Doodles
Written By: Todd Spence & Zak White
Up in Seattle, Angela (Anja Savcic), an aspiring cartoonist, waits in the lobby of the prestigious Timeless Magazine HQ for an appointment among a slew of other cartoonists, where she'll have the opportunity to show her cartoons to the magazine's editor-in-chief. A more established artist, Sonia Wicks (Tina Grant), tells Angela that the boss isn’t as mean as he’s made out to be and offers to take a look at her work. Angela promptly roots through her portfolio to show Sonia the cartoon she's been working on: a reproduction of the opening scene of 2001: A Space Odyssey, with a mobile phone replacing the Monolith. Sonia tells Angela that her work is nice, but not that timely, asserting that she knows what she's saying because she's the magazine's go-to cartoonist. As Sonia heads into the editor's office, Angela, taken aback, rips up her drawing.
Angela soon enters the office of the editor himself, Roger Barton (Tyler McClendon), under his stern command, revealing himself to indeed be as mean as they say, if not worse. Angela also meets Calvin (David Lennon), a pleasant friend from her high school days who works for Roger, where they engage in brief conversation. After taking a phone call, Roger takes a look through her portfolio and isn't happy with any of her work. Showing Angela what he’s looking for, Roger displays the latest work by Sonia; a hastily sketched rip-off of Angela's cartoon. Further tearing into Angela, Roger claims her to be says Sonia is "a true singular talent", parroting the arrogant art thief's decree of how a person "can’t pay rent with mediocrity" to Angela's face.
At home that night, Angela sulks as she talks to her mother over the phone, questioning what else she could do with her life. After the call, Sonia's mocking voice invades Angela's mind, prompting her to pull out a copy of Timeless that Roger gave her to study, opening to a page with Sonia's photo on it and starting to doodle Sonia's head and her eyes being eaten by rats. The next morning, Angela receives a text from Calvin, who says that Roger has opened submissions back up. When asked why, Calvin reveals that Sonia was in an accident on her way home. Looking up the news on her phone, Angela discovers that Sonia was indeed found dead on the train tracks, likely having slipped, fallen, and hit her head, after which rats ate out her eyes. The bottom of the article includes a photo of the crime scene, where Angela discovers Sonia's body looks exactly like her doodle.
Back at the Timeless offices, Roger looks through Angela's newer sketches and finds himself impressed, offering Angela a publishing contract. However, Roger tells Angela that if she truly wants to become the newest cartoonist of the magazine, she must fire Calvin (who stepped out to tackle an emergency) and prove her loyalty to Timeless. Unable to bring herself to fire an old friend who hasn't done anything wrong, Angela is forced to watch a laughing Roger tear up her contract, once again losing her dream job. After storming out, Angela drowns her sorrows at a bar in the building's lobby. Noting that she's highly upset, the bartender pours her a shot of J&B. As she shares her woes with him, she angrily doodles over Roger's portrait on the cover of her issue, depicting the back of his head exploding. Right behind her, seconds later, Roger suddenly falls from nowhere and lands headfirst on the ground floor, his skull exploding into a viscous pile of blood and viscera. After observing the scene and connecting the dots that the deaths of Roger and Sonia were the result of some kind of innate ability she possesses, the traumatized Angela frantically packs her luggage and throws away her art supplies, planning to return to her hometown.
A few days later, Angela goes back to Timeless to say goodbye to Calvin, saying that she's leaving town and going home. However, Calvin reveals that Roger's death has resulted in him being promoted to editor-in-chief, and he's made plans to publish Angela's cartoon and hire her full-time. Angela, beyond happy, thanks Calvin for everything and offers to take him out to a celebratory dinner, though she lies that she wasn't aware Roger had died. As Angela leaves, the bartender she met a while ago comes up to Calvin. He tells Calvin that Angela saw Roger's death and left the building without taking any of her things, giving Calvin her stuff so he can return it. Calvin sees Angela's doodle of Roger on the magazine cover, and begins getting the idea that Angela murdered him and Sonia.
As Angela pours some champagne and tells her mother the good news (from a bottle her mother sent her for when she finally got published), Calvin comes to her apartment, the defaced magazine in his hand, asking Angela what the idea behind it is. Angela claims that it's only an innocent doodle, but Calvin thinks she's hiding something, reminding her of how she feigned surprise at Roger's death, how Sonia died after she stole her cartoon, and how she said that some people deserve to rot at the bar. Angela bolts into her room and locks the door, telling Calvin to go away as the new editor-in-chief threatens to call the police. Hatching a desperate idea, Angela pulls out her high school yearbook and opens it to Calvin's picture. She hurriedly sketches her mother's champagne bottle embedded deep into Calvin's neck, suddenly prompting Calvin to start gasping for breath and the bottle (which she took with her) to vanish. Angela opens the door to find Calvin lying dead in a pool of his own blood, the broken bottle in his neck. Suddenly feeling weak and/or delirious, Angela flips through the yearbook to discover she scribbled so hard and fast that the doodle on Calvin's picture bled/tore right through the page, resulting in her own picture, right behind Calvin's, also having her neck stabbed with the bottle. Instantly, the bottle stabs itself in Angela's neck, whereupon she reflexively pulls it out and falls to the ground atop of Calvin's body, also dead from blood loss.
This episode contains examples of:
- Ambiguously Human: Angela's ability to kill people via the morbid doodles she draws on pictures of them may hint that she's not entirely human.
- Art Imitates Life: Through her enraged doodles, people who Angela desires dead are killed in ways that explicitly match the content of said doodles.
- Bad Boss: Roger, who rebukes Angela while praising Sonia, the artist who shamelessly plagiarized her, as a true, singular talent. When Sonia dies and Angela is given a publishing contract in her place, Roger insists she fire Calvin, not caring that he's her friend and that he hasn't even done anything wrong, as a means to prove her loyalty to Timeless.
- Benevolent Boss: Calvin becomes one when he's made editor-in-chief after Roger dies, publishing Angela's cartoons and offering to hire her full time.
- Bland-Name Product: Timeless, which is a noted parody of Time.
- Butterfly of Doom: If Angela had just remembered to go back and get her supplies from the bar, she and Calvin wouldn't have met their gruesome deaths.
- Call-Back:
- A carton of Chinese food from the same restaraunt Justin ordered from in The Man in the Suitcase sits in Angela's fridge.
- A shelf on Angela's apartment houses the orange-yellow phone previously seen in The Hat and To Grandmother's House We Go.
- Chekhov's Gun:
- The bottle of champagne that Angela's mother sent to her, meant to be opened when she finally got published, is hastily used to kill Calvin before he can call the police. After he dies, Angela learns that she was doodling on Calvin's picture so fast, she tore right through the page and doodled onto her own yearbook picture, just behind his, leading that same bottle to kill her instantaneously.
- There's also the yearbook itself, as Angela flips through it while talking to her mother, and later is forced to doodle on Calvin's picture to kill him.
- Chekhov's Gunman: The bartender who shares his sympathy when Angela is fired for a second time, who watches Angela leave when Roger dies and forgets her things. He gives them to Calvin to give to her, cluing him in as to what's going on with Angela.
- Corrupt Corporate Executive: Roger, who demands only the best quality cartoons and total dedication to Timeless. He rebukes Angela as an amateur, praises the sketch that Sonia clearly stole from her, and commands her to fire Calvin (looking forward to her sadness in doing the deed), even after he's been a perfect subordinate to him, as a test of her loyalty to the magazine.
- Downer Ending: When Calvin closes in on her and threatens to call the police, Angela desperately doodles his neck being gored by a broken bottle over his high school yearbook picture, which kills him. After this, she discovers the doodle tore through the page because of how fast and hard she was scribbling it, and it ends up imprinted on her own picture, right behind Calvin's. The bottle moves to her own neck and she promptly dies from blood loss.
- Drowning My Sorrows: After Roger fires her again, Angela drinks her misery away as the good-hearted bartender listens to her woes, even offering a shot on him.
- "Everyone Dies" Ending: With the exception of the bartender, every character with an onscreen speaking role is "doodled to death" by the end of the episode.
- Evil Laugh: Roger gives a little one as he tears Angela's publishing contract, her potential future, right in front of her.
- Eye Scream: Sonia's doodle has her eyes being eaten by rats. This becomes reality when she dies in an accident on her way back from work, complete with an identical photo of her corpse in the resultant news article.
- Good Parents: From what we hear of her, Angela's mom is supportive of her daughter's cartoons and how she's been drawing them ever since she was little, even sending her a bottle of champagne for when she finally gets published. Though Angela keeps getting shot down at Timeless, she suggests that her daughter could perhaps come home and do caricatures at the roller rink like she did in high school.
- Hate Sink:
- Roger Barton. This man is one of the most abusive and belittling characters in Creepshow thus far, as he repeatedly demeans poor Angela as a talentless hack while praising Sonia, the artist who shamelessly plagiarized her work. When Angela is offered a publishing contract, Roger has her loyalty to Timeless tested by telling her to fire Calvin, his number two and her old friend, even though he hasn't done anything worthy of firing. For his sheer loathsomeness, he's given an exceptionally graphic death.
- Sonia, the smug bitch of an artist who, as described above, shamelessly steals Angela's work and presents it to Roger as her own, having psyched her out into tearing it up beforehand by telling her that it wasn't timely. Though her death is offscreen, it's just as unpleasant as Roger's, as her eyes were eaten by rats.
- Hearing Voices: Angela hears Sonia's voice as she stares at a picture of her in the Timeless issue Roger gives her as "homework", mockingly admitting that she did indeed steal her drawing and rebuking her as a terrible artist, telling her that she'll never have what it takes.
- Hoist By Her Own Petard: Angela's hastily scribbled doodle of Calvin, which results in his neck being gored by her mother's champagne bottle, tears through the paper and onto a picture of her, prompting that same bottle to similarly gore her own neck.
- Homage: The episode's supernatural element of an artist who inflicts injuries and deaths upon people they hate by drawing on pictures of them heavily borrows from the Tales from the Hood segment "Boys Do Get Bruised".
- Kick the Dog: Roger often does this to everyone but Sonia, but he's especially callous to poor Angela, insulting her and telling her to fire Calvin (who hasn't even done anything), then tearing up her publishing contract and laughing to her face about it. His death is no doubt meant to induce much rejoicing.
- Mad Artist: Angela shows hints of the trope as she angrily doodles on the faces of those who've wronged her, killing them in ways that reflect the doodle. However, she isn't aware of the deaths she's causing in the real world at first, but when she learns about them, she's very clearly horrified.
- Meaningful Name: Sonia Wicks; appropriate for such a wickedly smug art thief.
- Mythology Gag: In her only scene, Sonia is seen wearing a shirt with George Romero's face on it.
- Nice Guy:
- Angela's old friend Calvin is a total sweetheart to her, as he genuinely enjoys her cartoons and offers to publish them when he's made editor-in-chief after Roger's death, offering Angela the role of a full-time cartoonist for the magazine. He only starts turning on her when he suspects her of murder, and even then, it's more of a moral obligation to do the right thing instead of a personal hatred of her, as he doesn't force a confession and doesn't know what exactly he's accusing her of at first.
- There's also the bartender who listens to Angela's story of being rebuked by Roger, even giving her an extra shot on him. When Angela leaves after witnessing Roger's death, the bartender notices she left her things behind and asks Calvin to return them to her as an act of goodness.
- O.O.C. Is Serious Business: Calvin spends the whole episode polite and patient with Angela, while also being profanity-free. As the end, as he pounds on her bedroom door, he demands that she "open the fucking door" and threatens to call the cops, showing just how troubled the situation is making him.
- Plagiarism in Fiction: Sonia hastily scribbles a reproduction of the sketch Angela planned to show to Roger right in his office, which he accepts as hers at face value.
- Screw This, I'm Outta Here: As the deaths keep piling up, Angela intends to take a break from cartooning and just head back to her hometown. Unfortunately, new opportunities for her dream job keep popping up.
- Shout-Out:
- Timeless is a very obvious parody of TIME Magazine, and the cartoons it prints are similar to those of The New Yorker.
- Angela's high school friend who genuinely cares about her well being is named "Calvin".
- As noted above, the episode bears strong similarities to "Boys Do Get Bruised" from Tales from the Hood.
- The sketch Angela intends to present to Roger is a reproduction of the opening scene from 2001: A Space Odyssey, with the hominids praising an iPhone instead of the Monolith.
- Another sketch in Angela's portfolio is a replication of Jack's death scene from Titanic (1997).
Rose: "Jack, come on, this is the only part they'll remember if you don't get up here!"- Roger unfortunately rebukes Angela's works as "too Beetle Bailey."
- Sleeping with the Boss: It's slightly implied between Roger and Sonia, hence why he gives her a hug, keeps her as the magazine's go-to cartoonist, meets with her for quite a while, doesn't at all question the art that she shamelessly steals from Angela, and repeats the retort she gave her.
- Smug Snake: Sonia just reeks of smugness in her only scene, as well as when her voice echoes in Angela's head.
- Spanner in the Works: The bartender who gives Angela sorrow-drowning drinks before Roger dies. He notices that Angela leaves all her things behind in her hurry to get home, and he gives them to Calvin to give to her as a gesture of kindness. This unfortunately leads to both Calvin and Angela's deaths.
- Starving Artist: Angela wants more than anything to have her cartoons published in a major magazine like Timeless, but she keeps getting turned down by the jackass Roger.
- Stealing from the Till: Angela reminds her mother over the phone that her old job didn't end well, as she was accused of stealing from the register and no one vouched for her.
- Strange Minds Think Alike: Both Sonia and Roger tell Angela that she "Can't pay the rent with mediocrity.", though given that they're both horrible people and hinted to be in an affair, it's not that strange of them to think the same thing.
- Sympathetic Magic: Angela has an innate magical ability to cause people she doesn't like to gruesomely die when she doodles over a picture of them, the deaths matching what the doodle represents.
- Too Good for This Sinful Earth: Calvin, the nicest character in the episode, ends up killed by Angela's newfound powers in a bid of desperation to keep her dream job and avoid jail time.
- Unwitting Instigator of Doom: The bartender who gives Calvin the supplies Angela left behind to return to her, allowing the latter to jump to conclusions about what happened to Sonia and Roger.
- Villain with Good Publicity: Sonia's cartoons are often seen in Timeless and are met with great acclaim by Roger, though Angela discovers she's a thief who shamelessly plagiarized and claimed the sketch she intended to show him.
- World of Jerkass: Timeless has some pretty scummy employees and management under its belt, such as the shameless art thief Sonia and the crooked boss Roger. Thankfully, the kindly Calvin and the sympathetic bartender allow for some bright spots to shine through.
- Yank the Dog's Chain: After Roger's death, Angela just wants to get the hell away from Timeless and go back home, only for Calvin to have taken up the editor-in-chief mantle and tell her that he's publishing her work, forcing her hand.
- Your Head A-Splode: Angela's doodle of Roger depicts the back of his head exploding. A minute later, Roger suddenly falls from the top floor via unknown circumstances behind her. His skull explodes upon impact with the floor, treating the viewers to one of the most gruesome scenes in the series to date and terrifying Angela to the point where she leaves.
