Recap / Tales From The Crypt S 5 E 2 As Ye Sow

As Ye Sow

A tragedy born of poor communication.

Caller: You've got to help me, Dr. Viscous! It's our son’s eating habits!
Crypt Keeper: (wearing headphones and seated in front of a microphone reading "KDOA" and a phone; holding a cigarette and playing the role of a radio DJ) You said you were cannibals, right?
Caller: Yes! That's why this vegetarianism thing scares me!
Crypt Keeper: No need to worry. For one thing, vegetarians are probably much better for him. I like to stalk one myself from time to time. (cackles) My advice is to let him fiend himself. The little nipper will never learn to maggot on his own if you're too busy protecting him. (to the viewers) Our next caller, Leo, thinks his wife is cheating on him. Let‘s hope for her sake he doesn't catch her in the hacked. I call this sickening psycho drama: As Ye Sow.

Leo Burns (Héctor Elizondo), rich dry-cleaning magnate, has hired a private detective named Chapman (Adam West) to keep an eye on his beautiful younger wife Bridget (Patsy Kensit), thoroughly convinced that she's cheating on him. When Chapman's surveillance turns up nothing out of the ordinary after burning through $30,000 of his money, Leo ends his partnership with him and turns instead to G. G. Devoe (Sam Waterston), a seedy detective who specializes in marital cases and sympathizes with Leo's suspicions.

A week later, Devoe shows Leo a set of snapshots that capture Bridget, a faithful Catholic, entering and leaving her local church for Mass. Leo is unsure as to whether Bridget is actually attending, as she says she does every day, prompting Devoe to suggest that she may be having an affair with the local parish priest, Father John Sejac (John Shea). A face-to-face meeting with Sejac leads Leo to begin thinking that Devoe may have been onto something, prompting the businessman's imagination to run wild upon seeing him and Bridget enter the confessional booth, hallucinating vivid fantasies of the two of them having sex before his own eyes.

Leo again visits Devoe again and agrees to pay $100,000 to have Sejac killed - half for the hitman, the rest for Devoe, who tells Leo to go about his business and never come back to his office. Leo places the cash in a bus station locker and sends the key in the mail, then starts keeping an eye on the church day after day, ignoring Bridget as his suspicions consume his mind. When his patience runs out, he returns to Devoe's office to find it empty, as well as the fact that the cash is gone from the locker.

Realizing that Devoe swindled him, Leo arms himself with a knife and storms off to the church, intent on killing Sejac himself. He disguises himself as a priest and enters the confessional, only to hear Bridget step in on the penitent's side. Bridget confesses that she hasn't been having sex with Leo because her mother died in childbirth, and she's terrified of meeting the same fate if she should become pregnant. Overjoyed at the discovery that his wife wasn't cheating on him after all, Leo reveals himself and apologizes to her, prompting the two to reconcile. They are suddenly confronted by the hitman Devoe hired (Miguel Ferrer), who sees the clerical clothes Leo is wearing and shoots him dead, mistaking him for Sejac. As Bridget sobs over her husband's body, Sejac discovers the scene and proceeds to administer last rites.

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Tropes:

• Adaptation Name Change: In the comic, the husband was named "Laird Kimball" and the wife "Nora". Here, it's "Leo Burns" and "Bridget".
• Adaptation Relationship Overhaul: In the comic, Nora actually was having an affair and didn't deny it when confronted. The Twist Ending with the hitman only occurs because she had second thoughts and went back to Laird, leading to the mistaken identity. In the episode, Bridget is absolutely faithful to Leo, and it's largely in part due to Leo's paranoia and a lack of effective communication between them that the ending happens.
• Affably Evil: For all his shiftiness, Devoe genuinely sympathizes with Leo's troubles, and even commends Chapman as being a pretty good handler of cases regarding insurance fraud.
• Aside Glance: Leo's first hallucination has Devoe's photo of Sejac making a sleazy glance at the photo of Bridget laying next to it, which makes it appear as if she's climaxing.
• Aw, Look! They Really Do Love Each Other: After spending the whole episode being distant, suspicious, and rather rough towards each other, Leo and Bridget clear up their misunderstanding and prove that they genuinely love each other. It makes the ending so much more depressing, unfortunately.
• Be Careful What You Wish For: After suspecting that his suspicions that Bridget has been having an affair are true, Leo pays a hitman to kill Sejac, the man she's believed to be seeing. When Devoe appears to have taken the money and ran, Leo ends up disguising himself as a priest to learn the truth from Bridget herself, only to meet the business end of the hitman's gun.
• Call-Back:
  • Kyle MacLachlan, who played Diggs in Season 3's Carrion Death, wrote this episode's script.
  • Similarly, Miguel Ferrer, Mitch Duclon from The Thing From the Grave, has an uncredited role as the hitman that Devoe hires.
• Catchphrase: Leo has "In your ear!", which he says whenever he gets annoyed with someone. It's later said by the hitman Devoe sent to kill Sejac, mistaking Leo for his target.
• Cheating With The Milk Man: Leo suspiciously believes that his wife Bridget is having an affair with John Sejac, the priest at her church.
• Church Lady: Bridget, Leo's Irish wife, is described as "a regular choir girl" by Chapman, since she frequently visits her local church and goes to Mass every morning. Leo at first claims that everyone over in Ireland is that faithful, but Devoe's silver tongue gradually convinces him that Sejac is having sex with Bridget inside the church.
• Convenient Photograph: Devoe gives Leo a dossier full of pictures depicting Bridget, including one of her leaving the church happier than when she went in, hinting that she may be having sex with Sejac within the walls of the building.
• "Could Have Avoided This!" Plot: If Leo and Bridget had stopped what they were doing and talked about why the latter was ignoring him, the episode would've never happened.
• Could Say It, But...: Devoe keeps being deliberately half-truthful with Leo regarding Bridget's faithfulness, fueling his paranoid fantasies.
• Creepy Changing Photograph: As seen through Leo's paranoid eyes, the photos that Devoe took of Sejac and Bridget change to the former casting a lustful gaze on the latter, whose head is thrown back with an open mouth as if she's climaxing.
• Cruel Twist Ending: It's horrifically cruel this time. Leo and Bridget reconcile and all is forgiven between them, right before the assassin Devoe hired on Leo's behalf, thinking Leo is Sejac, kills him in front of Bridget. The poor girl breaks into sobs while Sejac arrives and delivers last rites, backed by the sound of dead silence.
• Culturally Religious: Father Sejac is a Catholic priest, but he's said to advocate birth control, which got him fired from his last position.
• Death By Child Birth: In the church confessional, Bridget reveals that her mother died in childbirth and fears the same happening to her if she ever becomes pregnant, which is why she hasn't been having sex with Leo lately
• Defective Detective: Devoe works out of a sleazy office, swipes all of Leo's money, and hires a hitman to kill Sejac, the man Bridget is supposedly screwing.
• Double Entendre: In his meeting with Leo, Sejac innocently tells him that he hopes to have people see the Church as a "living, potent organ, throbbing with vitality, bursting with life", fueling Leo's suspicions that he's having sex with his wife.
• Exact Words: Leo directs Devoe to have his hitman kill Sejac by shooting in the crotch, then in the ear. The end of the episode has the hitman carrying these instructions out to the letter, but Leo winds up on the receiving end after the hitman mistakes him for Sejac.
• Forced to Watch: Leo wants Bridget to watch her purported lover get shot to death by Devoe's hitman. She ends up forced to watch her husband be killed instead.
• For the Evulz: If Devoe isn't stringing Leo along and stoking the flames of his paranoia for extra cash, it's likely instead to be purely for the sadism that comes with murdering a priest.
• Gilligan Cut: When he gets fed up with the lack of evidence Chapman provides, the detective tells Leo that he's sure to find some dubious party who would gladly take his money. Cut to Leo meeting with Devoe, who is very obviously a shady ne'er-do-well.
• Groin Attack: Leo hopes for the hitman to shoot Sejac in the dick when he's killed. Due to the ending mix-up, Leo gets the attack instead.
• Gut Punch: The end of the episode has Bridget and Leo learning about their misunderstandings and forgiving one another, about to leave with their love stronger than ever... right before Devoe's hitman kills Leo, thinking him to be Sejac.
• Hope Spot: After sneaking into the confessional and learning just why Bridget hasn't been having sex with him, Leo is relieved of his paranoia and reconciles with her... only for the hitman Devoe hired to mistake him for Sejac and kill him.
• Horrible Judge of Character: Leo trusts the incredibly shady Devoe and gives him $100,000 to dig up dirt that his wife is cheating on him. Earlier, he gave Chapman, who specializes in cases regarding insurance fraud instead of marital issues, $30,000 for a similar kind of proof.
• Ignored Expert: Chapman tells Leo that he's found no evidence whatsoever that Bridget is being unfaithful to him, and advises him to schedule a meeting with a marriage counselor instead of spending all his money to hire detectives to try and prove his suspicions.
• Imagine Spot: Leo has a few of them involving changing photographs, a changing sign, and visions of Bridget and Sejac getting it on in front of him.
• Innocent Innuendo / Innocently Insensitive: Father Sejac's meeting with Leo has both tropes displayed in full force.
  • The advice he gives to Leo is about how he usually has to handle matters related to sex, marriage, and infidelity.
  • He further shares his belief that people should see the Church "as a living, potent organ, throbbing with vitality, bursting with life".
  • He notes that his outfit is comfortable and "comes in handy".
  • Finally, he says that his overall goal is "easing the flack of a stressed out flock", essentially telling people "It's okay to be you."... and all of this when Leo's already paranoid enough about what his wife is doing behind his back.
• Jerk with a Heart of Gold: Leo is abrasive and willing to have the man he thinks his wife is cheating on him with killed, but he genuinely loves Bridget and wouldn't dare risk losing her, or at least endure a hefty-priced divorce.
• Jungle Drums: These play furiously during Leo's Imagine Spot of Bridget and Sejac doing it in the confessional, and again in the backseat of his car.
• Karma Houdini:
  • Devoe gets away with giving Leo the idea that Bridget and Sejac are having sex behind his back, skips town with the $100,000 Leo pays him, and hires the hitman who ultimately kills Leo.
  • The hitman himself gets off scot free for killing Leo as well.
• Lingerie Scene: Bridget has several of them in Leo's delusional fantasies of her.
• Love Makes You Crazy: Leo gradually grows more and more paranoid over the idea of Bridget and Sejac having an affair, to the point where he hallucinates that it's actually happening before his eyes.
• Love Makes You Evil: Thanks to the lack of communication between him and his wife, and his imagination getting the best of him, Leo ultimately hires a hitman to murder a priest.
• May–December Romance: Leo clarifies that his wife is 24 years younger than him.
• Mistaken for Cheating: What drives the plot, though it would've never escalated as it did if Bridget and Leo just came clean to one another.
• Mr. Imagination: Leo's paranoia leads him to experience vivid hallucinations of Bridget and Sejac making love right in front of him. He also witnesses the sign outside the church taunting him with Devoe's words for what Bridget is supposedly doing behind his back.
• Murder the Hypotenuse: Leo's solution to his marriage problems is to hire a hitman to off Sejac, albeit not without a great amount of thought.
• Nice Girl / Nice Guy: Bridget and Sejac.
  • The former is a loving woman and devout Catholic who only withholds the truth of why she denies sex from Leo because she doesn't know how to break it to him in a way he'd understand.
  • The latter is an affable man of the cloth who doesn't let his personal beliefs hit any roadblocks. He was only painted as an adulterer thanks to Devoe's trickery and his poor choice of words during his chat with Leo.
• Noir Episode: Leo visits two detectives in one episode trying to gain evidence that his wife is cheating on him with a local priest.
• Not What It Looks Like: Leo sees pictures that Devoe took of Bridget and Sejac exiting the church at the same time, assuming they're having an affair. At the end, while Leo hugs his wife, he completely forgets that he's still disguised as a priest, just as the hitman he paid to kill Sejac mistakes him for his target.
• Oireland: Bridget immigrated from Ireland to the United States, as she speaks in a strong Irish accent and is a firm Catholic who visits her church every day.
• Only Sane Man: Chapman clearly sees nothing suspicious with Bridget's daily activities and fruitlessly tries to convince Leo that his wife cheating on him is all in his head, advising him to stop blowing through his money to prove that his theories are true and seek psychiatric help for his paranoia. Or at the very least, visit a marriage counselor.
• Poor Communication Kills: Leo and Bridget haven't had sex for a couple of months when the episode begins. Leo fears that it's because Bridget is having an affair, since she's been rejecting his offers for sex and going to church more, while Bridget fears that she may become pregnant and die in childbirth, just as her mother did, and feared that Leo wouldn't understand. The plot happens because these two never once stopped and talked about what was bothering them; they just looked at one another and assumed the worst.
• Private Detective: Leo hires two of them over the course of the episode.
  • He first goes to Chapman, a well-groomed employee of an agency specializing in insurance fraud cases, which operates out of a clean, modern office.
  • Unsatisfied with Chapman's lack of evidence, Leo then turns to G. G. Devoe, a sleazy PI who works out of a rundown office and has no reservations about hiring hitmen to murder the lovers of unfaithful spouses.
• Ransom Drop: Leo puts Devoe's $100,000 fee for the hitman in a locker at the bus station and mails the key to him.
• Rich in Dollars, Poor in Sense: Leo is the wealthy owner of a large dry-cleaning business, and he gives an obviously shady detective $100 grand for evidence of Bridget having an affair with Sejac. When the episode opens, it's stated that he already spent $30 grand on getting Chapman to gain evidence of his suspicions.
• Sexy Priest: Father Sejac, who was allegedly fired from his former position for advocating methods of birth control.
• Sinister Minister: Leo begins to view Sejac as one, visualizing him and his wife having sex in the confessional, and later in the backseat of his own car. Granted, Devoe does tell Leo that Sejac was fired from his last position for "disobeying the Pope's encyclical on contraception", so his claims have some very slight merit.
• The Stakeout: After sending Devoe's money to the agreed-upon drop zone, Leo parks his car near the church so he can watch the hitman kill Sejac, even snacking on a burger as the time goes by. He checks again the next day, but when he still gets no action, he discovers that Devoe has effectively robbed him.
• Surveillance as the Plot Demands: The episode opens with Leo checking out video surveillance footage captured by a man who works for Chapman. He's later given suspicious spy photos by Devoe, which implicate that Bridget is having sex with Sejac in the church.

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Crypt Keeper: (an "ON THE AIR" sign behind him switches on) Talk about a pain in the apse! That's love for you. Eerie today, gaunt tomorrow. (snickers) As for me, kiddies, my shift's up. It's the top of the hour. Time for your favorite mourning man! (opens his microphone and sticks his finger into the wiring, electrocuting himself while cackling madly; the shock causes him to take on a disguise of Howard Stern) What's the matter? You've never seen a shock jock before? (cackles)