In 1978, Dr. Carl Winters (F. Murray Abraham), an elderly forensic pathologist suffering from terminal stomach cancer, travels to a small town to perform autopsies on a group of 10 men killed by an explosion in a local coal mine. Winters' old friend, local sheriff Nate Craven (Glynn Turman), recounts for him the events leading up to the explosion: After a string of missing-persons cases, Craven and his deputies settled on a suspect named Eddie Sykes (Luke Roberts), a man who had himself gone missing from a neighbouring town, only to turn up working for the local coal mine under the assumed name Joe Allen. Craven searched Sykes' boarding house room, finding a strange orb-like object, which he confiscated. Later, at the coal mine, Sykes stole back the object and fled into the mine, triggering an explosion that killed both him and 9 other miners.
Setting up a makeshift morgue in an defunct ice manufactory, Winters begins performing the autopsies, documenting his findings on a tape recorder. As the autopsies continue, Winters begins to notice that the bodies are all completely drained of their blood. Soon, the corpse of Sykes reanimates and reveals to Winters that he is the host for a parasitic alien, and the orb that 'he' was so obsessed with is the creature's spacecraft. The alien — who feeds on human blood but is near-starvation due to Sykes' death — seeks to transfer into Winters' body, both to continue living and to take advantage of his job as a pathologist to feed on the blood of the recently dead. Winters resists, but the alien incapacitates him and restrains him on the operating table.
Winters regains consciousness as the alien begins to perform an autopsy on Sykes' body, in order to maintain the appearance that Winters had completed his job, and to give the alien easy exit from the corpse. As the alien leaves Sykes' body and rigor mortis sets in, Winters is able to snatch the scalpel, which he uses to gouge out his eyes and puncture his eardrums, robbing his body of sight and hearing, as well as slitting his major arteries. As the alien takes control of his body, Winters informs it that the body is near-death, effectively trapping the alien with no food source. He also reveals that his tape recorder was left on throughout their confrontation, and has recorded much of his interactions with the alien. Winters collapses on the floor as his heartbeat slows to a stop. Craven arrives moments later to find Winters' body with the words: "PLAY TAPE. BURN ME." written on his chest in blood.
Tropes
- The '70s: The episode takes place in March 1978.
- And I Must Scream: The fate of those possessed by the alien parasite is to be locked in their own body while the alien torments them psychologically for sport. The alien even reveals that Sykes' consciousness is still alive despite his body's death, and he's fully aware of being disemboweled as the alien performs a fake autopsy on itself/him. Carl manages to turn the tables on the alien by rendering himself blind, deaf and bleeding out before the creature's able to finish possessing him, leaving it trapped inside his body and knowing that there's ample proof for Nate to destroy it.
- Aliens Are Bastards: They're Puppeteer Parasites who hijack human bodies and feed on other humans' blood, for one. The one featured in the episode goes above and beyond, though, by going out of its way to make its victims suffer as much as possible (which causes its own undoing in the end). Whether that's a characteristic of the whole race or whether different aliens can have different personalities is unknown.
- Ambiguous Ending: Carl manages to trap the alien inside his own blinded, deaf and dying body and leaves a warning for Nate to listen to the tape (which had been left on since the alien revealed itself and contains a fair bit of their confrontation) and burn his corpse. It’s implied that Nate at least did the first part, but what happens after that (whether Nate or anyone else actually believes what's on the tape, whether burning Carl’s body will truly kill the alien, whether there are any more aliens out there) is left up to the audience.
- Animal Motifs: While the alien is reminiscent of an octopus, spiders are still a recurring sight throughout the episode. Like the alien, spiders subsist on liquids drawn from other creatures. They also spin webs to ensnare their prey, with the alien doing something similar by entrancing humans and luring them away to a secluded location so it can murder them.
- Berserk Button: Downplayed in that it doesn't actually rage or lose control, but it's clear that Carl calling the alien and it’s/his race out on being envious and nothing but thieves towards other species ticked it/him off. It/He goes from just clinically boasting about his superiority and the process through which it/he changes bodies to sadistically explaining how it/he'll enjoy killing and eating Nate using Carl's body.
- Came from the Sky: The creature arrived inside a spaceship that Sykes initially took for a meteor.
- Cool Old Guy: Carl and Sheriff Nate both fit the bill.
- Corrupt Corporate Executive: Carl has officially come to perform the autopsies thanks to this; Fordham Mutual, a local insurance company is (via the governor) trying to avoid having to do a pay out for the men who died, arguing that the compensation money should only be paid if death was caused by their actual employment and not simply in the course of their employment e.g. someone setting off a bomb. "Death by lunatic does not obtain."
- Couldn't Find a Pen: Carl uses his own blood to write a final message to Nate across his own torso.
- Cruel and Unusual Death: The alien gloats about how its anatomical knowledge allows it to dismember people for blood and meat while keeping them alive for many hours. It mocks Carl about how it plans to eat Nate this way.
- Determinator:
- Carl is so determined to thwart the alien and save Nate from being horrifically devoured by it that he ends up slitting his throat and destroying his eyes and ears to render his body useless.
- Sykes, despite having spent nine torturous months under the alien's control, suffering the death of his body and having just been disemboweled, is able to use his last moments of 'life' to pass Carl the scalpel to try and kill the alien.
- Due to the Dead: Carl is very respectful of the men he is autopsying, apologizing for the indignity of undressing them and cutting them open.
- Dying Moment of Awesome: Carl manages to mutilate himself to death as the abomination is possessing him, leaving it stranded in a blind, deaf and dying body - while also leaving his tape behind to explain what happened. As the alien realizes all too late that it's been had, it's now the good doctor's turn to monologue to the would-be invader about exactly how screwed it is. He concludes with maniacal laughter, knowing that he has thoroughly defeated his vile tormentor and quite possibly outed its entire race to the world.
- Eddie Sykes gets a very minor one. After being trapped inside his own body for several months whilst the Traveler was possessing him and forcing him to do horrific things, he uses his last few seconds of life free of his tormentor's control to pass Carl the scalpel still in his hand, thus giving the doctor the means to ultimately defeat the alien.
- Evil Gloating: The alien utterly revels in the superiority it feels over humans, gloating that it's species have been on earth for millennia and have caused entire nations to collapse. Carl sees through it's self-delusions and calls it out for what it is: a parasite that must rely on the bodies of others to live. This angers the alien enough that it begins gloating about how it will use Carl's body to kill and devour Nate when he arrives in very horrific detail to scare the doctor.
- Exact Words: The corrupt insurance company is using this as a loophole to avoid paying out over the deaths of the miners, saying their insurance only covers if they were killed by their work, i.e. in an accident, and that merely being killed whilst at work, such as a madman detonating a bomb in a mine shaft, does not count.
- Faux Affably Evil: The alien maintains an unfailingly polite and cordial tone even as it's explaining to Carl how it will use his body to drain his friend dry and enjoy their mutual suffering. In fact, he at first attempted to trick Carl to help him, but Carl quickly figuring it out and later giving him "The Reason You Suck" Speech quickly made him become a Soft-Spoken Sadist.
- Foreshadowing: When the police search Sykes' apartment, they find the murdered mill worker’s union card in a box along with Joe Allen's British passport. The fact that Allen speaks with an American accent and kept Sykes' documents alongside the belongings of his victims is an early clue that despite appearances, Sykes and Allen are two different entities and Sykes is a victim.
- For the Evulz: The alien deliberately keeps its victims aware of what it's doing to them, whether possessing Sykes and forcing him to eat people or disembowel himself, or draining the blood of two dying miners. It also takes the time to describe to an increasingly horrified Carl what exactly it plans to do to Nate while controlling Carl's body.
- Green-Eyed Monster: Carl accuses the alien of being this when it claims his race to be superior for evolving without the need of other "lesser animal traits" like digits and having brought entire civilizations down, as well as calling him nothing more than thieves and parasites. This actually gives the alien pause and drop the polite façade, at which point he sadistically describes how he'll enter Carl's body and then use it to torture, kill and eat Nate.
- I Am a Humanitarian: The alien consumes human blood (and occasionally flesh) for food.
- Is This Thing Still On?: Carl leaves his tape recorder on during his confrontation with the alien; while he admits the tape has definitely run out by the end, he is certain that it captured enough to reveal the important truth.
- Karmic Death: After spending several months controlling Sykes' body, keeping his mind mute and powerless even as he's forced to slice himself up, and planning to do the same to Carl, the alien ends up trapped in Carl's blind, deaf and dying body; if it doesn't perish from lack of blood, then it surely will when Nate (hopefully) sets the corpse alight. All it can do is silently scream.
- Octopoid Aliens: The creature is vaguely reminiscent of an octopus, a fleshy head with long tentacles used to puppeteer the unfortunate victim's body.
- Puppeteer Parasite: The antagonist is a parasitic alien that can control both living and dead bodies.
- Serial Killer: The alien operated as one, using Sykes’ body to find people to kill and eat, until its activities were discovered.
- Smug Snake: The alien isn't nearly as intelligent or superior as it thinks it is, unable to believe that Carl could inconvenience it in any way while monologuing all about its sadistic motives, abilities and limitations to him. It also didn't account for Sykes using his last moments of 'life' to help Carl by giving him a scalpel.
- Took a Level in Badass: When Carl knows the full extent of what the alien plans to do to him once it takes him over, Carl has the presence of mind, and the will, to stab out his eardrums and his eyes, slice his voice box so he can't speak, and give himself a mortal wound that will bleed him out. This not only traps the alien in a useless body, but prevents it from being able to use Carl's body to lie and talk its way out of what is on the tape, and weaken it so that it can't attack Nate. The pain had to have been CONSIDERABLE, yet he does it.
- Trapped in the Host: Carl turns the tables on the alien and leaves it stuck in his disabled and dying body, with it only able to desperately scream to be let out.
- Villainous Breakdown: The alien loses its composure once it realises that, not only is it trapped in Carl's dying body, but that the recording of their conversation has ruined its chances of taking Nate by surprise and escaping. Its last words are a desperate scream of "LET ME OUT!" as Carl laughs in triumph.
