Night of the Paw
Written By: John Esposito
On a dark and stormy night, a fugitive on the run from the police ends up having their car sail off a cliffside road. Grievously injured from the crash, the fugitive, Angela (Hannah Barefoot), ends up collapsing at the front door of a funeral home. The house's occupant, mortician Avery "Whitey" Whitlock (Bruce Davison), brings Angela to a surgical ward in the basement, where he patches up Angela's injuries and amputates two fingers on her left hand.
When she awakens, Angela immediately becomes fearful about where she's ended up, as well suspicious and distrustful of Whitey's motives. While keeping her company until the storm dies down, Whitey proceeds to show Angela one of his unusual treasures: a monkey's paw. He explains that he and his late wife Marjorie (Susannah Devereux) came into possession of the paw when it was smuggled out of Mumbai by a now-deceased client. He mentions that thanks to a spell cast on it by a fakir, the paw is able grant 3 wishes for every person who comes into contact with it. The fakir's spell, as a way to prove that fate governs peoples' lives, causes these wishes to horrifically backfire on the user.
Whitey explains that Marjorie couldn't resist the power of the paw, using her first two wishes for mundane uses, but then used her last wish for enough money to save their struggling funeral business. Unfortunately, the money came from an insurance payout after Marjorie fell off a stepladder and died. Overwhelmed with grief and loneliness, Whitey used the paw to wish Marjorie back to life. After weeks of hearing Marjorie's voice and seeing her in disturbing visions, Whitey realized that the revived Marjorie was trapped in her already-buried coffin.
He raced to her burial plot and attempted to dig her out. Upon doing so, Whitey found that Marjorie had become a zombie as a result of his wish. Attempting to wish her back to normal, the undead Marjorie glimpses the paw, then proceeds to snap and bite her husband's leg. After subduing her and her reanimated severed hands, Whitey used his second wish to undo his first. He tells Angela that he has dreamed about Marjorie, the paw, and the hellish ordeal he inadvertently subjected his wife to every night since that day, inviting her to take it.
The next morning, the storm has cleared and Angela sets out to leave, but not before questioning Whitey on why he saved her. It is then that Whitey reveals his intentions: his grief over his situation with Marjorie and the paw has rendered him suicidal. Being a Christian, Whitey can't go through with it, as suicide would be too great a sin. As such, he used his final wish to have the paw send a murderer to relieve him of his misery. It is also revealed that Angela is the exact murderer he was wishing for, as she was on the run after performing a mercy killing on her terminally ill husband.
Not wanting to do any more killing, Angela tosses the paw into the fireplace. When Whitey retrieves the paw, he gradually catches fire and begs Angela to shoot him, which she reluctantly does. Terrified, she takes the paw and attempts to flee the house with Whitey's hearse. She ends up wasting her first wish to find the keys, and then wastes her second wish to get the hearse to start. She eventually reaches the morgue, finds her husband's corpse, and wishes for him to "get up". Unfortunately, because of her poor wording, every corpse in the morgue reanimates. Angela's husband reanimates as well, and kills her by savagely biting her face as the paw clenches its remaining finger.
This episode contains examples of:
- Adaptation Expansion: An Indian fakir is said to have cast a spell on the titular object, granting it the ability to give its owners three wishes that would backfire horrifically on them. He did this as a warning to those that attempted to challenge fate that they would be doing so at their own peril. Whitey and Marjorie themselves acquired the paw when it was smuggled out of Mumbai by a former client.
- Affectionate Nickname: Avery allows Angela to call him "Whitey", similar to his late wife.
- And I Must Scream: Marjorie, after being brought back to life, is stuck in her buried coffin and unable to breathe for weeks before Whitey finally remembers that she's been buried. When the stitches holding her jaw closed are cut, she does sinks her teeth into Whitey's leg in a blind rage.
- Apologetic Attacker: Whitey cries to Marjorie that he loves her just before he attacks her with a shovel. The version of him on the story's cover has him outright pleading for Marjorie to forgive him.
- Bittersweet Ending: Whitey finally gets his life snuffed out and presumably joins his wife in Heaven, while Angela is ripped apart by the reanimated corpse of her husband.
- Brick Joke: As he reminisces about Marjorie, Whitey tells Angela that the only peeve he ever had with her was the clicking noise her dentures made. Later on, as Whitey attacks his zombified wife in self-defense, the first blow he lands ends up knocking out Marjorie's dentures.
- Came Back Wrong: Anyone brought back to life by the paw is made an undead zombie.
- Contrived Coincidence: Fate systematically engineers a series of events that forces Angela into Whitey's house, and conjures a storm that floods the interstate to prevent her from leaving. Angela treats all of this as coincidence, not believing what Whitey tells her one bit.
- Creepy Red Herring: Angela has her doubts about Whitey's intentions, given that she woke up in his Creepy Basement operating room suspicously patched up and missing fingers. His slow whistling of "O' Come All Ye Faithful" as he worked on a female corpse couldn't have helped much either. Despite his creepy-ish demeanor, Whitey is a harmless Death Seeker who invites Angela to put him out of his misery.
- Dangerous Clifftop Road: The opening car chase takes place on one of these, where Angela's car crashes after it sails off said cliff in the storm.
- Death by Falling Over: Marjorie ends up dead after she falls (or possibly pushed by unseen forces) off of a stepladder while decorating a Christmas tree.
- Didn't Think This Through: The episode points out the glaring flaws that come with the use of a monkey's paw. One of the most notable examples involves Whitey wishing his wife back to life with said paw. He quickly forgot that he already had Marjorie buried six feet under... in a coffin specially designed to keep dead bodies preserved for eternity.
- Divine Intervention: Whitey came to the conclusion that his receiving the paw and being given the opportunity to bring his wife back to life was an act of God, since he claims that His son was able to rise from the dead, and could conjure miracles much like the paw itself can. The fact that Marjorie appears not to return to the home and the hallucinations Whitey suffers leads him to believe that the powers that be are punshing him for taking part in what he deems a Godless affair.
- Dramatic Chase Opening: The Teaser shows Angela attempting to evade the police by speeding down a cliffside road, only for her car to sail off the cliff and violently crash.
- Driven to Suicide: Whitey's experience with the torment his wife endured, which he had a hand in, has rendered him suicidal. He can't actually go through with it, since he's a Christian and suicide is too great a sin, so the very reason he wishes for Angela to visit his funeral home is that she'll kill him.
- Evil Wears Black: Subverted with Angela. She's initially seen wearing a black trenchcoat and hat during her escape from the police, but she's on the run for a well-intentioned, albeit misguided, reason.
- Exact Words:
- Whitey's wish for his wife to come back to life was destined to fail from the start. While she did come back to life, he failed to remember that her corpse was buried in a coffin. By the time he remembered and dug her back up, she was a zombie who viciously attacked him.
- The first thing Angela says when she uses the paw to bring her husband back to life? "Get up." That's exactly what he, and every other corpse in the morgue, does... just before he eats her alive.
- Fingore: Angela has two fingers on her left hand ruined in her car accident. Whitey takes the opportunity to amputate them to save the hand itself.
- Flat-Earth Atheist: To illustrate her arrogance and idiocy, Angela absolutely refuses to believe anything Whitey tells her, let alone that the monkey's paw he possesses is the real deal.
- Foreshadowing: Brief snippets of Angela's husband's murder play as she wakes up after surgery. The full scene is played near the end of the episode.
- The Cold Open has the news on Angela's car radio report on her status as a fugitive during her escape from the police. Near the end of the story, Whitey reveals that he's been listening to the news himself, which lets him know everything about her.
- Whitey is heard whistling "O' Come All Ye Faithful" as he's working on a woman's corpse. We later learn that it's the same song that was playing when his wife died, making it a tragic memento for him.
- Genre Savvy: Whitey knows everything there is to know about Angela and why she's in the pickle she's in. He tells her that it's because he's been tracking her story on the news.
- Go Out with a Smile: When he is finally put out of his misery, Whitey uses his dying breaths to thank Angela for doing so.
- Hates Being Alone: When Marjorie passed away, Whitey was tormented by the absence of his beloved wife, and ultimately used the paw to wish her back to life.
- I Cannot Self-Terminate: Whitey has been Driven to Suicide after unknowingly subjecting his wife to a horrific state of undeath via the paw. He can't kill himself because he practices Christianity, which deems suicide an irredeemable sin, so he wishes for Angela to end up in his house in the hopes that she'll kill him. He gets his wish granted in the end.
- Idiot Hero: Angela, a bumbling fugitive and Flat-Earth Atheist who ends up making one stupid decision after another, to the point where she engineers her own death (and a potential Zombie Apocalypse, if the next segment is any indication) via her poor judgement.
- Ignored Aesop: Angela is shown to have ignored or forgotten everything Whitey told her regarding the monkey's paw. Her stubborn ignorance and improper wording results in her zombified husband killing her.
- I Love the Dead: Upon finding his undead wife, Whitey plants a huge kiss on her lips.
- It Was a Dark and Stormy Night: The majority of the episode takes place in the late hours, during a strong thunderstorm that floods the nearby interstate, keeping Angela from leaving the Whitlock home.
- Jackass Genie: The paw's wishes grant horrific affects on its current owner. The fakir who enchanted it to grant wishes in the first place intentionally did this as a way to warn people not screw with Fate.
- Lingerie Scene: Angela gets one in Whitey's basement. Since there was really no need for her to be stripped, it comes off simply as an opportunity to employee gratuitous Fanservice.
- The Lost Lenore: Marjorie, Whitey's beloved wife.
- Man on Fire: Whitey is set ablaze when he grabs the paw out of the fireplace. The flames disappear the instant Angela shoots him.
- Mercy Kill: Angela performed one of these on her dying husband, being the reason why she is on the run. She ends up forced to pull another one on Whitey to stop him from slowly burning to death.
- Mouth Stitched Shut: Marjorie's jaw was wired shut before she was buried. Whitey clips the wires so he can give his undead wife a kiss, but this allows her to sink her teeth into his leg in a feral rage.
- Ms. Fanservice: Angela, who is noticeably attractive, is seen in her underwear while on Whitey's operating table for no particular reason. She proceeds to stay that way for a short while after she wakes up.
- Mundane Wish: Marjorie used the first of her three wishes to remember a lost recipe, and then used the second on something that Whitey doesn't remember.
- Angela later accidentally wastes two of her own wishes for similarly trivial things, like finding the keys to Whitey's hearse and actually getting the car to start.
- Mythology Gag: The "Father's Day" ashtray can be seen on a shelf in Whitey's basement/operating room.
- Nice Job Breaking It, Hero: Thanks to her combined stubbornness and stupidity, Angela manages to become a wanted fugitive by killing her husband, ends up killing a kindly (albeit suicidal) old man, and turn every body in the hospital morgue into ravenous undead, just before she is devoured by her zombified husband. If the segment after this one is any indication, she may actually be the cause of Musky Holler's zombie problem.
- No Name Given: Angela's husband.
- Our Zombies Are Different: Marjorie does essentially become a zombie, but her biting Whitey's leg doesn't zombify him. It may be because she was brought back to life by magic, and not by a plague or infection that could gradually spread.
- Refusal of the Call: After learning the truth about why Whitey summoned her to his house and then receiving the paw from him, Angela refuses to kill him and instead throws the thing into the fireplace. In trying to retrieve it, Whitey begins burning to death, forcing Angela to shoot him and accomplish what she wanted to avoid.
- Road Block: The storm that rages over the course of the episode ends up causing a flood on the interstate, preventing Angela from leaving.
- Self-Fulfilling Prophecy: Whitey tells Angela that he fully expects her to kill him, even though she doesn't want to kill again. When given the paw, she stupidly throws it into the fireplace, causing Whitey to set himself on fire trying to retrieve it, and forcing her to shoot him to stop him from dying a slow and agonizing death.
- Shout-Out:
- The names of Herbert West and Francesco Dellamorte are seen in the funeral home's guest book.
- After slicing off Marjorie's hands with his shovel, the re-animated hands harass Whitey when he drops the paw and looks for it, very much reminiscent of Ash's severed hand.
- Marjorie is buried in the Homewood Cemetery, which has the same name as the town in The Twilight Zone (1959) episode "Walking Distance".
- Avery's nickname "Whitey" is a reference to Mr. and Mrs. White from the original short story.
- Sympathetic Murderer: Angela only killed her husband because he was dying of a terminal illness and literally begged her to do it. She's similarly forced to kill Whitey to stop him from burning alive, also as he begs her to do so.
- The Teaser: Before the story's title is presented, there is a brief Cold Open that depicts Angela on the run from the police, and having her car sail off the edge of a cliff.
- Too Dumb to Live: Angela is one of the stupidest characters in the series thus far. She's proven herself to fit this trope for a number of reasons:
- After discovering that Whitey's story was true and that she really is carrying a genuine, wish-granting monkey's paw, she accidentally wastes her first wish looking for the keys to Whitey's hearse, and then wastes her second wish to actually get the engine to start.
- To prove that she hasn't learned a thing from Whitey's story, when she gets to the morgue and finds her husband's body, she merely says "get up" to the corpse, which prompts him, as well as every other body therein, to reanimate, her husband himself killing her.
- Her Mercy Kill towards her husband involved her, rather than smothering him or pulling the plug on his life support, shooting him in the face. It's understandable why she'd be seen as a murderer, and why he'd be angry at Angela when he reanimates.
- It's safe to say that pretty much everything that happens to Angela in the story is her own fault.
- Ungrateful Bitch: Angela never once thanks Whitey for saving her life, instead yelling at him for cutting off her fingers and threatening to kill him if he tries anything suspicious.
- Whispering Ghosts: Marjorie's voice whispers her husband's name and pleads with him to help her after his wish brings her back to life.
- Whole-Plot Reference: To The Monkey's Paw, naturally.
- You Can't Fight Fate: The entire reason why the monkey's paw was enchanted by that fakir. Whitey tells the ever skeptical Angela that one simply can't challenge destiny, but she refuses to listen.
- Zombie Apocalypse: Angela's poor wording of her third wish turns all the bodies in the morgue into zombies, including her husband, who devours her. It's even hypothesized that she could actually be the cause of the zombie apocalypse in the next episode.
