It All Comes Out in the Wash
On the advice of a friend, real estate mogul Carl Gropper (Vince Edwards) visits a laundromat owned by Chow Ting (James Hong). Having heard from his friend that he can perform a "special service", Ting confirms to Carl that he is able to wash away sin from the clothes of every customer who asks for said service. Carl enthusiastically pays Ting for his special talent, then goes on to engage in a number of despicable and immoral acts to succeed in his business, believing that Ting will wash his sins away, allowing him to be free of guilt. When Carl accidentally breaches the rules of this service, his laundry isn't the only thing that begins piling up.
Tropes:
- All for Nothing: After violating his rules and committing one sin after another to move up in the world, Carl finds out that Ting won the lottery, shut down his business, and retired with his wife to Florida. This leaves Carl to stew in the guilt of every immoral thing he's done in the past few days, and he throws himself out the window, unable to handle what he's done.
- Bottle Episode: Barring the opening scene in Ting's business, the entirety of the episode is set in Carl's office.
- Call-Back: Chow Ting is heard watching the same game show that Leon watched in All a Clone by the Telephone, which he says is titled "Wheel of Fate".
- Corrupt Corporate Executive: Carl, to a friggin' T. The whole episode after the opening scene shows him committing one horrible act after another to get rich and powerful, showing what could happen to a person if they thought they didn't have to face the consequences of their actions.
- Dramatically Missing the Point: Carl keeps performing mean and cruel deeds under the belief that his sins will be washed away by Ting's special service. What he doesn't understand is that the whole point of ridding oneself of guilt is to keep them guiltless of their own effort.
- Driven to Suicide:
- When Carl learns that Ting has retired and shut his laundromat down, he's overwhelmed by the guilt of all the cruel and immoral things he's done over the past few days. Given his office is on a floor tens of stories high, it's only natural he leaps out the window.
- Earlier in the episode, Carl's friend Sam Larchmont, who recommended Ting to him in the first place, did the same thing when Carl broke his rules.
- Entertainingly Wrong: Near the end of the episode, Carl believes that Ting stopped handling his laundry because he wants his soul. He messages Ting and outright tells him that he can have said soul if he just handles his laundry. At the end, however, Ting calls him back by saying that he wasn't interested in his or any other person's soul, and he actually shut down the business and moved to Florida.
- It Began with a Twist of Fate: Had Sam not drunk-dialed Carl about Chow Ting's laundromat, the episode wouldn't have happened.
- Jerkass: Carl, without question.
- Jerk with a Heart of Jerk:
- The entirety of the episode is watching Carl's progression into an utterly inhuman monster, shamelessly making a goldmine off baby seal fur, having his son Marvin's best friend Billy Timmer's father murdered, and then trying to marry his best friend's wife, who's been having an affair with him.
- Before that, he has roses delivered to Cheryl for her birthday, and then has divorce papers delivered to her the day after.
- Let Us Never Speak of This Again: After agreeing to partake in his special service, Ting firmly tells Carl that he must never come to or call his laundromat ever again, nor must he speak of the arrangement to anyone else.
- Maybe Magic, Maybe Mundane: Chow Ting is noted to up the price of his laundry services as long as customers keep committing sins. As a result, it's left unanswered as to whether Chow Ting truly can wash away his customers' sins and genuinely needs the cash to do so, or whether he's a scam artist who spins the lie to get villainous people like Carl to fork the money over while they destroy themselves. The latter carries a smidgen of weight when Ting signs off with "Sayonara!", which Carl notes isn't even Chinese.
- My God, What Have I Done?: After he impatiently leaves Chow Ting a message, violating his rules, Carl becomes strongly concerned that Ting may punish him somehow.
- Nasal Trauma: While on the phone with Marvin, Carl offers to double his allowance if he brings home a piece of his best friend's nose.
- No Sympathy: When his 10-year-old son calls him at the office crying about how he's using baby seals to make fur coats, Carl tells him to stop crying and tell the friend who told him the news, whose father Carl ruined, to mind his own business.
- Pre-Mortem One-Liner: Before hurling himself out the window, Carl grimly notes that he's "gonna make a stain!"
- The Sociopath: Carl, who comes to believe that consequences and guilt are wastes of time, even before he paid Ting for his service.
- Spanner in the Works: Carl's friend Sam, who sends him to Ting's laundromat while drunk, gradually ends up killing himself and indirectly prompting Carl's suicide.
- Time Skip: The episode gradually moves forward days at a time, as more laundry piles up in Carl's office.
- Title Drop: The title is Chow Ting's business slogan, so it's seen and spoken frequently.
- Villain Protagonist: Carl, if only because he believes he'll never be able to feel guilty again.
- Visual Pun: With every new sin Carl commits, more and more "dirty laundry" piles up in his office.
- What You Are in the Dark: Believing that his sins and guilt won't be an issue to him anymore, Carl becomes an utter sadist who murders baby seals for their fur, orders a hit on the dad of Marvin's best friend (after having already bankrupted him), and divorces his wife after giving her a bouquet of roses.
- Yank the Dog's Chain: One of Carl's heinous acts is to send his wife Cheryl a bouquet of roses for her birthday, and then send her divorce papers the next day.
