!! This'll Kill Ya

[[quoteright:350:https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/mv5bzgizmjzjnmqtzgvmos00ndqwltg0nzutngiwodewymezntyzxkeyxkfqcgdeqxvyodi0ndgwnja_v1.jpg]]
[[caption-width-right:350:Talk about getting a taste of your own medicine.]]

-> (''the Crypt Keeper is seen dressed as a carpenter; he hammers a nail and accidentally strikes his thumb with the hammer'')
->'''Crypt Keeper:''' Damn! (''takes notice of his throbbing thumb'') I '''love''' when that happens! You didn't know your old friend the Crypt Keeper was the ''boo''-it-yourself type, did you? I'm actually pretty handy with my little ''ghoul'' box. Here's a bookshelf I just finished for my ''die-''brary. Over there's a stand I made for my new big ''scream'' TV! (''the camera pans to the stand, where the TV shows the Crypt Keeper waving at the viewers; cut back to his original view'') And here's something else I've been working on. It's a nasty nugget about an unpleasant young man in the medicine biz who's about to get a dose of his own. I call tonight's tale: '''This'll Kill Ya.'''

George Gatlin (Creator/DylanMcDermott) is the head of a scientific research lab that's banking on H-Cell 24, an experimental hybrid cell that can cure any disease by "breeding it out of the body". His research partners, Pack Brightman and Sophie Wagner (Creator/CleavonLittle and Creator/SoniaBraga), are behind on their work, and this has prompted George to keep making assurances to investors that the project is ready for human testing in order to convince them to continue giving them funding. His actions draw the ire of his coworkers, who chastise him for putting out these promises about their extremely dangerous and untested work. As George has type 1 diabetes and must have insulin injections on a daily basis, Sophie (who happens to be his ex) apparently accidentally injects him H-Cell 24. George learns that the cell will kill him in a matter of hours after it causes tumors to grow all over his body. When he stumbles upon a strong piece of evidence that Sophie and Pack seem to have deliberately injected him with H-Cell 24 in a plot to kill him, George vows to use what little time he has left to get his revenge on them.
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!! Tropes:
* AbhorrentAdmirer: George still has a serious case of the hots for Sophie, even though she dumped him a while ago and doesn't want anything to do with him romantically.
* AdaptationalJerkass: George. In the comic, he was a decent person, but also a workaholic who took his job too seriously. In the episode, he's a pompous jerk who frequently abuses his coworkers, turning said coworkers' prank regarding the injection from a joke to make him loosen up, to one made to teach him a lesson.
* AfraidOfNeedles: George admits that he gets pretty nervous around needles, and it's because of this that he never learned how to inject his insulin himself, so he needs Sophie to do it for him.
* AllForNothing: As it turns out, George ''wasn't'' injected with H-Cell 24, meaning that he killed Pack and threw his life away for nothing.
* AsYouKnow: The press release Pack reads early in the episode covers most of the details regarding H-Cell 24, as well as why he and Sophie think of George as a bad boss.
* AttackOnTheHeart: After he grievously wounds Pack with the bat, George finishes him off by injecting him with his insulin, slamming the needle straight into Pack's heart. The quantity he injects is so large that Pack's heart is heard ''exploding''.
* BatterUp: George has a strong interest in baseball, idly catching a ball with a mitt in the opening scene. He later uses a bat to gravely wound Pack, then kills him by overdosing him with his insulin.
* BothSidesHaveAPoint: Regarding Pack and George's argument over the latter's phony press release, they both have valid points on their stances. George says that results are needed to increase funding, which itself needs to continue its stability to assist in the research. Pack, meanwhile, states that H-Cell 24 is nowhere near ready for human testing, and they could easily be tried as murderers for injecting the dangerous, untested hybrid cell into a human subject.
* CruelAndUnusualDeath: Pack is killed when George bludgeons him with a baseball bat, then injects his heart with a hefty quantity of his insulin, causing it to explode.
* DeathSeeker: Once he kills Pack, George drags his body to the police station, hoping for the cops to fill him with lead.
* DownerEnding: It's revealed that George isn't going to die, meaning he's going to be arrested for murder and stripped of all his credentials. What's even worse is that the project he dedicated his life to perfecting was finally perfected without him, and he won't get any credit for it whatsoever.
** It's not mentioned, but Sophie's most likely getting fired as well for pulling the prank in the first place, and for letting it go too far.
* EmptyPromise: George has a habit of making empty promises to the press about how H-Cell 24 is nearly ready for human testing to boost funding, when in actuality it has many more tweaks that need to be ironed out. Pack and Sophie often rebuke him for going behind their backs and putting out these releases, with his willingness to subject innocent people to the cell's horrific effects and his blatant treatment of their important research as a money making tool nearly compromising the project.
* FeetFirstIntroduction: Sophie is given one, where the camera focuses on her working in black stockings and stilettos to accentuate her sex appeal.
* {{Foreshadowing}}: Sophie's warning to George about putting his insulin where H-Cell 24 is kept, where they might mix up the two mixtures someday, seemingly comes true halfway through the episode.
* HealingFactor: H-Cell 24 is stated to cure any known disease by instigating rapid cell growth to "breed" the disease out of a person's body. As Sophie and Pack explain, its main flaw is that they haven't gotten the cell to ''stop growing'' just yet, leading to an outbreak of tumors that will destroy every system in the body.
* HeartbeatSoundtrack: Pack's rapidly beating heart is heard as George floods it with his insulin, beating faster and faster to the point where it's heard ''exploding''.
* HowWeGotHere: The episode begins with George dragging Pack's body to the police station, proclaiming himself to be dead and the corpse being the man who killed him. When the police pull their weapons on him, he tells them to go ahead and fill him with lead, since he's already dying, then berates himself for not seeing this scenario coming. From there, the plot begins chronologically.
* ImagineSpot: George suffers from stress-related hallucinations once he's been made to believe that H-Cell 24 was injected into him. A particularly gruesome one occurs as he's at the bar, where everyone else in the place, including Sophie, has grotesque tumors on their bodies.
* {{Irony}}: George's fear of needles, even though he needs insulin injections for his diabetes.
* JustJokingJustification: Sophie reveals that she and Pack didn't actually inject George with H-Cell 24. They just put something in his insulin that made him sick in the hopes of teaching him a lesson.
* KubrickStare: George gives one to the camera at the end of the episode, after it's revealed that he murdered Pack and cost himself everything for no reason.
* LargeHam: Pack, who screams a good chunk of his dialogue at George.
* LaserGuidedKarma: George is made to think he's been murdered, kills his coworker, and exposes the crime to the cops. Sophie barges in at the last minute and tells George that he was never in danger of dying, as well as that the H-Cell they were working on was finally perfected without him. In the end, George's paranoia led him to be thrown in jail for murder, stripped of all his credentials, and lose the opportunity for fame that he was desperately craving.
* MeanBoss: George constantly abuses his coworkers and puts out phony press releases to get more money for the research into H-Cell 24... which he instead spends on himself.
* MedicationTampering: Sophie reveals to George that she and Pack put something in his insulin to make him sick as their way of teaching him a lesson for his behavior.
* MsFanservice: Sophie, as played by the drop-dead gorgeous Creator/SoniaBraga.
* MyGodWhatHaveIDone: This is no doubt how George feels at the end of the episode, after learning he killed his good friend and likely stripped himself of his credentials and livelihood for nothing.
** Though she's more angry at George for what he did, Sophie would presumably feel the same way once the shock wears off, as she's responsible for the prank which led to Pack's death in the first place.
* OnlyInItForTheMoney: It's pretty clear that George doesn't care if H-Cell 24 is safe, wanting to rush it out of the test labs and onto pharmacy shelves to make money and achieve fame by getting his name in the papers.
* PlayingWithSyringes: A seemingly-accidental version occurs when Sophie mistakenly injects George with H-Cell 24 instead of his insulin.
* PoorCommunicationKills: George hears Pack leave a message on Sophie's answering machine about how bad he feels about what they did to George, which he doesn't reveal. This leads George to jump to conclusions and kill him.
* PrankGoneTooFar: Sophie and Pack are revealed to have doctored George's insulin to make him sick as a means of teaching him a lesson. George, on the other hand, jumped to conclusions and thought they were plotting to kill him, leading him to kill Pack in a misguided revenge scheme.
* RaceAgainstTheClock: George tries to get even with Pack and Sophie after hearing what sounds like evidence that they conspired to kill him, and has only a matter of hours to do so.
* ScareEmStraight: Pack and Sophie hoped to give George an ounce of humility regarding their prank. Unfortunately, George jumped to conclusions pretty quickly, which led to Pack's death and George's (and very likely Sophie's) career being ruined.
* SelfServingMemory: George ogles Sophie at the beginning of the episode, musing about why he let her go. Sophie corrects him by saying ''she'' kicked ''him'' out.
* SleepingWithTheBoss: Sophie is forced into having sex with George even after she dumped him, after he sneaks up and advances on her in her bathroom.
* StalkerWithACrush: To go with the above-mentioned AbhorrentAdmirer example, George is known to follow Sophie nearly everywhere she goes, even breaking into her apartment twice over the episode.
* SuicideByCop: After he kills Pack, George drags his body to the police station to blab about his crime, hopefully having the cops blow him away.
* TooDumbToLive: George is known to keep his insulin on the same shelf as the incredibly deadly virus his research team was working on. He's lucky that he didn't actually get injected with the stuff.
* TooKinkyToTorture: Aside from his hatred of needles, George enjoys Sophie injecting him with his insulin because he gets turned on when a woman puts him through physical pain.
* WhatTheHellHero: Sophie utterly tears into George when she finds out what he did to Pack, noting that he was printing evidence that H-Cell 24 was finally perfected.
** She and Pack also call him out for his press release of how H-Cell 24 was ready for human testing, when it actually had months worth of flaws left to be worked out, and they also make it clear that they loathe how little care he gives for the important work they do.
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->'''Crypt Keeper:''' (''hammering the last nail in his latest project'') How about that George? Talk about ''connecting'' with your friends. There... finished! So, what do you think, kiddies? (''the camera reveals his project to be a gallows with several skeletons with nooses around their necks placed on it'') Beautiful, isn't it? I've always wanted a ''swing'' set. Just a little something for when I'm ''hanging'' out watching the ''noose''. (''snickers'') See you next time! (''he cackles and flips a switch, causing the skeletons to drop'') Now that's what I call ''well-hung!'' (''cackles'')