The Satanic Piano
Pete Bancroft (Michael Warren), a noted pianist and recording star, has recently hit a creative roadblock. Seeking inspiration, Pete meets with the suspicious and sleazy Wilson Farber (Philip Roth), who showcases a special electric piano that can actually read a person's thoughts and transform them into music. The instrument comes with a very high price, but the ignorant Pete buys it happily. When he finds out that the instrument's price heavily involves his aspiring musician daughter Justine (Lisa Bonet), who is kidnapped by Wilson so he can use the instrument to drain her soul and become the greatest musician ever, Pete has to choose over his fame and his family.
Tropes:
- Bittersweet Ending: Pete saves Justine from Wilson's soul-swiping scheme and destroys the titular piano, but ruins his hand in doing so. Despite this, he goes on to declare that Justine is more important than his career, offering to teach her to be his successor.
- Brilliant, but Lazy: Wilson plans to achieve musical stardom, but even though he's already built a mind-reading, soul-sucking piano, he intends to fulfill his goal through Justine and her song.
- Career-Ending Injury: Pete plunges his good hand into the piano's "soul diamond" to damage the machine and ultimately blow it and Wilson up. Doing this unfortunately ruins his hand and keeps him from playing.
- Chekhov's Gun: The song Pete was attempting to compose in the opening, as he conjures it in his head to confuse the piano and destroy it to save his daughter's soul, as it malfunctions trying to play his song and Justine's at the same time.
- Creative Sterility: The opening scene has Pete seated at his piano and synths, trying and failing to create his latest composition.
- The End... Or Is It?: Although Wilson is defeated and Justine is saved, the piano's wreckage is revealed to house an incomplete copy of Pete's arm, which he wrecked by punching the glowing diamond in its center.
- Foreshadowing:
- After he first calls Pete, Wilson looks to a concealed corpse on a gurney, admitting that it's too bad they "didn't measure up". We learn at the climax that Wilson tried to drain their soul with the piano when he prepares to do so to Justine, and the process likely killed the first person because they weren't as good a musician as her.
- Before the piano is introduced, Pete muses to Wilson that "Music and magic go together."
- Hoist by His Own Petard: The magic mind-reading piano Wilson prides himself on blows up thanks to Pete's intervention, taking its mad creator with it.
- Like Father, Like Daughter: Pete's daughter Justine is just as musically gifted as her father, even surpassing him with his current roadblocks.
- Magitek: The titular piano is a mechanical marvel that can produce any music its user thinks of, and Wilson hooks it up to Justine's head in a bid to steal her soul.
- Not Now, Kiddo: Pete is too frustrated and busy to listen to his daughter's song and help her iron it out at first, but he breaks out of this mindset once Wilson abducts her.
- Obviously Evil: With his stringy hair, constant sweatiness, manic demeanor, and "eclectic" taste in decor, it's quite obvious that Wilson has nothing but malicious intent for the Bancroft family.
- Passing the Torch: The end of the episode has Pete grievously injured in his rescue of Justine, promising her that she's to be the next musician of the family.
- The Power of Rock: Pete manages to overload the evil high-tech piano with the song he was trying to conjure, overloading it by having it process both his and Justine's songs at once.
- Rotten Rock & Roll: Pete's manager Tony reveals to him that Wilson managed a Satan-worshiping, voodoo-practicing heavy metal group in the past, the lead singer of which died onstage, most likely under his influence.
- Shout-Out: When complaining to his manager about his diminished wages, Pete demands to be given the same amount of cash that Paul McCartney and Lionel Richie get for their records.
- Struggling Single Father: Pete went through a likely messy divorce and has been neglecting Justine while trying to conjure his dream tunes.
- Your Soul Is Mine!: Wilson intends to use the magic piano he sells to Pete to drain Justine's soul so he can achieve musical godhood through her.
