Recap / Creepshow S 1 E 5 The Finger

The Finger

Directed By: Greg Nicotero
Written By: David J. Schow

Clark Wilson (DJ Qualls) is a man who hasn't been treated well by fate. He's divorced, low on cash, stuck in a dead-end job in web design, and has quite the nihilistic outlook on life. He also has a passion for objects that have been lost, abandoned, or thrown away, much like he believes he has been. During one of his nightly walks, Clark finds something particularly odd: a severed, clawed finger on the side of the road. He takes the finger home, intending to look up what kind of animal it might belong to. He accidentally spills beer on the finger, and watches as the finger manages to somehow absorb the spilled liquid. He puts the finger in a butter dish and keeps it in the fridge so he can keep an eye on it.

Over time, Clark discovers that the finger has begun to grow. It grows into a partially completed hand, and then into an arm within 24 hours, prompting Clark to move it to a freezer in his garage. Sometime later, Clark hears a noise and arms himself with a gun. He opens the freezer to discover the arm has grown into a small creature sleeping inside it, as well as a human heart on his workbench. A pair of detectives (Antwan Mills and Gino Crognale) soon come to Clark's door to reveal that his ex-wife, Samantha, was brutally murdered earlier that day. Remembering the heart on his workbench earlier, Clark realizes that the creature is what killed his ex-wife. The creature then attracts Clark's attention, but decides to leave him unharmed. Clark decides to name the creature "Bob" and keep him as a sort of pet.

As time passes, Bob and Clark grow tolerant of one another, often treating one another like roommates. It soon becomes apparent that Bob is incredibly devoted to his master, so much so that he has started viciously murdering anyone who has offended Clark, whether it be through mild annoyance or if they have intentionally screwed him over. Bob also has a habit of bringing back various parts of the offenders' bodies as morbid presents, bringing Clark the testicles of a truck driver who nearly ran him over, the tongue of a debt collector who has continuously been harassing him, and the severed heads of his ungrateful step-children, Shannon and Ricky. All the while, Clark is forced to shove the body parts down his garbage disposal, since he figures that if he gets rid of them in any other matter, Bob will just go right back out and "fetch" them.

Eventually, the police catch Clark in the act of crushing his step-children's heads with a sledgehammer to fit them into the disposal, and proceed to lock him up in a mental institution. Succumbing to insanity, Clark rants to the audience about all the annoying people in their lives, and stands by his belief that Bob will come to break him out. Hearing Bob chittering outside the window of his cell, Clark reassures the viewers that Bob loves him.

A brief epilogue shows the Creep clutching the severed finger that will become Bob, laughing as he shows it off.

This episode contains examples of:

• Ambiguous Situation: Was Bob real? And did he really kill Clark's everyone who wronged Clark? Or was he the result of Clark's deranged mind blacking out while Clark himself murdered those who pissed him off? It's kept deliberately ambiguous, as it may seem like the latter in the final minutes of the episode, but the sound of Bob's chittering at the window raises further questions.
• And the Adventure Continues: If Bob was indeed real, the sound of his chirping at Clark's window means that he's ultimately preparing to set his master free.
• Asshole Victim: Nearly all of Bob's victims are these, so it's fitting that he butchers them. There's the trucker who flips Clark off after nearly running him over, the debt collector who hounds him with her calls, and his ex-wife and step children, whose actions are mentioned below.
• A Bloody Mess: Before the detectives catch Clark in the act, they notice a red stain on his shirt. Clark dismisses it as a stain from his dinner to throw them off his scent.
• Beat Still, My Heart: Bob apparently murdered Samantha by tearing her heart out.
• Big, Screwed-Up Family: The lazy, apathetic Clark was married to the petty and shrewish Samantha, and had to deal with her criminal son Ricky and her drug addict daughter Shannon.
  Clark: (sarcastically) It's the American Dream, right? Domestic bliss. Sam used to say, "It's the way it's supposed to be." (depressed) No, it's not.
• Bittersweet Ending: Clark's enemies are gone from his life, but Clark is accused of killing them all himself and sent to an asylum. Of course, with Bob around, that isn't likely to be true for much longer.
• Bland-Name Product: Clark does all of his online searching on a search engine redunatly titled "Search!".
• Breaking the Fourth Wall: Clark does this throughout the whole story, even when he's in the middle of whatever event he's describing.
• Call-Back: Clark drinks Harrow's Light, a light version of Harrow's Supreme from Gray Matter.
  • Bob also watches the same soap opera that Richie watches in that episode.
  • And of course, much like that episode, beer once again leads to the creation of a horrific monster.
• The Cameo: Jake Garber, a makeup artist for the series, plays the trucker who flips Clark off.
• Creepy Souvenir: Bob keeps bringing Clark various body parts of his victims.
• Crocodile Tears: Clark goes into a fake crying fit when he hears about Samantha's murder.
• Double-Meaning Title: "The Finger" isn't just about the finger Clark finds in the street, but the way he feels that the world has treated him over the years.
  Clark: The last thing I expected that night was to get the finger. For real. It was verification that the whole world was flipping me off. "Hey! Fuck you, loser!" Or maybe, just maybe, it was the other way around.
• Evil Debt Collector: In Clark's mind, the woman who calls him and reminds him to pay up certainly is one. When we finally get a good look at her, she smugly plays that annoying recording telling him to pay up with a smile on her face.
• Flipping the Bird: Shannon and Ricky do this to Clark in a picture he snapped of them.
• Foreshadowing:
  • At the beginning of the segment, Clark tells the audience about how he knows full well that they're not going to believe his story. He's proven somewhat correct when it's revealed that he's locked in a mental institution.
  • The comic page that Clark wraps the finger in is actually a scene from Night Of The Paw. The monkey's paw itself is hidden among the pictures of animal paws that Clark looks up to identify the finger.
• Gradual Regeneration: The finger that grows into Bob does so over the course of about 3 days.
• Groin Attack: The trucker who nearly runs Clark over, and then has the audacity to flip him off when he calls him out on it, has his testicles ripped off by Bob.
• Head Crushing: Clark is forced to crush his stepchildren's severed heads into his garbage disposal, since Bob would just go out and fetch them if he dropped them into the sea.
• Hated by All: If Clark's claims are accurate, Samantha was so loathed that he was her only contact on her phone.
• Hell Is That Noise: The debt collector's automated message, which sends Clark flying into a rage whenever he hears it.
• Hypocrite: Clark mentions that he's often struggling to make money in his "career" in web design. When his apparent boss calls him for a job that involves making blogs for some "digitally-challenged" clients, he angrily refuses to degrade himself by doing "donkey work", even if it pays.
• How We Got Here: After discovering Bob for the very first time, Clark offers to start at the beginning, telling the viewers who he is, how he ended up this way, what happened when he found the finger, and how it started to grow overtime.
• In Medias Res: The story begins just before Clark discovers Bob for the first time.
• Loser Protagonist: Divorced? No family? Low on cash? Dead-end job that barely pays? Living in borderline squalor in a trash-filled house? Treated by nearly every person he comes across as a piece of dogshit on their shoe? Yeah, Clark checks off all those boxes. It would be easy for people to feel sorry for him, if he wasn't an Ax-Crazy Spoiled Brat.
• Lazy Bum: As seen in a flashback, Clark would usually laze about on the couch instead of doing chores for his wife, implying that this is the reason she left him.
  Clark: Samantha eventually needed someone who could do more than get things off a high shelf. Fetch her tampons. Run out to the store at 3am to buy those pretentious little cigarettes.
  • It's shown that he's even too lazy to properly make coffee, opting to eat a spoonful of grounds and take a sip of water.
• Locked in a Freezer: Bob has a habit of sleeping in cold places. His severed finger originally was housed in Clark's fridge, but when it grows into an arm, he moves it to a garage freezer, where Bob takes up sleeping in.
• Manchild: Clark is strongly implied to be one, always looking for an easy way out of work even when he's borderline destitute, and always looking for someone to blame his problems on instead of taking initiative to fix them. He even considers "calling a grown-up" for what to do with the regenerating finger he's studying, asking to the camera "What would an adult do?"
• Monster Roommate: Bob acts more like a roomie to Clark than a pet, such as screeching at him to move out of the way when he's watching TV.
• Mythology Gag:
  • DJSturbia, the collection of short stories in which "The Finger" was first published, is seen next to Clark's monitor.
  • The ashtray from "Father's Day" can be seen hidden among the bottles and junk on Clark's coffee table.
• Narrating the Obvious: Clark's narration has him relaying what's happening in the story right as it's happening.
• Not Helping Your Case: After going ape-shit on his phone when the debt collector calls him, Clark apologizes to the audience for acting so aggressive. He attempts to gain sympathy by arguing that "those anonymous people- who aren't even really people" would drive just about anyone crazy. Of course, it what he says immediately afterwards that takes some of the sympathy away.
  Clark: Don't you just wish you can make them suffer? Suffer the way they've made you suffer?
• Off with His Head!: How Bob disposed of Clark's step-children.
• Psychopathic Manchild: It's gradually proven that Clark is one of these, possibly having created Bob to kill everyone who he believes is at fault for his laziness costing him a decent life.
• Self-Serving Memory: Very strongly implied with Clark, who blames the world for his suffering when he's really just a Lazy Bum and Spoiled Brat.
• Shout-Out:
  • A container of The Stuff is seen inside Clark's freezer.
  • Detectives Moseley and Walsh share their names with Yaphet Kotto and Robert De Niro's characters from Midnight Run.
  • The debt collector has a red Swingline stapler on her desk, and her hair and glasses make her resemble Lumbergh.
  • The fact that Clark's last name is Wilson may be a reference to Wilson the volleyball from Cast Away. Much like Bob, Wilson was created by accident, but he became a source of companionship and reprieve for his lonely creator, albeit in very different ways from each other.
  • During his introduction, Clark mentions a friend of his that had a dog who could supposedly poop joints if fed marijuana and rolling paper, a possible reference to Nelson and his smoking dog from Dude, Where's My Car?.
• Stage Money: Before the trucker nearly runs him over, Clark appears to find a $20 bill on the sidewalk. It turns out to be a prop advertising people to join a local church.
• Those Two Guys: Detectives Moseley and Walsh.
• Through the Eyes of Madness: The entire episode is hinted to be this, especially after The Reveal shows us that Clark has been narrating to us while locked in a padded cell.
• Toilet Seat Divorce: Samantha apparently divorced Clark because he was far too exhausted to keep up with her demands, including running to the store to buy a specific brand of cigarettes at three in the morning.
• Tongue Trauma: Bob kills the debt collector by ripping out her tongue.
• Trademark Favorite Food: If Clark's narration is any indication, Bob really likes popcorn.
• Trash of the Titans: Clark's house is littered with old take-out containers, empty bottles, dusty toys, crusty laundry, unopened mail, and all other kinds of junk. It doesn't help that his fascination with collecting trash he finds on the ground during his walks only increases the mess.
• Troubling Unchildlike Behavior: If what Clark says is true, his step-children are shown to have grown into some rather... questionable people. Specifically, his step-son Ricky became an aspiring criminal who stole and attempted to hock his car, and his step-daughter Shannon was a skanky meth-head who offered him oral sex to keep him quiet about her addiction, as well as the fact that her latest fiancée was in prison for murder.
• Unreliable Narrator: Clark, who tells the story entirely through his point of view. It's largely implied that not everything he describes is what seems, as the falling out he's had with his family and his experiences with all kinds of mooches and annoying people have taken a clear toll on his memories and his mental state.
• World of Jerkass: If what Clark says is accurate, every person who isn't the detectives is an utter asshole. The trucker who runs Clark over and flips him off when he calls him out for it, the debt collector who plays that irritating automated message to her clients with a twisted smile on her face, Clark's ex-wife Samantha, who up and divorced him for not wanting to fulfill her petty demands, and her criminal/druggie children Ricky and Shannon, who stole his car and offered to give him a blowjob in exchange for his silence, respectively.
• Xenomorph Xerox: Bob heavily resembles a Xenomorph, albeit with wings and white skin.
• You Wouldn't Believe Me If I Told You: In the beginning, Clark tells the viewers that they're not going to believe his story. Since it's revealed that he's locked in a padded cell, he was most likely right.

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