!! Mute Witness to Murder

[[quoteright:350:https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/mute_witness_to_murder.jpg]]
[[caption-width-right:350:This is the ''worst'' time to be tongue-tied.]]

->'''Crypt Keeper:''' (''dressed as a doctor'') Good evening, kiddies. I just had quite a scare. I actually thought my heart was beating again! (''cackles'') Tonight's twisted tale is a villainous voyage of murderous medical madness that screams out the ''crypt''-sequences of getting too nosy with your neighbors. So the next time you stare into someone's window... remember: '''curiosity killed the cat.'''

On the eve of her anniversary costume party, Susan Hastings (Creator/PatriciaClarkson) stares from her balcony as the man in the apartment across the street savagely murders his wife in front of the window. The brutality of the act and the subsequent shock renders Susan mute, and when her husband Paul (Reed Birney) finds her unable to speak, he goes to get a doctor to help her get better. The doctor in question, Dr. Trask (Creator/RichardThomas), is unfortunately the same man who Susan witnessed killing his wife. When Dr. Trask learns that Susan knows what he's done, he has her committed to the state hospital he's in charge of, where the mute woman must fight for her life before Trask has her permanently silenced.
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!! Tropes:
* AintTooProudToBeg: When his heart begins to act up, Trask begs Susan to call Desk, but she doesn't bother to do so until after he's dead.
* BedlamHouse: Long Hill, owned and operated by Trask, is where the wicked doctor locks Susan up after he finds out that she knows what he's done.
* BittersweetEnding: Susan manages to kill Dr. Trask by using his ailing heart against him, but the entire ordeal (including Paul's death) breaks her and causes her to actually become insane.
* BreakTheCutie: This whole episode is a nonstop parade of agony for poor Susan. She's rendered mute, falsely institutionalized, forced to watch her husband be killed in front of her, and is almost subjected to a fatal lobotomy just for being in the wrong place at the wrong time. The end of the episode doesn't ease her status even after she gets revenge on the man who subjected her to all that pain, because she succumbs to insanity minutes after her ordeal is over.
* ControlFreak: Dr. Trask has complete control over Long Hill, where he has Susan locked up.
* DeadlyDoctor: The sociopathic Dr. Trask kills both his wife for arguing with him and Paul when he begins deducing the truth of what he's done, and he deliberately locks Susan in the asylum he has absolute control over, planning to give her a lobotomy (intentionally killing her in the process) to cover his tracks, so he fits this trope thoroughly.
* DeathByAdaptation: In the comic, Paul disappears from the story after Susan's committed. In the episode, he begins to realize that something's up and confronts Trask, but is killed shortly thereafter.
* DisproportionateRetribution: Dr. Trask kills his wife simply because she wouldn't stop yelling at him for dragging her out of Paul and Susan's party after 5 minutes.
* DumbStruck: Watching Dr. Trask kill his wife renders Susan mute from shock, but watching him kill Paul manages to break her out of it.
* EveryoneCallsHimBarkeep: Dr. Trask's nurse is only identified as "Desk".
* ElectiveMute: Once she gets her voice back, Susan gets revenge by pretending to still be mute to get the drop on Trask.
* EurekaMoment: Susan uttering Paul's name after she watches Trask kill him, making her realize that her muteness has been overcome, and thereby allowing her to plot her revenge.
* EvenEvilHasStandards: Trask is a murderous sadist who locks Susan in his own private asylum, but he assures her that he's not going to take sexual advantage of her while she's restrained.
* ForWantOfANail: The whole episode comes to pass because Susan stays on her balcony after the party. If she hadn't, she would've never witnessed Trask kill his wife and go mute, lose her husband, and succumb to insanity.
* HappilyMarried: Susan and Paul have a pretty happy marriage, and despite letting Trask lock his wife up, Paul truly believes that he's doing the right thing because he loves Susan. He eventually barges into Long Hill and almost learns the truth, but Trask kills him before he can save her.
* HeartbeatSoundtrack: Whenever he gets worried or stressed, Trask's failing heart is heard furiously pumping over the soundtrack.
* HollywoodHeartAttack: Trask is killed by one of them, which triggers during his fight with Susan.
* HorribleJudgeOfCharacter: Paul is completely persuaded by Trask to have his wife sedated and locked in an asylum when she's rendered mute, trusting him simply because he's a doctor (with an obviously ominous demeanor). It even gets him called out by his sister, who has actual medical experience.
* {{Hypocrite}}: After he kills his wife and Susan's husband, Dr. Trask has the nerve to call Susan a murderer as she [[LaserGuidedKarma lets him die of a fatal heart attack.]]
* {{Irony}}:
** Dr. Trask has Susan committed under false pretenses to cover his tracks in murdering his wife. At the end of the episode, the trauma of her entire ordeal causes Susan to go insane for real.
** The beginning of the episode has Susan recount how she and Paul met through a ContrivedCoincidence. Such a coincidence also makes her end up losing him, albeit through a more of a ForWantOfANail variety.
* ItsAllAboutMe: Given his heart condition, Trask kills his wife (and subsequently tries to keep Susan locked up) just to let himself stay alive.
* LaughingMad: Susan gives off deranged giggles at the end of the episode, having actually gone insane from her ordeal.
* LeaveNoWitnesses: Dr. Trask intends to do away with Susan so his killing of his wife goes unnoticed.
* {{Lobotomy}}: Near the end of the episode, Dr. Trask prepares to give Susan one, killing her in the process, to silence her once and for all.
* LogicalWeakness: Trask's heart condition renders him vulnerable to cardiac arrest if he's exposed to great amounts of stress. Susan triggers a fatal heart attack by fighting with him, then stands and watches as he dies a slow and painful death.
* MoralMyopia: Trask justifies every one of his killings as self-defense, but when Susan attacks him in ''genuine'' self-defenses, he rages and tries to kill her himself.
* NeckSnap: Trask kills Paul by stepping on his neck until it breaks.
* ObfuscatingInsanity: A rare variant where an innocent person is painted as insane by someone else. In Trask's case, he declares Susan a dangerous lunatic who needs to be saved from herself, once he figures out that she knows he killed his wife.
* PoeticSerialKiller: Trask has shades of one, given how he waxes philosophical about the nature of marriage and love.
* PoorCommunicationKills: Even though it's not at all her fault, Susan's muteness keeps her from revealing the truth to Paul, who allows Dr. Trask to have her committed.
* ScaryBlackWoman: Dr. Trask's nurse "Desk", who is completely stone-faced and stoic while tending to Susan.
* SlasherSmile: Trask gives one to the camera in Susan's cell as he prepares to kill Paul. Susan gives one herself after she kills Trask and succumbs to insanity.
* TheSociopath: Dr. Trask is one of the most wicked doctors to ever appear on TV. His first onscreen action has him bludgeoning and strangling his wife just because she wouldn't stop arguing with him.
* SoftSpokenSadist: Dr. Trask, though he has no choice because of a heart condition, and any excitement or aggravation will put him at risk of a coronary.
* ThemedParty: Paul and Susan's anniversary party is apparently a costume party, as the guests are dressed up like it's Halloween.
* [[HeKnowsTooMuch They Know Too Much]]: Dr. Trask kills his wife, then kills Paul and nearly does the same with Susan to cover his tracks.
* TooDumbToLive: Paul fully allows Dr. Trask to lock Susan up, fully believing everything he's told because he's a doctor. His sister, who happens to have medical experience, calls him out, noting that people don't just go insane in the span of a few minutes. He ''does'' begin figuring out the truth, but Trask makes short work of him.
* VillainsWantMercy: Trask begs Susan to call Desk and save him when [[LaserGuidedKarma he suffers a heart attack]].
* WhatHappenedToTheMouse: The last we see of Susan, she's going insane after her ordeal with Trask. The Crypt Keeper even invokes the trope during his outro, giving a vague response for the viewers who want to know what happened to her.
* WhatTheHellHero: Paul's sister, who works in a medical lab, chews her brother out for believing a blatantly ominous doctor he's never met before and allowing him to lock up his wife, telling him that people just don't succumb to insanity in five minutes.
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->'''Crypt Keeper:''' (''laying in a coffin and wrapped up in a straitjacket, struggling to free himself'') Where's Houdini when you need him? Well, that was quite a scream, wasn't it, kids? And what a surprise for poor Dr. Trask. ''There's'' a villain with a heart... ''attack'', that is. (''cackles'') Just when he thought he was going to silence Susan forever... she ''walked all over'' him. I suppose you're wondering what ''became'' of Susan. If you give me a ''scream'', I might just tell you! (''cackles'')