A Choice of Dreams
Notorious drug boss Jake Corelli (Abe Vigoda) has just found out that he's been diagnosed with terminal cancer and has very little time to live. As he gets his last affairs in order, Jake is approached by Michaelson (David Chandler), who offers him to test Afterlife, a scientific process he's created that can allow a person's brain to remain active after their physical body dies, left to experience peaceful dreams forever. Jake eagerly signs up with Michaelson's experiment, looking forward to reminiscing about his late wife Marie and the like, but before long, Michaelson unearths Jake's long-buried traumas, which destroy his self-serving visions of the past and turn his dreams into nightmares.
Tropes:
- Abusive Parents: Jake's father would often whip him with a belt, tying his hands behind his back so he couldn't defend himself.
- Actor Allusion: Mob boss Jake is played by Abe Vigoda, who's notably played a mobster before.
- Ain't Too Proud to Beg: After missing his original deadline with Michaelson's hours, Jake begs Angelo to call anybody, even the FBI, to find him.
- And I Must Scream: Jake ends the episode forced to relive the suffering he caused his victims again and again, forever. The row of brains that extends beyond his own indicates that many others, hinted to be friends of his, are sharing his fate.
- Artificial Afterlife: The aptly named "Afterlife" is a scientific method where a subject's brain is preserved after the body dies, letting them experience pleasant dreams forever. Jake eagerly accepts this, but its inventor Michaelson changes the dreams Jake is given, forcing him to remember the pain he gave his victims, as well as the pain they gave him, for all eternity.
- Awful Wedded Life: In spite of what he remembers about her, Jake abused Marie constantly, leading her to become a drug addict to cope with said abuse.
- Big "NO!": Jake is heard screaming several of them after his final fate
- Brain in a Jar: Afterlife involves a person's brain being removed and placed in a jar of fluid, where they can experience peaceful dreams for eternity after their body dies.
- Break the Haughty: Jake's cold and ruthless demeanor slowly crumbles away as we learn how he got the way he is today, to the point where the last shot of the episode has his voice crying and begging for forgiveness.
- Chromosome Casting: The mafia theme means the episode's cast is largely male, the only woman being Marie in Jake's flashbacks of her.
- Cop Killer: Jake notes to Angelo that he personally killed a cop named O'Brien who put his hands behind his back, which triggered memories of his abusive father.
- Did You Just Flip Off Cthulhu?: The doctor who diagnoses Jakes tells him that he hopes he dies a slow and painful death from his cancer, having come to him personally just so he could see the look on his face when he hears the diagnosis. He does so with absolutely zero fear of a man who can easily have him fired or killed, even as he's actively being manhandled.
- Establishing Character Moment: The episode opens right as Jake finds out he has terminal cancer. When he tries to ask the doctor if he got the wrong diagnosis, he gets to the point where he ominously suggests he has connections that could help the doc get fired. The doctor rebuts that Jake is indeed no innocent patient, being an infamous drug boss who's built his empire on addiction and corruption.
- Evil Is Petty: In the opening act, Jake tells the doctor who diagnoses him with cancer (atop of wishing him dead) that he can easily use his connections to make his superior fire him. The doctor coldly takes the threat in stride, hoping this act of pettiness is worth the pain and nightmares the cancer will bring about.
- Freudian Excuse: Jake started out as the son of an abusive father who would tie his hands behind his back and whip him with a belt. This shaped a great deal of his personality in the present day.
- I Have No Son!: Jake remembers how his father apologized to him for being his dad, calling him a punk and yelling at him to get out of his house.
- Ironic Hell: Jake spent years blocking out the unhappy memories of his past, and after he dies, his brain gets to experience them over and over for all eternity.
- Let Them Die Happy: Jake gives Angelo, his bodyguard and best friend, his entire drug empire, and then shoots him in the head after he declares he couldn't be happier. Jake tries to justify this action by claiming that he wanted Angelo to go out on a high note, and in Jake's book, dying in one's prime is the happiest any drug lord could ever be.
- The Lost Lenore: Marie, Jake's late wife.
- The Mafia: Jake is a mob boss with powerful connections, though he specializes in drugs unlike most traditional bosses.
- Magitek: Given the implications that Michaelson is actually a certain archangel, it makes sense that Afterlife has a little something extra to make it work, along with the science.
- Meaningful Name: Afterlife's inventor is named "Michaelson", and he uses it to force Jake into reliving his sinful past and how it affected everyone close to him.
- Pay Evil unto Evil: On paper, putting someone's brain in a jar and prolonging their death to make them experience their worst memories is highly unethical, but Michaelson's intent is to use this practice only on crime lords like Jake. And despite the traumas that are shown to have shaped him into who he is now, Jake's certainly done enough horrible things in life to warrant this "treatment".
- Self-Serving Memory: Deconstructed with Jake, who looks back on his late wife Marie being beautiful and caring towards him, but then moves forward in time and starts remembering her encroaching alcoholism and drug addiction, citing this as the moment he lost her. Towards the end, we see the whole picture, and learn that Marie became an alcoholic drug addict because of him, and it was all she could do to cope with being married to an abusive, murderous mob boss. As she herself puts it, Jake can easily recall how others wronged him, but he blocks out how he wronged them.
- Shout-Out: Given the mafia motif, the episode's score is a synthesized replica of the theme of The Godfather.
- Title Drop: Michaelson says the title in his explanation of Afterlife to Jake.
- Tragic Villain: Jake may be a vile and ruthless mob boss, but he also suffered physical and verbal abuse from his father and late wife, respectively.
- Trauma Button: Jake really hates having his hands put behind his back, since it reminds him too much of how his father would tie his hands so he wouldn't be able to escape being whipped with his belt. In fact, Jake shares an anecdote with Angelo about how he killed O'Brien, a cop, for putting his hands behind his back in order to discourage people from doing the same, reflecting how his father's treatment has affected him decades later.
- Villain Protagonist: Jake Corelli, a noted drug lord with heavy connections.
- Wham Line: At the end, as Jake is undergoing Afterlife, Michaelson decides to start talking aloud.Michaelson: You're not a nice man, Mr. Corelli. Not nice at all. But then, none of my clients ever are.
- When the Clock Strikes Twelve: Michaelson tells Jake that if he agrees to Afterlife, he can be called between 12:00 and 12:10. He originally just misses that deadline, but he eventually manages to meet with the scientist the next day.
- Your Days Are Numbered: Jake learns at the beginning of the episode that he has cancer and only a few weeks to live, so he attempts to cheat death by salvaging his mind via Afterlife.
