Recap / Night Gallery S 2 E 22

Rod Serling: Good evening. I'm your little old curator in this museum which we call: the Night Gallery.

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The Caterpillar

Based on the short story "Boomerang" by Oscar Cook.

Teleplay by: Rod Serling

Directed by: Jeannot Szwarc

Rod Serling: There are horror stories and horror stories; elements of terror that take myriad forms. But this item has a built-in terror which can refrigerate even the most dispassionate amongst us. It has to do with a little beastie known as an earwig, a small bug that crawls into the human ear. And while inside, it doesn't whisper sweet nothings... it performs quite another function. Offered to you now, on Night Gallery, a brand new nightmare which we call: The Caterpillar.

In the early 20th century, Stephen Macy (Laurence Harvey), an unhinged British soldier unhappily stuck in the jungles of Borneo, lusts after Rhona (Joanna Pettet), the much-younger wife of his host and commanding officer Colonel John Warwick (Tom Helmore), and aches to kill him so he can have her for himself. Macy soon meets Tommy Robinson (Don Knight), a fellow British expatriate from the wrong side of the law who chose to be exiled to the tropics rather than spend life in prison, and often handles deliveries for the Warwicks. Over drinks, Tommy discusses the earwig, a native carnivorous insect which has been known to kill people by crawling into their ears and eating straight through their brains, suggesting that Macy can use one to remove John from the picture and get together with Rhona. Macy agrees to the proposal, but a mix-up on the night of the event results in him getting the earwig instead, leading to weeks of unbearingly ceaseless agony for the attempted murderer.

Tropes

• Abhorrent Admirer: Rhona thinks of Macy as one for his attitude and his lust for her, yet she's still horrified at the ordeal he goes through.
• Adaptational Heroism: John is a sympathetic character here. In the original story, he was the villain, who tried to use the earwig to kill Macy and ended up getting murdered by him in revenge.
• Adaptational Villainy: Macy is the victim in the original story while John is the villain. Here, the roles are reversed, with Macy as the jealous man trying to kill John.
• Age-Gap Romance: John is 66 while Rhona is 28, yet they love each other dearly. The age difference is notably the only reason why Macy wants to have her for himself.
• And I Must Scream: The act of an earwig eating through someone's brain is described as horrifically painful, and Macy learns this fact the hard way when his intended earwig is put in his own ear. During Tommy's visit, he outright declares that he wants to die because of how agonizing the pain is, and later describes the sensation to both the doctor and the Warwicks in great detail.

Macy: It's an agonizing, driving, itching pain. Anything would have been preferable; to be flayed alive, to be burnt at the stake, to be put on the rack. To be hanged, even, would be an act of mercy.

• Artistic License – Biology: Macy's ordeal shouldn't have been as painful as it was, since there are no nerves in the brain. At the same time, there is an exterior and interior network of veins to supply it with blood, so frankly Macy should have died of internal bleeding.
• Asshole Victim: Macy is a definite case, but the earwig gives him a great deal more karma than he expected, to the point of overkill.
• Attempted Homewrecker: Macy begins lusting after his boss's much younger wife Rhona, despite the fact that she clearly doesn't return his affection and is happy with the way things are. His murder plot to "free" her from her husband backfires horrifically.
• Breaking Bad News Gently: The doctor tells Macy to sit down before telling him the bad news about the earwig. Macy initially says that it's not necessary, but the doctor insists. Given the nature of the news itself, he was right.
• Canon Foreigner: Tommy Robinson, who supplies Macy with the earwig and talks him into going through with the scheme, doesn't appear in the original story.
• Composite Character: John takes the role of the husband from the original story, but his name is taken from the story's narrator.
• Darker and Edgier: With Macy's long and excruciatingly painful punishment, this segment takes the cake as the darkest of any segment on this show, to the point where even Stephen King considers it one of the scariest episodes in television history. Rod Serling himself even spends a portion of his narration warning the viewers beforehand to prepare themselves for something truly horrific.
• Driven to Suicide: As Tommy checks on him, Macy, suffering the brutality of the earwig's attack on his brain, openly croaks that he wants to die so the pain can stop.
• Ear Ache: Macy gets the mother of all earaches once the earwig crawls inside his head and starts eating his brain.
• Everyone Has Standards: Though Rhona reacts with disgust at Macy's advances towards her and his accusations of how unhappy her married life must be, she's terrified at the revelation that an earwig ate through his brain. Especially the one he was planning to kill her husband with.
• Even Evil Has Standards: Tommy is an unrepentant crook who sets up the initial murder attempt with Macy, but he's shocked when his "friends" put the earwig in the wrong man's ear, even apologizing directly to the suffering Macy for the mix-up.
• Fate Worse than Death: The earwig eats its way through Macy's brain in a weeks-long process, to the point where he outright begs to die so the agony can stop. It gets even worse because the ending not only reveals that the earwig was female, but it laid eggs.
• Female Monster Surprise: Macy pays to have supposed romantic rival John murdered by having a carnivorous earwig placed in his ear. The plan goes wrong, however, and the next morning, Macy awakens to find that the earwig has been placed in his ear instead. He endures weeks of agony as the earwig eats its way through his brain, but he miraculously survives the ordeal. He is then told by a doctor that the earwig was female... and it laid eggs.
• Five-Second Foreshadowing: At breakfast the day after Macy agrees to the murder attempt, he starts getting a painful itch in his ear. When he scratches it with a handkerchief, he spies blood on it, revealing that he got the earwig instead.
• Foreshadowing:
  • The first scene has Macy complaining about the endless rain in Borneo, venting that he'll go mad if it continues and he can eagerly be shipped back to England then. Both things happen by the end of the segment, as Macy goes mad (well, more than he already was) after the earwig eats through his brain and John has him shipped back to England instead of pressing charges for his murder attempt.
  • As they discuss the murder plot, Tommy tells Macy that an earwig has a 1-in-1000 chance of actually tunneling out through the other side of someone's head. This happens to Macy near the end of the segment, but his own earwig left something to remember her by in his head.
• Happily Married: John and Rhona love each other with all their hearts in spite of their age difference. Macy thinks that he's saving Rhona, the object of his affection, simply because her husband is 40 years older than she is. Contrary to his beliefs, Rhona is quite happy with how things are between her and John, and thinks of Macy as an asshole for making such assumptions about her married life.
• Here We Go Again!: Macy starts screaming in agony after the doctor tells him that the earwig laid eggs, meaning he'll have to endure even more of the same agony in which he's spent the past few weeks — and the odds of him surviving a second dose of said agony are very low.
• It's All About Me: Since he's a sociopath, Macy realistically shows a great amount of entitlement, thinking that he's destined to be with Rhona simply because her husband is nearly 40 years older than her.
• Jungle Drums: Given that the segment is set in early 20th century Borneo, it's only natural they appear here.
• Karma Houdini: Tommy gets off scot free for persuading Macy to attempt murdering John and having his "friends" supply the earwig. He does apologize to Macy for the mix-up in complete sincerity, but he disappears after that scene.
• Killer Rabbit: Earwigs are depicted as such, as they crawl into sleeping peoples' ears and eat through their brains.
• Laser-Guided Karma: Macy plots a gruesome murder (having an earwig placed on John's pillow so it can eat through his brain), but is accidentally made the victim. The sheer, unadulterated torture that the little insect puts him through for two long weeks may well turn his punishment into Laser-Guided Overkill.
• Manipulative Bastard: Tommy, a disreputable criminal who peddles goods to the local residents for booze money. He's the one who hatches the assassination plot against John, and pushes the initially-conflicted Macy into going through with it by prodding his ego and sociopathic nature, in exchange for 100 pounds.
• Oh, Crap!: When Macy spots blood on his handkerchief and realizes that the earwig is inside his head.
• The Punishment Is the Crime: John tells Macy that he's just going to have him sent back to England, not intending to press charges for his murder attempt. It's implied that he thinks the agony the earwig gave Macy (and the additional agony its larvae are sure to give him) as a result of his scheme backfiring was worse than any legal punishment he could potentially expect.
• Reasonable Authority Figure: John is a friendly commanding officer to his men, even trying to help Macy get used to the tropics. When he learns what happens to him and why it happened at all, he doesn't press charges for Macy's attempted murder and just has him sent back to England, thinking that the earwig eating through his brain made him suffer enough.
• "The Reason You Suck" Speech: Rhona keeps giving Macy such speeches as a means to rebuke his lust for her and his assumptions about her husband, especially once he survives the earwig's trip through his head.
• Scream Discretion Shot: The final shot is one of the outside of the Warwicks' house as Macy, having been told that he's going to have a repeat of the last two weeks, screams in mortal terror.
• Sociopathic Soldier: While stationed in Borneo, Macy feels entitled to Rhona's love simply because he's much younger than her 66 year old husband, and plots a gruesome method of death on said husband, his commanding officer, so he can get him out of the way.
• The Sociopath: Macy fits a lot of the criteria for a genuine sociopath: a superficially charming appearance, a stunning level of entitlement, an inability to feel for others, a superficial understanding of love, and very little ability to show emotion.
• Somewhere, an Entomologist Is Crying: The title of the segment is subject to this trope. Earwigs not only aren't caterpillars, but they aren't even in the same taxonomic division as butterflies or moths. What's more, their rumors of entering the ear and eating a person's brain are based on old wives' tales.
• Spared by the Adaptation: John is killed by Macy in the original story, but he survives here.
• Take Our Word for It: We never see the earwig that torments Macy. Instead, we see his reaction as he's tied to the bed: non-existent voice, pale face, sunken-in eyes, and the fact that he's soaked in tears and sweat as the insect eats through his brain, all while Macy can do nothing but plead for death. From all this, it's certain that Macy has subjected himself to absolute hell.
• Time Skip: After Macy finds out that the earwig is in his own ear, the segment skips two weeks into the future, where he yearns for the sweet release of death thanks to the constant agony.
• The Unapologetic: Even after all the agony he's been through, Macy is unrepentant for his attempted murder of John, even saying that he'd do it all over again to multiple people if he had to, keeping the sympathy for him quite low when the Twist Ending is revealed.
• Wham Line: The segment ends with one that has haunted viewers for years: "And a female... lays eggs."
• When It Rains, It Pours: The majority of the segment is set during a heavy tropical rainstorm. The opening scene features a grumpy Macy getting tired of the inclement weather, asking if it ever stops raining in Borneo. Rhona notes that the rains let up in March, frustrating him further.

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Little Girl Lost

Original story by: E. C. Tubb

Teleplay by: Stanford Whitmore

Directed by: Timothy Galfas

Rod Serling: Our next painting on Night Gallery tells the story of an illusion. An invisible specter which guides and motivates and drives. And though you'll never see her, this childish wraith, you'll know she's there. And we venture to suggest that you'll be chilled by the knowledge. Our painting is called: Little Girl Lost.

Tom Burke (Ed Nelson), a military test pilot recently injured after flying an experimental jet, receives a highly unusual assignment from his superiors. He is to monitor Professor Putman (William Windom), a noted physicist who witnessed his daughter Ginny being killed by a hit and run driver and went insane, deluding himself into thinking that she's still alive. The delusions are keeping Putman from completing a top secret project that the military needs finished, so Tom has to stick by the professor at all times, playing along with his fantasies about his imaginary daughter so he can continue the project. Such a task is not without setbacks, however, and it ultimately reaches an explosive payoff.

Tropes

• Atomic Hate: As the ending shows us, if you're dealing with a scientist that has nothing to live for after his beloved daughter died, and is in possession of knowledge of a way to destroy the entire world, don't piss him off.
• Chromosome Casting: The main cast is all male, fitting for the military motif.
• Death by Childbirth: Ginny's mother is said to have died in childbirth, and Putman was so devoted to her because she was all he had left. As a result, her death in a hit-and-run destroyed his psyche and made him conjure an imaginary version of her.
• Death of a Child: Professor Putman lost his young daughter Ginny in a hit-and-run, so the government asks Tom to humor his delusions that she's still alive in order to have him continue his work.
• Didn't Think This Through: Accompanied by Tom, Putman takes "Ginny" to a fancy restaurant on the boardwalk for dinner. It apparently never came to either his, Tom's, or the military's mind that people in a busy place like this would notice what he'd be doing and call him out for it.
• Disproportionate Retribution: Ginny was killed by a single hit and run driver, and this was enough to make Putman crave destroying the entire world.
• Drives Like Crazy: After the ordeal at the restaurant, Putman, his delusions close to breaking, swerves up and down a cliffside road in an almost suicidal manner. Tom ultimately breaks the delusion fully after ranting at him for this style of driving.
• Earth-Shattering Kaboom: Professor Putman has delusions that his dead daughter Ginny is alive, so Tom becomes his bodyguard and must act as if he's interacting with Ginny at all times. At the end of the episode, Putman breaks through the delusion and finds a way to be reunited with her, as well as a means to get revenge on the driver who killed her: a flawed formula for controlled fission that destroys the Earth in a plethora of nuclear explosions.
• The End of the World as We Know It: Professor Putman gets his revenge on the driver who kills his beloved daughter by destroying the world in a nuclear holocaust.
• Flawed Prototype: A deliberate example. Putman was tasked with creating a formula that could create fissionable energy from nonradioactive materials, but he gave his superiors the wrong formula, turning his creation into a doomsday device.
• Imaginary Friend: An imaginary daughter in this case, as Putman has been deluding himself into thinking that his little girl, Ginny, is still alive after he watched her die in a hit-and-run.
• Karma Houdini Warranty: It's said early in the segment that the police never found the driver who killed Ginny, but whoever they were, they get their comeuppance when Putman produces his explosively flawed formula.
• Mad Scientist: Professor Putman, a military physicist who went insane after witnessing his daughter's death and deluded himself into thinking she was still alive. We later learn that he was tasked with creating a formula that could make fission from nonradioactive material for "bigger and better bombs at a fraction of the cost", and when he breaks through the delusions, he bungles the formula and gives it to the scientists who were monitoring him, causing the end of the world to get revenge on his daughter's killer.
• Manly Tears: Tom begins getting teary-eyed as he tells "Ginny" the story of Goldilocks and the Three Bears before bed.
• Misanthrope Supreme: Professor Putman. It's made clear in the extended cut of the segment, where he tells Tom in the restaurant, and "Ginny" by the fireplace, about how everyone in the world is rotten and wishes that they would all die, hence why he gives his superiors the defective formula.
• My God, What Have I Done?:
  • Tom has one when he realizes what exactly he said to Putman after his erratic driving.
  • Dr. Cottrel later gives one on behalf of the military, once he and Tom learn what Putman was actually planning to do with the formula.
• Nice Job Breaking It, Hero: Three examples drive the episode's plot, and prompt Putman to destroy the Earth in the process:
  • The hit and run driver who kills Ginny in the first place, making her father spiral into madness.
  • The surly patron of the restaurant where Putman and Tom have a meal with "Ginny", who tells the pair that there's nobody in their extra seat, and no plate set for who's supposed to be sitting there.
  • Tom himself, when Putman almost wrecks his car and he forgets to act as though Ginny is in the backseat with him in a moment of reflex.
• Reflexive Response: As he's recovering from Putman's erratic driving on the cliffside road, Tom instinctively tells the professor that he could've killed "both of us". It's thanks to this one little mistake that Putman fully breaks out of the delusions and destroys the world through his defective formula.
• Stock Footage: The nuclear detonation scenes at the end of the segment are borrowed from Colossus: The Forbin Project.
• Together in Death: Part of Putman's plan to blow up the world with his defective formula is to reunite with Ginny in the afterlife.
• Too Dumb to Live: The US government gets hit with it hard. Sending the inexperienced Tom (who's only there at all because he was injured and "cleared security") to constantly monitor a delusional and mentally unstable scientist working on a project that could potentially destroy the entire world is not a bright idea, considering that Putman breaks through the delusion incredibly easily after he takes Ginny to a busy restaurant, where a patron obviously calls him out for hogging an "empty" chair.
• Tragic Villain: Putman clearly loved his little girl Ginny with all his heart, and having her being taken away from him in a manner as sudden and brutal as a hit-and-run broke him. He clearly has evil thoughts on his mind with his plan to blow up the world in a plethora of explosions, but it's hard to say he had no reason to do so.
• Time Skip: Two weeks pass after Tom first pretends to believe in Ginny's existence, during which he's spent a good amount of that time "taking her" to the seashore.
• Unwitting Instigator of Doom:
  • The restaurant patron who refuses to play along with Tom's insistence about "Ginny", making a sizable dent in Putman's delusions.
  • The hit and run driver that originally killed Ginny, being the catalyst for the entire segment's events.
• Wham Line: After nearly crashing his car during his erratic drive from the restaurant, Tom angrily notes to Putman "You could have killed both of us!". Because of this one simple slip-up, Putman finally breaks out of the delusions for good, and storms off to end the world in a rain of fire.
• World of Jerkass: Putman fervently believes this about the world after Ginny died, claiming that everyone deserves to join her in death. His views have some merit in the form of the patron who hassles him over the empty seat and bare spot at the table where "Ginny" is supposed to be sitting, and the fact that the military are actively preparing to let him succumb to insanity after the formula he's working on is complete, as a means of security.
• You Have Outlived Your Usefulness: As psychologist Dr. Cottrell tells Tom, once the delusional Putman completes his formula, the military is planning to toss him aside and let him go mad to his heart’s content to lower the potential security risk.

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