Title: Appointment with Death
Air date: March 12, 1938
Plot summary: Albert "Blackie" Carmichael is getting let out of prison after serving a five-year term. The warden gives the usual "you've paid your debt to society" speech and says that Blackie has earned enough money while in jail to tide him over until he's found a job—but Blackie decisively rejects the idea of redemption. In fact, he tells the warden directly that he is going to go back to the criminal life, and that he is bent on revenge against the man who put him in jail in the first place. Who put him there? The Shadow, of course.
Blackie holds up a gas station and doesn't even bother to take the $9 in the register, simply shooting and killing the owner. He then goes on a reign of terror, committing robberies and murders all over the city. The idea is to attract The Shadow to his lair, which is a shack on an island in a lake. Why an island in a lake? Because Blackie, who knows about The Shadow's power of invisibility, has hit on a way to find him and kill him: he will simply wait and look for the ripple in the water as The Shadow swims out to the island.
Tropes:
- Bat Deduction: The Shadow figures that Blackie Carmichael must be the person behind the crime spree. Why Blackie? Because he just got paroled and had vowed revenge on The Shadow. Of course, there are a bunch of other criminals running around who are perfectly capable of knocking over gas stations, but The Shadow decides it must be Blackie and of course he is right.
- Book Ends: The first scene is the warden at the jail urging Blackie to go straight, with Blackie answering that no, he's going back to crime, and he's going to kill The Shadow. The last scene has the warden, back in his office in the jail, noting that Blackie was "discharged by execution."
- Extra! Extra! Read All About It!: Several newspaper boys form a Time-Passes Montage as they call out the various crimes that Blackie is committing during his spree.
- Perception Filter: Occasionally, a criminal would try and come up with a way of defeating The Shadow's "power to cloud men's minds", or some external circumstance would make The Shadow visible. In this episode, Blackie figures that if he can draw The Shadow to his island lair, he can simply watch for the ripple The Shadow makes in the water.
- Playing Possum: How The Shadow defeats Blackie, by the simple expedient of holding his breath long enough for Blackie to think that he is dead. The Shadow gloats that he learned that skill playing water polo, which, given Lamont Cranston's wealthy life, may well be true.
- Time-Passes Montage: A series of newspaper boys hawking extras serves to show how Blackie is going on a very busy crime spree solely to attract The Shadow's attention.
- Villain Opening Scene: A common trope on The Shadow and in this instance, two opening scenes. The first scene is Blackie, with the warden, defiantly rejecting the idea of going straight and vowing revenge on The Shadow. The second scene is Blackie gathering a bunch of fellow hoodlums, and getting them to contribute to buying the island in the lake, all so that Blackie can lay his trap.
