Mournin' Mess
This isn't what he had in mind when he agreed to go for "A bite to eat."
Crypt Keeper: (wearing a chef's hat and apron; looking over a cookbook and tending to a steaming pot on his table) Ah, there you are! You're just in time! I'm trying out a few recipes from my new Betty Croaker cookbook. I hope you like shish-ka-bob. (opens the lid of the pot to reveal it contains a severed arm) Damn! It isn't ready yet! (slams the lid shut) Bob's still moving! (cackles) Tonight's foul feast will begin with mashed potatoes, then move onto some shrieking duck, and finish with a nice kill-basa. I call this tasty tidbit: Mournin' Mess.
Dale Sweeney (Steven Weber), a broke, alcoholic, womanizing writer/reporter for The Evening Globe, is assigned to cover the opening of a new cemetery funded by the Grateful Homeless, Outcasts, and Unwanteds Layaway Societynote , a group of philanthropist business leaders who were once living on the street. The society declares that their goal is to grant the dead homeless a posthumous opportunity to achieve the dignity they were unable to obtain in life, while Dale grows attracted society spokeswoman Jess Gilchrist (Rita Wilson) during the press conference. Dale's drinking and unreliability soon costs him his job, but after he's fired, he's confronted in his apartment by Roebuck (Vincent Schiavelli), a homeless man who warns Dale of a killer murdering several other homeless people like himself, and says that he has been labeled the prime suspect after one of them got his friend, Dancer. He offers Dale a deal: if he goes to the cemetery and waits until sundown, he can see what's really going on and Roebuck will tell him everything he knows afterward. This way, Dale can write an article about the true nature of said cemetery, allowing him to get his job back and Roebuck to be cleared of his accusations.
The next day, while watching a burial at the new cemetery, Dale strikes up a conversation with Jess, who is invited to his apartment for lunch. The two soon end up in bed, but she storms out after discovering that Dale has been not-so-secretly recording their pillow talk. Dale goes to the alleyway where Roebuck lives to meet with him, but finds him fatally wounded. With his last breaths, Roebuck berates Dale for not waiting at the cemetery like he told him to do. Dale is ultimately evicted from his apartment for failure to pay his rent, and spends the night sleeping on the street. Haggard and desperate, Dale unsuccessfully pleads for a second chance from his former boss, Elaine Tillman (Ally Walker), then hides out at the cemetery during Roebuck's funeral. After the coffin has been buried, Dale is stunned to see the fresh sod slowly sinking into the grave. Digging deeper to follow it, he falls into an underground tunnel lined with coffins and piles of bones. To hide from a group of approaching figures, he ducks into a coffin - which is revealed to hold Roebuck's decaying corpse.
When Dale bursts out of the coffin, it has been laid out on a formal dining table. Mr. Copard (Nick Angotti), the leader of the society, enters the hall and spots Dale. He admits that the Grateful Homeless Society (whose initials obviously spell out G.H.O.U.L.S) are the ones responsible for the homeless murders, and tears his face off to reveal that he and his fellow business leaders are a pack of flesh-eating ghouls who have been killing the homeless to feed themselves. Dale tries to escape after his ear is torn off for an appetizer, but then he runs into Jess, who reveals her own ghoulish face and tells Dale that he looks "good enough to eat" before she devours his face.
Tropes:
- An Arm and a Leg: The only thing left of Dancer when Roebuck checks up on him is his severed hand, still clutching his hooch bottle.
- Ancient Conspiracy: If the portraits hanging on the walls of their dining hall are any indication, the G.H.O.U.L.S have been in operation for hundreds of years.
- Anti-Hero: Roebuck, who's accused of being the homeless killer and pulls a gun on Dale to get him to clear his name.
- Anti-Interference Lock Up: Dale resorts to locking his smarmy rival Climsky in a portable toilet so he can take over his position during the press conference early in the episode.
- The Alcoholic: Dale, who drinks so much that it costs him his job.
- The Bad Guy Wins: With all those who know their secret eaten alive, Jess, Climsky, Copard, and the other ghouls end the episode victorious, free to keep eating everyone in the city.
- Be Careful What You Wish For: Dale tries to find out why the homeless are being killed. He ends up getting all the information he wants, just before he's eaten alive.
- Big Bad: Mr. Copard, the head of the Grateful Homeless Society. Despite his status as the highest-ranking member, he isn't given much focus after the press conference until the end of the episode, where he reveals his organization's secret to Dale.
- Bloody Handprint: Roebuck accidentally leaves one at the scene where Dancer is killed, cementing him as the prime suspect for the deed.
- Butt-Monkey: Everyone and everything in the episode seeks to give Dale nothing but inconvenience, up to his grisly death.
- Clear My Name: Roebuck had been fingered as the prime suspect for the murder of his friend Dancer and other homeless people like him, so he seeks out Dale to help him clear his name.
- "Could Have Avoided This!" Plot: As the dying Roebuck tells him, if Dale had just stayed in the cemetery and met him there, he could have learned the truth and exposed everything. Dale would also still have his job and be able to afford his rent, his journalistic reputation would be secure, Roebuck's innocence would be proven, and both men would still be alive.
- Crazy Homeless People: Roebuck's friend Dancer, a former middleweight boxer who suffers from both a horrible sickness and delusions that make him think he's still in fighting condition. Roebuck even tells him that he needs to be taken to a hospital.
- Deadpan Snarker: Elaine, Dale's boss, hurls boatloads of insulting snark at him.
- Disposable Vagrant: The G.H.O.U.L.S choose to primarily feed on the homeless because they draw the least attention.
- Downer Ending: The ghouls manage to eat Dale and Roebuck before they can report their true actions to the world.
- Ear Ache: When he's revealed to be a ghoul, Climsky tears Dale's ear off and dips it in A1 sauce for an appetizer.
- Eaten Alive: Dale's ultimate fate, courtesy of the G.H.O.U.L.S.
- Eat the Camera: Jess closes the episode in this manner, as she devours Dale's face.
- Epic Fail: Dale's idea of "discretely" recording his post-sex interview with Jess is leaving his fully visible tape recorder on his bed. Jess sees it in seconds, destroys the tape, and storms out as Dale only gets one question into the interview.
- Evil All Along: Climsky, Dale's already smarmy and insulting rival reporter, is revealed to be one of the ghouls.
- Exact Words: Jess' response to Dale asking if she's a vegetarian because she doesn't want a bite of his hamburger is to say that this is "not exactly" the case.
- Failure Hero: The perpetually drunk and underhanded Dale half-heartedly tries to expose the truth of the homeless murders, but when he finally finds out, he's eaten before he can get the word out.
- Fake Charity: The Grateful Homeless Society turns out to be a complete scam. It's operated by an ancient pack of flesh-eating ghouls who devour the homeless they bury in a network of underground tunnels.
- Fanservice:
- A close-up shot of Jess' legs as she walks to the podium to speak out on behalf of the Grateful Homeless Society.
- The half-naked woman lying in Dale's bed, before he throws her out.
- Dale and Jess' sex scene.
- Feet-First Introduction: When Jess is introduced, the camera starts on her heels and gradually pans up to her face.
- For Want Of A Nail: As Roebuck lampshades to him, with his last breaths, if Dale had done what the homeless man told him to do instead of having sex with Jess, he would've found out the true nature of the G.H.O.U.L.S, kept his apartment, renewed his reputation, and not have met his end by being devoured alive.
- Foreshadowing:
- The Grateful Homeless Society are seen helping out with every coffin buried in their new graveyard.
- Roebuck opens the episode by reading a discarded newspaper with the headline "Homeless Killings Baffle Police".
- When Dale and Jess are having sex, she's seen biting him on the shoulder, telling him that he's "good enough to eat".
- Later, when she storms out after discovering that he's been blatantly recording their pillow talk, Dale says that he was just doing his job. Jess fires back that he doesn't want to see her do her job.
- The Grateful Homeless Society's full name can be seen on a sign in the cemetery. Guess what the first letter of each word spells out?
- After storming into her office after spending the night sleeping in the rain, Elaine tells the drenched Dale that he doesn't need his job back, but a burial.
- Roebuck is seen snooping around the press conference and eating shrimp with cocktail sauce as he does so. At the end of the episode, Climsky and Copard do the same thing with Dale's ear and a dish of A1 sauce.
- Fun with Acronyms: The (G)rateful (H)omeless, (O)utcasts, and (U)nwanteds (L)ayaway (S)ociety. It's painfully obvious, but doesn't diminish the horror factor.
- Hero of Another Story: Roebuck learned the truth about the G.H.O.U.L.S after they ate his friend Dancer, and after he was declared the prime suspect for Dancer's death by leaving a bloody handprint at the crime scene. He ultimately makes his way to Dale's apartment and holds him at gunpoint to let him know what he knows, then tells him to meet him at the cemetery at sundown to reveal the truth to him, so Dale can write an article about it and have Roebuck's charges be cleared.
- Homeless Hero: Roebuck, who discovers the truth about the Grateful Homeless Society after they ate his friend Dancer, and seeks out Dale to write an article detailing the truth so his name can be cleared.
- Dale himself becomes a homeless hero when he's evicted from his apartment and forced to sleep on the streets.
- I'm a Humanitarian: The ghouls love to stuff themselves with human flesh.
- Immoral Journalist: Downplayed with Dale. He's a washed-up, heavy-drinking sex hound who routinely kicks one-night stands out of his apartment, has a history of being absent from work without notice, and is shown to resort to underhanded means of getting stories, such as when he takes over Climsky's position at the press conference by locking him in a portable toilet. Despite this, he doesn't kill anyone and works to solve the homeless murders so he can get his job back.
- Intrepid Reporter: Dale is a slight case. He's burned-out and boozing, and he loses his job near the beginning of the episode, but he still works to figure out the truth behind the homeless killings.
- Ironic Echo / I Lied: Dale invites Jess for lunch at his apartment so she can listen to a story he's been writing about the Grateful Homeless Society, then says that he lied and invited her just because he wanted her company. When she reveals herself as a ghoul, Jess throws Dale's trick right back at him.Jess: I know. I said I don't eat meat. I lied.
- Jerkass: Dale is not the most pleasant person, being a washed-up, sex-hungry boozehound who is first seen kicking a one night stand out of his apartment.
- Jerkass Has a Point: Despite the above mentioned details, Dale does raise a valid point to Jess during the press conference, asking her why the Grateful Homeless Society is spending so much money towards the dead homeless when it could just as easily be benefitting the living homeless.
- Karma Houdini: Every member of the G.H.O.U.L.S. suffers no consequence for killing and eating people.
- Kavorka Man: Dale is a washed-up alcoholic with a homely appearance, but he still manages to get women into his bed.
- Latex Perfection: The G.H.O.U.L.S reveal their true appearances to Dale by peeling their human faces off as if they were masks.
- Loser Protagonist: Dale is a washed-up, alcoholic womanizer who is treated like shit by everyone he comes across. Over the course of the story, he's fired, evicted from his apartment, forced to live on the streets (where he's called a bum), finds his old position taken over by his rival, and is finally eaten alive by ghouls. Roebuck even selects him specifically to write the clarifying article about his innocence by telling him that he looks "hungrier" than him.
- Mean Boss: Elaine, Dale's boss, openly insults him, fires him even after the noted point he makes at the press conference (stated above), tells him to his face that she would love calling security on him, and asks her secretary to call in the janitor to remove his stench when he decides to leave. To be fair to her, Dale is a lousy reporter who has a reputation of getting drunk on the job and being unreliable, so her hatred of him can be seen as justified.
- Nice Job Breaking It, Hero: Dale disobeys Roebuck's direct order to stay at the cemetery at sundown to make love to Jess. This allows for Roebuck to be eaten by the ghouls, who devour Dale the very next night.
- Nothing Is Scarier: We never learn the true identity of the ghoul who killed and ate Dancer. Since their silhouette appears male, it could have been either Copard or Climsky.
- Not Staying for Breakfast: After a night of drunken sex, Dale kicks the woman he brought home out of his apartment the next morning. Needless to say, she doesn't take it well.
- Offscreen Teleportation: Roebuck can be seen hiding in Dale's apartment when the place is lit up by a flash of lightning, crossing the room and grabbing Dale's neck a second later.
- Oh, Crap!: Roebuck has one when he discovers Dancer's severed hand, then hears a woman screaming from her apartment that she's going to call the cops because of all the noise, forcing Roebuck to flee.
- Our Ghouls Are Creepier: The G.H.O.U.L.S are humanoids with pointed ears, sharp teeth, and no lips or hair.
- Pre-Mortem One-Liner: The closing line of the episode, as said by Jess:Jess: I knew you were good enough to eat.
- The Rival: Climsky is Dale's rival, always beating Dale to the latest stories and looking forward to the day he's canned. It's taken up a notch at the end, where he's revealed to be one of the ghouls.
- Secret Underground Passage: Dale discovers a sinking mound of sod that leads to the underground network of tunnels from which the G.H.O.U.L.S operate.
- Sex Signals Death: A variant where a person who isn't having sex ends up dead. Instead of waiting at the cemetery until sundown like Roebuck told him to do, Dale takes Jess back to his place for sex and a "secret" interview. In doing this, the G.H.O.U.L.S catch Roebuck and mortally wound him, the homeless man using his last breaths to reprimand Dale for disobeying him.
- Sinister Silhouettes: The silhouette of a ghoul is seen approaching the alley where Roebuck and Dancer live.
- Small Role, Big Impact: The unnamed woman who hears Roebuck screaming at the site of Dancer's corpse and threatens to call the police, sending Roebuck scrambling to find Dale and have his good name be cleared.
- Sophisticated as Hell: The G.H.O.U.L.S devour their victims in a fancy underground dining hall, complete with utensils, candles, dipping sauces, wet naps, etc.
- Tunnel Network: The G.H.O.U.L.S are shown to live in a network of underground passages built beneath the homeless cemetery they established.
- Villain in a White Suit: Jess wears one at the press conference, then switches to black for the remainder of the episode.
- Villain with Good Publicity: Jess, Climsky, Copard, and the rest of the ghouls, who masquerade as efficient, powerful, and well-meaning people while disguised, even having connections with city officials.
- We Hardly Knew Ye: Dancer, Roebuck's former boxer friend who is eaten by one of the ghouls.
- What the Hell, Hero?: A dying Roebuck tears into Dale for having sex with Jess instead of waiting in the cemetery like he was told to do.
- "Where Are They Now?" Epilogue: According to the Crypt Keeper, Dale managed to get a new job as a "ghostwriter" after his death.
- World of Jerkass: Nearly every character in the episode, human and ghoul alike, treats the alcoholic and underhanded Dale like shit, including his smarmy rival Climsky, who is actually in league with the ghouls, and his boss Elaine, who refuses to give him back his job and nearly has security called on him.
- You Wouldn't Believe Me If I Told You: Roebuck knows the true identity of the homeless killer(s), but he doesn't tell Dale who it is because he would think he had "a kink in [[his]] Slinky."
Crypt Keeper: (wearing a dinner jacket and eating meat off a bone, with a plate of similar bones in front of him; he tosses the bone over his shoulder) Mmmmm... pretty tasteless, wouldn't you say? I guess in the end, Mr. Sweeney learned not to go digging into other people's business. Although you'll be happy to hear he's found himself a new career... as a ghostwriter! (cackles) So, still hungry for dessert? I hope you like Cannibal Soup! (holds up a ladle with a skull in it) It's mmm-mmm good! (cackles)
