Okay, I'll Bite
Written By: John Harrison
In Fiorina Federal Prison, former pharmacist Elmer Strick (Nick Massouh) removes a loose brick in his cell wall to check on a spider hidden behind it, shortly before he is escorted to his parole hearing. At his hearing, Elmer answers every question he is given honestly, knowing that what he did was wrong (in the eyes of the law), but he admits that he "just couldn't watch her suffer anymore". The board then reveals to Elmer that, despite being a model prisoner during his incarceration, they have received a signed affidavit apparently confirming that he was in an altercation with another inmate named "Polish Frank" Kowalski (Tony Demil), and he had apparently attempted to "get even" with him by doctoring his medication. Despite pleading that he hasn't had any altercations with Frank, the board reminds Elmer that he voluntarily works in the prison clinic, providing him with the opportunity to follow through on his motives. In light of this new evidence, the board ultimately denies Elmer his parole.
The affidavit is revealed to have been forged by Bernard "Butcher/Bunk" Dill (Jackson Beals), a corrupt guard who also happens to be the boss of a small drug ring within the prison, having prevented Elmer from leaving so he will be forced to continue cooking opium for him from the supplies in the clinic. Upon being escorted back to his cell, Elmer discovers the place ransacked. The culprits are revealed to be Polish Frank and another inmate named Bullet, who act as Bunk's henchmen, having failed to find evidence of a previous shipment. Elmer fishes a collection of spiders contained in jars out from the wreckage as Bunk begins manhandling him, prompting the former to say that he'll start cooking tomorrow, when the clinic gets more supplies and the resident physician, Dr. Carnaby, leaves early. As Bunk and the inmates leave, Willis (Glenn Magee), a benevolent and sympathetic guard, visits Elmer, letting him know that he's sorry about how the parole hearing went. Having calmed himself, Elmer begins to show Willis his collection of spiders, the majority of which he's named after various mythological figures, and recites various facts about their biology and behavior. Elmer also mentions that he's been collecting spiders ever since he was a boy, since they were the only friends he ever had, and he's also written several articles about them for The Arachnophile Annual. He was attempting to synthesize a super-concentrated version of spider venom that could be used as a paralyzing agent to relieve someone of their pain, which is ultimately what landed him in prison. Before Willis leaves, he gives Elmer a letter from the mailroom. Opening the letter, Elmer discovers that it was sent by an anonymous writer who has admired his work with spiders for a long time, and also includes a parchment scroll recovered from a library in Cairo.
That night, Elmer pours through his books, working to translate the hieroglyphic message on the scroll. He then goes to feed his spiders, who seem to respond with chittering noises as he translates the message. The smaller spiders are given mealworms, and the one hidden behind the wall, which is several times larger, is given a cockroach. Upon witnessing the giant spider gruesomely crush and devour the fleeing cockroach, Elmer goes to his books and realizes that the giant spider is the physical manifestation of Sekhmet, the Ancient Egyptian goddess of healing and the "mistress of dread" who none can escape, and discovers that the scroll's message is an incantation that invokes her name. As Elmer drifts off to sleep, he dreams about last year; the last time he ever saw his mother alive, so cancer-ridden that she couldn't move or speak. After delivering her some flowers, Elmer proceeded to tell his mother that he loves her and was going to take away her pain, using his makeshift paralysis agent to stop his dying mother's heart.
Elmer is awakened from his slumber by Bullet and Polish Frank, the former restraining him. Frank reveals that Dr. Carnaby told them the clinic just got more supplies, and by not immediately informing Bunk, the guard thought that Elmer was trying to make money by selling on the side, having sent the inmates to give Elmer some incentive. They give him a cooking deadline of 24 hours, then break his finger and crush Min, one of his spiders. As Frank prepares to squish another one of the spiders, it leaps out of its jar and bites him on the eye. In the process, the blinded Frank knocks over the other jars, allowing the rest of the spiders to crawl to the safety of the hole in the wall. Bunk is alerted to the pandemonium, where Frank explains how he was bitten by one of the spiders, which apparently got loose. Willis is also alerted, prompting Bunk to lie about how the spider got out and bit a sleeping Frank. Elmer's pleas that the spider was just defending itself are ignored as he and Frank are taken to the infirmary. Before he leaves, Elmer collects Min's dead body and tells him that he didn't die in vain. In response to the incident, prison warden Poppler (Nic Starr) informs the inmates and guards of Elmer's cell block that the inmates are to be moved to different blocks while the place is fumigated. After the meeting, Elmer tells the spiders that they have to act fast to escape certain doom. That night, he draws a series of symbols on the floor of his cell and lies in the center of them, reciting the incantation from the scroll. As he does, his spiders emerge from the hole and crawl onto his body one by one. Sekhmet herself then emerges from the hole, crawls up to Elmer's face, and apparently consumes him.
Bunk then enters the cell block, preparing to assault Elmer for all the trouble the former pharmacist has caused him. Entering Elmer's cell, Bunk finds his empty clothes in the middle of the floor, just before he has his hands snatched by silk and he is suspended from the ceiling. Looking up, Bunk notices a giant spider, with Elmer's head replacing its abdomen, descending from a web on the ceiling and proceeding to devour him. The next day, as the inmates holler with fright, Willis and Poppler approach Elmer's cell to find Bunk's corpse, its eyes gouged out and drained of its innards, suspended in a massive web. Willis also finds no sign of Elmer other than his discarded clothes and the hole in the wall, slowly realizing that Elmer has finally obtained his freedom.
This episode contains examples of:
- Abusive Parents: Bunk's mother, according to the man himself, was a drunk who always beat him.
- A Form You Are Comfortable With: Sekhmet appears to Elmer as a spider the size of a housecat because spiders were worshiped in Ancient Egypt, and because spiders are Elmer's favorite creatures.
- Alien Blood: The spider Polish Frank crushes, Min, has yellow blood squirting out of the corpse.
- All Webbed Up: Bunk's corpse ends up this way, after the transformed Elmer devours him.
- Ambiguous Situation: Did Elmer's mother actually accept her son's proposal to end her life? Given that she couldn't speak or gesture to tell her son what her thoughts were, and Elmer still euthanized her regardless, it's understandable why he was seen as a murderer.
- Artistic License – Religion: Sekhmet is known in Ancient Egypt primarily as the goddess of healing, yet the episode paints her as an inescapable mistress of vengeance. Of course, she could have come to Elmer's aid because he was a pharmacist, and as such, was a fellow healer.
- Asshole Victim: Bunk, the crooked prison guard who throttles Elmer whenever he has the opportunity.
- Bad Boss: Bunk, who constantly mocks Elmer for his love of spiders, and abuses him when he is unable to supply his opium. He gets even more violent when he thinks he's selling on the side, sending Bullet and Polish Frank to rough him up as consequence.
- Bunk is shown to be a bad boss even to Bullet and Frank themselves, not hesitating to lock them back up or inflict Police Brutality upon them if they disobey his orders.
- Bait-and-Switch: As he's escorted out of his cell and told "it's time", it seems as though Elmer is being put to death. We later learn that he's just going to a parole hearing.
- Bald of Evil: Bunk, who has little-to-no hair on his head.
- Big Creepy-Crawlies: Sekhmet, who is as big as a small dog.
- Boys Like Creepy Critters: Elmer has been in love with spiders and has been collecting them since childhood, as they were the only friends he had.
- Break the Haughty: The sight of the transformed Elmer sends Bunk, who had been tormenting him all episode, into a hysterical fit, flashing back to his mother's abuse.
- Call-Back:
- Much like Night Of The Paw, the plot of the story begins with a mercy killing that is revealed sometime after the opening.
- The warden from Within the Walls of Madness returns, and is given both a name (Director Poppler) and a more expanded role. This makes him the second character to appear in more than one story, after Ann Poole from Shapeshifters Anonymous and The Right Snuff.
- Chromosome Casting: The cast consists almost entirely of men. The only females present are Elmer's mother in his dream and those at Elmer's parole hearing. Justified as the episode is set in a men's prison.
- Cobweb Jungle: Elmer's cell becomes covered in silk after he transforms into a spider.
- Cold-Blooded Torture: Bullet and Polish Frank torture Elmer by breaking his finger and making him watch as the latter crushes his spiders.
- Collector of the Strange: Elmer collects spiders, and has done so ever since he was a boy.
- Dirty Cop: Bunk, a prison guard who runs an opium ring that he forces the abused Elmer to cook for. He also frames Elmer for trying to attack or kill Polish Frank, denying him parole so he's forced to keep cooking for him.
- The Dog Bites Back: After being abused by Bunk one time too many, Elmer turns himself into a spider to devour the man from the inside out.
- Do Not Call Me "Paul": As seen on the affidavit he submits to the board, Bunk's real name is "Bernard". It's exceedingly likely that he gave himself the nickname "Butcher/Bunk" to make himself sound more menacing.
- Earn Your Happy Ending: Though he sacrifices his humanity to do so, Elmer transforms himself into his favorite creature, kills his (primary) tormentor, and escapes through the hole in his cell wall to freedom.
- Embarrassing Nickname: Bunk, Bullet, Polish Frank, and likely the rest of the inmates, refer to Elmer as "Spider Boy".
- Empty Piles of Clothing: After Elmer transforms himself, drains Bunk, and escapes to freedom, the only thing left of him is his empty uniform, still in the position he was in during the ritual.
- Even Evil Has Standards: Despite how abusive his mother was to him, Bunk tells Elmer that he never once considered killing her, like the latter did to his own mother (although Elmer's mother was an apparently kindly lady whose death was an act of mercy).
- Eye Scream: Polish Frank receives a spider bite to the eye when he goes to squish one of Elmer's eight-legged friends.
- Similarly, Bunk's eyes are revealed to have been gouged out when Spider!Elmer went in for the kill.
- Fantastically Indifferent: Director Poppler and the parole board appear to be rather indifferent to Elmer's plight in the first half of the episode, turning a blind eye to Bunk's abuse of him and showing no surprise over the questionable affidavit used to deny his parole. Poppler's attention is finally gained in the end, when he sees Bunk's corpse stuck in a web.
- Foreshadowing: Elmer tells Willis that spiders were worshiped in Ancient Egypt, as they were thought to grant eternal life. He soon receives a scroll from Cairo that allows him to transform himself into a spider, seek revenge on his main tormentor, and make his escape.
- According to Bunk's affidavit, Fiorina Federal Prison is in Monroeville County, the setting of future episode A Dead Girl Named Sue, whose main characters are also a cop and a prisoner.
- For the Evulz: The last time Bunk goes to assault Elmer, there seems to be no reason for it. Unless you count the fact that his spiders nearly blew the roof on his drug ring.
- Frame-Up: Bunk submits a forged affidavit to the parole board that claims Elmer tried to kill Polish Frank via contaminating his medication, ending Elmer's chance at parole so he'll be forced to stay inside to keep making opium for his drug ring.
- Freudian Excuse: Bunk blatantly tells Elmer that he's the person he is today because his mother was "a drunk whore who beat [him] all the time." That still doesn't excuse him from being an absolute dick to Elmer.
- Friendless Background: Elmer, whose only friends growing up were the spiders he used to collect.
- Friendly Neighborhood Spider: Sekhmet, while looking as grotesque as a giant spider can be, seeks to aid Elmer in obtaining his freedom, and to make sure that Bunk never hurts anyone again.
- Giant Spider: Sekhmet is revealed to be a spider the size of a house pet. Elmer's spider form is roughly the same size.
- Good Cop/Bad Cop: The benevolent and kind-hearted Willis plays the good cop to the abusive Bunk's bad cop.
- Hate Sink:
- Bernard "Butcher/Bunk" Dill, a crooked prison guard and the boss of a drug ring that abuses Elmer whenever he has the chance, including forging an affidavit to keep him from being granted parole and forcing him to cook opium from supplies housed in the clinic. The last time he goes in to abuse him, it seems to be blatantly for the thrill of it.
- Bunk's flunkies, Bullet and Polish Frank, are equally loathsome, as the latter horrifically squashes one of Elmer's beloved spiders. All three of them also mock Elmer for his obsession with spiders.
- Healer God: Sekhmet is known as the Egyptian goddess of healing, which may be why her spider form decides to help Elmer, a pharmacist, seek vengeance against his tormentors.
- Institutional Apparel: All prisoners in Fiorina wear the traditional orange uniform.
- It Began with a Twist of Fate: If the parole board actually took the time to go over the affidavit Bunk sent them and not jump to conclusions about the phrasing, the episode wouldn't have happened.
- Karma Houdini: Despite Bunk getting his just desserts, Polish Frank and Bullet don't really receive comeuppance for all the times they rough up Elmer, aside from Frank getting a spider bite to the eye.
- Kick the Dog: Polish Frank crushing one of Elmer's spiders in front of him.
- Mass "Oh, Crap!": The morning after Bunk's death, all of the other prisoners in the cell block are seen freaking out and demanding to be released, possibly out of fear that whatever killed Bunk will get them next.
- Medication Tampering: Bunk tells the parole board that Elmer did this to Polish Frank as an act of revenge during his phony altercation. It's utter bullshit, but it still convinces the board not to parole him.
- Mercy Kill: Elmer was thrown in prison for euthanizing his dying mother, riddled with cancer to the point where she couldn't move or speak, with a makeshift paralysis agent made from spider venom.
- Misunderstood Loner with a Heart of Gold: In spite of his creepy demeanor, his strong obsession with spiders, and his Norman Bates levels of devotion to his mother, Elmer is a pure, kind-hearted soul who only wants to do the right thing.
- Momma's Boy: Elmer was immensely close with his mother, since she was all he had growing up aside from spiders. He even euthanized her when she was completely riddled with cancer, which is what had him arrested.
- Morally Ambiguous Doctorate: Dr. Carnaby, the prison doctor, may or may not be in on Bunk's opium ring. He tells Polish Frank and Bullet offscreen that his dispensary was given new supplies, and they in turn tell Bunk, who sends them to rough Elmer up for not taking the supplies while the doctor was gone. If the doctor truly was in on it, he practically threw Elmer, who works as his assistant, under the bus.
- Mythology Gag:
- One of Elmer's books is titled: "Bugs: The Miserable Philosophy of Billionaire Upson Pratt".
- The ashtray can be seen on the parole board's desk, where it holds the stamp that they use to deny Elmer his parole.
- The concept of Elmer discovering a parchment scroll from Egypt and using the incantation written on it as a means of exacting vengeance on those who wronged him is a clear reference to "Lot 249" from Tales from the Darkside: The Movie, which adapted a story from Stephen King and is the film that Tom Savini has referred to as the unofficial "Creepshow 3".
- Nice Guy: Willis is an easy-going, sympathetic guard who might very well be Elmer's only human friend. He's totally willing to sit down and chat with Elmer, listen to the guy's lectures about spiders, and even tries to stand up for Elmer when Poppler reveals his cell block is being fumigated, even though he's easily shot down. Willis also doesn't abuse his position, quite unlike his fellow guard, Bunk. In fact, he even appears to suspect that Bunk is up to no good, and shows some regret that he can't actually prove it.
- Odd Name Out: Elmer's spiders are named after mythological deities, but the only exception is one he calls "Grace", claiming that he gave her the name "because of her delicate web."
- Police Brutality: Bunk normally inflicts this on Elmer and his own flunkies, as a means to keep them all in line.
- Prison Episode: The episode is set in a men's federal prison, which is home to a crooked guard who operates a drug ring, and the abused pharmacist he forces to cook for him.
- Prisoner's Work: Elmer is forced into cooking opium from supplies in the dispensary so Bunk can distribute it to the other prisoners. This line of work also has Elmer regularly being manhandled and ridiculed by Bunk and his flunkies in the process.
- Before this, Elmer lent his pharmaceutical skills to the prison doctor, Dr. Carnaby, by working as his assistant in the clinic.
- Reasonable Authority Figure: As he's making the announcement that Elmer's cell block is being fumigated, Poppler does take the time to sincerely apologize to Elmer himself for having to do this. At the same time, he also points out that prisoner morale is dangerously low after the spider bite incident, and as he tells Willis, he certainly doesn't want poisonous creatures roaming the cell block itself.
- Willis also tries sticking up for Elmer when Poppler announces this news, but he has to follow the rules when Poppler reminds him of his rank.
- Reflexive Response: Being a slave in Bunk's drug ring for years and constantly being beaten by the man himself has caused Elmer to call every guard who speaks to him "Boss", including Willis, who is no threat to him whatsoever.
- Riddle for the Ages: How many people are involved in Bunk's drug ring? Is it restricted to him, Bullet, Elmer, and Frank? Or does it go all the way up to Director Poppler himself?
- Ritual Magic: The scroll Elmer receives contains hieroglyphic instructions for a ritual to perform. The ritual ends up turning him into a giant spider, after which he gouges out Bunk's eyes and sucks him dry.
- Screw the Rules, I'm Doing What's Right!: Elmer's motivation for euthanizing his dying mother. He brings it up at his parole hearing, knowing full well what he did was wrong (in the eyes of the law, anyway), but his heart was in the right place.
- Screw the Rules, I Have Connections!: Bullet and Polish Frank are able to get inside Elmer's cell by themselves, thanks to their affiliation with Bunk.
- Serious Business: Bunk takes drug production very seriously, as Elmer's the only person in the whole prison with the skills to cook opium from the clinic supplies. When he indirectly finds out that the clinic just got a new batch of supplies, he has Polish Frank and Bullet torture Elmer to get him to start cooking, evidently thinking that he was making some side cash by not letting him know.
- Shout-Out:
- The prison where Elmer is being held, Fiorina Federal Prison, shares the same name as the penitentiary planet from Alien³.
- Elmer's unending devotion towards his mother is certain to bring Norman Bates to mind.
- In a blink-and-you'll-miss-it moment, Elmer's arrest record mentions that the judge who had his warrant issued was one "Judge Vigoda".
- Slasher Smile: Bunk flashes one at Elmer when his parole is denied.
- Slimeball: Polish Frank is a certified sleaze, to the point where one can almost feel the sliminess in his voice when he talks to Elmer.
- Small Role, Big Impact: The parole board, who deny Elmer his freedom, which allows him to receive the letter that ultimately gives him his freedom for real.
- There's also Willis, who gives Elmer the letter in the first place.
- Spider People: The ritual Elmer performs ends up either merging him with Sekhmet, or turning him into a giant spider himself.
- Spiteful Spit: Bullet spits on the floor of Elmer's cell just before he leaves early in the episode.
- Trauma Button: As he's suspended in Elmer's web, Bunk spends his last living moments flashing back to the abuse he received from his mother.
- The Unreveal: It's never revealed who actually sent Elmer the letter containing the ancient scroll. Judging by the female voiceover, it could have very likely been Sekhmet herself.
- Villain Ball: Before his death, Bunk goes to assault Elmer for no particular reason. It's in that moment he discovers the transformed Elmer, who drains him of his bodily fluids.
- The Voiceless: Bullet, one of Bunk's henchmen, never says a word throughout the episode.
- Voluntary Shapeshifting: Elmer uses the ritual described on the scroll he receives to transform himself into a giant spider, after which he exacts revenge on his primary tormentor.
- Wardens Are Evil: Poppler is a downplayed example. He's not actively malicious toward Elmer like Bunk is, though he turns him away and is indifferent to his abuse, as well as his position in Bunk's drug ring, if he's not in on the racket himself.
- What Happened to the Mouse?: Sekhmet and the rest of Elmer's spiders disappear after Elmer is transformed, and Elmer himself disappears after he kills Bunk. It's likely that they might have all just escaped through the hole in the wall.
- Wicked Cultured: Elmer is knowledgeable in pharmaceutical sciences, the biology and behavior of spiders, and the deities of many ancient religions. The wicked part is non-existent, since he's a genuinely nice guy, if a little unsettling.
