Fridge / Friday the 13th: The Series

Fridge Brilliance:

• A few attempts at Canon Welding this series with the actual Friday the 13th have been made, which in isolation, could be written off as fanservice. But it actually makes some sense when one considers what we know about both universes; Jason Voorhees is not actually the only supernatural element in his series; there's telekenetics, a hell, the Necronomicon, Freddy Krueger, a future where humanity lives off Earth and with a Ridiculously Human Robot. Uncle Lewis’ objects fit in a lot better in such a universe, and it makes sense that a TV series set in such a fantastic world wouldn't just focus on Jason, because he's only one of countless regularly occurring magical dangers to society.
• One cursed object, a compact, appears in two episodes ("Vanity's Mirror", then "Face of Evil") with different powers each time. (Jack theorizes in-universe that the compact's true power is giving the owner whatever revenge they desire; but we never see any evidence of other objects changing their results this way, even those that pass from one owner to another within the episode.) The compact changing its powers seems to make no sense at first, until one considers what happened in "Vanity's Mirror"—not only did its owner end up killing herself once she achieved the love she wanted (but which she knew was only compelled and thus not truly hers), but she herself was a lonely and rejected girl whom everyone in her school believed unattractive. Killing herself after achieving her "love" instead of killing the man in question would break the love compulsion curse, and at the same time the death of an "ugly" tragic girl would cast a new curse related to giving beauty and the chance to have a life others would envy.
  • Or maybe, the compact is a rare item that works on 'means' rather than 'motive'? The owner in "Vanity's Mirror" wanted love, but felt that she could never achieve it because she wasn't beautiful. The owner in "Face of Evil" wanted success, but as a model needed beauty to achieve it. Perhaps the compact works for people who want beauty as a tool to gain what they desire (which explains why Jack, as an average-looking man who made a career from intellectual prowess, wouldn't see it); just as no one ever wants beauty just to be aesthetically pleasing, but because they want something else beauty will get for them - be it fame, fortune, sexual appeal or just attention.
  • That...is indeed a brilliant interpretation. I think it might be the one the viewer was intended to come up with as well, kudos!
• At first the name given to the "Quilt of Hathor" is rather inexplicable, since an item marked with a Satanic pentacle and used to frighten people to death in their dreams seems to have nothing to do with either the Egyptian pantheon or specifically a deity of goodness, love, motherhood, and community. (Although in and of itself a quilt would fit those last two.) But the main villain of the episode tends to use the quilt to kill people while envisioning herself as a sensuous, lusty woman at parties and dances, something which Hathor does hold sway over...and Hathor is also a goddess of fate who was believed to inspire people through divinatory dreams.
• Why did the victims in "Symphony in B#" just stand there and wait to get stabbed? Look at their faces when Korda "plays" the violin. Of course a secondary ability of the violin would be to hypnotize its victims — it'd help greatly in its ability to kill.
• In the very first episode, "The Inheritance", Micki stumbles into the sizeable hidden vault and gets shut in. While Ryan's trying to work out how to open the doors, Micki panics and becomes near-hysterical. The vault has several dozen items in it, including the doll that will be the focus of the first retrieval. This could be possible Foreshadowing of Micki's latent occult powers (as revealed in season 2) as that might be why she's panicking, because she senses the amassed evil power of the objects.
  • Or maybe the reason Veda the Creepy Doll stirred and moved to look at Micki was because it was feeding off Micki's power, heightened in a fright-flight response?
• Also from "The Inheritance"; so many cursed items still being in the vault (as seen when Micki is trapped there) means that Lewis was selling his 'special stock' one item at a time. Which explains why no one traced all these ordinary people who suddenly became murderers, as also all having shopped recently at Vendredi's Antiques.
• One point raised by a (now-deleted) review blog: the Sforza glove from "Faith Healer" is one of the few antiques which could be used for good if the wearer could resist temptation/was not an unrepentant sociopath. Not only does its initial activation begin with the beneficial act (absorbing/curing someone's disease or other life-threatening condition) rather than with a killing, but the usual lag-time between this and paying the price for using it could allow the selfless wearer to choose not to pass on the condition exponentially to someone else. I.e., not only could they never commit a killing for the artifact, they could consciously decide to give their life after saving someone else instead of taking another victim's life. (Perhaps that is how the glove ended up in the alley, slipping off someone's hand after they sacrificed themselves and the body was removed by the authorities?) This also makes sense since Jack had noted the original owner of the glove was a doctor in the court of the Medicis who supposedly used it to heal. (Not that a doctor can't be a killer or sociopath, but it does explain why the glove has a power that is at least potentially only beneficial.)
  • So a generous, self-sacrificing person still dies a hideous, painful death, and is thus removed from the world, unable to continue their good work and perform good deeds because they have been tempted into saving someone else, someone who might be less self-sacrificing? I think Satan himself would find that a rational transaction since it ultimately serves his purpose — one less saintly person in the world, and that person paid a heavy price (dying horribly). It's often been stated that the death of a saint is worth more than a thousand sinners. Also who says that a doctor can't be a killer or a sociopath? Josef Mengele the famous Nazi concentration camp butcher was a trained physician.
    • Good point, and it does explain why Satan (or Lewis) would allow the glove's curse to have such a loophole. That said, I did say "not that a doctor can't be a killer or sociopath", meaning I allowed for the possibility. The point was that it at least made it somewhat less likely, since that profession is about healing and saving lives, and so this could explain the glove having beneficial potential. (Although considering the Medicis' reputation, it's entirely possible a doctor in their court wouldn't have been particularly upstanding himself, so the glove was still likely tainted from the start. Especially since, presumably, that doctor didn't die by taking the glove's curse onto himself, which means he was in fact killing people to save others.)