must be in to sloppy seconds. Liz herself acknowledges how she was with several of Steve's men before she married Steve himself.
* SanitySlippage: Steve immediately flips out in response to his men's reactions to Liz. While trying to reason with Steve at the bar, Snazz says he was a great guy before getting married and warns that Liz is driving him off the deep end.
* ShamelessFanserviceGirl: Liz spends all of her time showing off her attractive figure and parading herself around in skimpy outfits to get reactions out of Steve's men, another side effect of her constant boredom.
* SmallRoleBigImpact: Steve and Liz only get together because of Banjo, a bar patron who wasn't taking "no" for an answer, and prompted Steve to come to her rescue.
* TheSociopath: Steve and Liz. The former for devolving into a violent madman who grievously injures his own men, and the latter incapable of feeling empathy or compassion for anything, even herself.
* TemptingFate: During her narration, Liz admitted she thought she'd actually be happy after getting married to Steve and settling down at his big house in the mountains. It doesn't take long for her boredom to resurface.
* TookALevelInJerkass: In the opening scene, Steve intervenes when Banjo won't stop bothering Liz, even when at risk of getting knifed for his trouble. He gets substantially worse and worse immediately after he marries Liz.
* TranquilFury: When Snazz and Artie show to at Steve's place, they have calm smiles on their faces. However, their reason for being there (to kidnap him) makes it clear they're angry about what he did to Ted.
* UnwittingInstigatorOfDoom: Liz unnecessarily flirts with Ted to ease her boredom, leading to their later infidelity and driving Steve to become abusive to his workers, Ted being blinded, and her and Steve's eventual deaths.
* WeUsedToBeFriends: Snazz, while tearing into Steve, tells him that he was a great boss and a great friend to his workers, but all that disappeared when he married Liz. By the end of the episode, they trap him in a hollowed log and trick the blinded Ted into cutting him up with a chainsaw.
* WhamShot: Blood suddenly gushing from a supposed tree trunk. We then see Steve BoundAndGagged.
* WhatTheHellHero: Snazz berating Steve at the bar and telling him he's going crazy, reminding him that he was a real fun guy to be with before he married Liz.
* WrongGenreSavvy: When Steve discovers a work glove on his floor and realizes Liz has been sleeping with one of the men, the first suspect is Artie, due to the joke he had laughed at earlier.

->'''Crypt Keeper:''' ''(pops into frame wearing a hard hat)'' Mmmmm! Now, that's what I call "sushi roll". I guess Liz was right. A good man ''is'' hard to find... especially after he's been chopped into so many pieces! ''(cackles)'' Well, kiddies, I've got a little chopping to do of my own. ''(the camera zooms out to reveal a man gagged and strapped to a log)'' It's my producer's birthday. He's always wanted final ''cut'', and that's exactly what he's getting! ''(cackles maniacally and begins cutting the log, causing the producer to writhe in agony)''