In 1991, military veteran Nick (Tim Blake Nelson), down on his luck and owing money, buys a storage unit for $400 after the original owner of the unit has passed away. House cleaner Emilia (Elpidia Carrillo) is also at the storage facility after failing to pay her bill due to a miscommunication with the manager and Nick has also purchased her unit. She pleads with Nick to get into the unit to get back her things, but Nick tells her no and gives her the original padlock from the unit. While searching the unit, Nick mentions to the manager, Eddie (Demetrius Grosse), that the unit seems too small when compared to the others. Eddie tells him that the building was built in the 1940s and nothing was up to code.
Nick continues to dig through the things in the unit while Emilia lingers outside. Nick finds a beautiful set of table and chairs with arcane markings and takes them to an antiques shop to get them appraised. The owner of the shop is entranced with the items saying they are a very old Séance table set. As she touches the table, it triggers a hidden mechanism and a drawer pops open with three occult books inside. The shop keep tells Nick she has an expert who can give him a proper appraisal on the books and calls Roland (Sebastian Roché). Roland immediately identifies the books and asks where the fourth one is. He tells Nick that the books are a set that are designed to summon and make a pact with a demon and that the fourth book burns up at the end of the transaction, thus making it a very rare item. Nick says if there is one more book to be found, it'll be back in the unit. Roland offers Nick money for the table on the spot with a promise of a $300,000 payday if they find the final book. On the drive to the building, Roland tells Nick that the owner of the unit was a weapon maker from the World War II era and did horrible things for the Nazis.
At the unit, they find that one of the walls is false. Managing to pry it open, they discover a brick hallway lined with crucifixes and a horrible smell. Roland tells Nick not to do anything or say anything while they are in there in case it will trigger a bargain. Once they walk inside, they find the nearly mummified body of the unit owner's sister laying on the ground in a binding circle with demon tentacles where her face should be. Nick, unimpressed, goes for the fourth book which is on a stand across the room. Roland warns him not to go in there but Nick, unheeding, stumbles through the circle and disrupts the markings. The demon manages to resurrect, destroying most of the host body that was keeping it trapped, and the book bursts into flames. Roland is consumed by the demon and Nick runs for help while the demon, now a mass of writhing tentacles, stalks him through the hallways. Nick sees the only exit out of the storage building and runs to find the door is locked from the outside. He sees Emilia and pleads for her to open the door. Emilia gestures that she'll help but then Nick watches in horror as she holds up the padlock he gave her and locks the door. As he turns around to run, he's consumed by the demon.
Tropes
- The '90s: The episode takes place in 1991. In several scenes, news coverage of the Gulf War can be seen on TV.
- Angry White Man: Nick is introduced listening to a radio pundit railing against immigrants taking advantage of American social programs, which seems to inform a lot of his world view. He speaks of feeling cheated by the system as an excuse for his selfishness; the way he sees it, he's paid his dues and now it's "[his] turn".
- Ambiguously Evil: Roland's interest in the volumes of demonic magic seems deeper than mere collector's passion and the fourth volume bursts into flame when the demon kills him, suggesting that he had something to do with its original summoning, but he never does anything overtly malicious or sinister on screen and he regards the original owner of the unit as truly evil.
- Asshole Victim: Nick is a callous, selfish racist who doesn't care about anyone but himself. It's almost cathartic when he is indirectly killed by a woman he had insulted, as she locks him inside the building where he is devoured by a demon.
- The old Nazi who previously owned the lot dies from a sudden heart attack whilst overexerting himself. We don't actually find out until later that he very much deserved to die.
- Bigger on the Inside: Played With: at first the titular unit appears significantly smaller than others, and that gets a Handwave from Eddie as just being the result of shoddy 1940s construction. It turns out there's a false wall... which leads to a spiraling tunnel which either possible due to going underground or straight up part of the occult weirdness going on.
- Body Horror: The old man who owned the lot allowed his sister to become possessed by a demon, chaining her to the floor whilst the monster carved out her face and sat inside her body. When Nick and Roland find her, her corpse has become mummified. It only gets worse once the demon wakes up and emerges out of her rotting abdomen.
- Collector of the Strange: Roland, the antique shop owner's friend, immediately recognises both the Séance table and the books hidden therein, and offers a huge sum of money if Nick can find the missing fourth volume to complete the set.
- Death by Racism: Nick responds to Emilia's heartfelt pleas to get back items that have no monetary value from her storage unit with contempt and racist insults. In retaliation Emilia ends up locking him inside the storage facility, leading him to being devoured by the demon. Better yet, Emilia locked him up using the same padlock he spitefully gave her.
- Eaten Alive: Both Roland and Nick are swallowed by the tentacled Demon that emerges from Lot 36. Nick is understandably horrified, whilst Roland, being a Collector of the Strange, seems to just stand there and let it happen.
- Freudian Excuse Is No Excuse: Nick is called out on always using the excuse that he had to fight in the Vietnam War as a reason why his life went to hell, while totally ignoring how his own decisions and short temper constantly worsen his own life. Despite his racist ideologies, he's confronted with the fact that a lot of black and brown men suffered just as much as him and were statistically more likely to be in the front-lines, a point he deflects with no counter-argument.
- Ghostapo: The original owner of the titular unit is said to have been a Nazi who dabbled in the occult, even having summoned an “entity” to possess his sister’s body. This is confirmed when her corpse is found in a secret room under the unit, surrounded by a pentagram and inhabited by a tentacled creature.
- Hoist by His Own Petard: Nick coldly gives Emilia a padlock as the only thing she can keep from her storage unit. When he finds her to be the only thing between salvation and a demon devouring him, Emilia locks him inside the storage facility with that very same padlock. Whoops.
- Laser-Guided Karma: Nick's only hope of salvation comes from Emilia. If only he didn't coldly refuse to let her pull her stuff out of the warehouse and left her with just the padlock...
- Loan Shark: Nick owes thousands to a man who's getting impatient about being paid back, who pistol whips him and smashes up his truck.
- Murder by Inaction: Downplayed as Emilia didn't appear to know Nick's life was in danger, she probably assumed he would be released in the morning. However, locking the door whilst Nick pleads with her to open it results in him being eaten by the Demon.
- Our Demons Are Different: A mass of tentacles which inhabits a human body not through typical Demonic Possession, but in the manner of a monstrous parasite.
- Pet the Dog: Eddie sold Emilia's unit due to a miscommunication about her payment, but he doesn't approve of Nick's attitude towards her and tries to persuade him to let her get her things back.
- Sealed Evil in a Can: The demon seems trapped motionless within a circle, until Nick frees it by thoughtlessly walking over the lines.
- Secret Room: The storage unit Nick bought is much smaller than the ones surrounding it. When clearing out the junk he discovers that the back wall is fake and a large segment of the unit has been sealed away to hide the demon-possessed corpse of the original owner's sister.
- Too Dumb to Live: Nick ignores many red flags, starting with Roland's morbid glee over the seance table and ending with a mummified corpse with a tentacular demon living in it.
- The Unreveal: The audience never does find out why the original owner of the unit approached the unit with three little bunny hops, and then retreated the same way when he left.
- Considering what's hidden inside, it's likely part of a ritual designed to keep the demon at bay.
- The Vietnam Vet: Nick is an aging veteran of the Vietnam War who lost the hearing in one ear during combat. According to Eddie, he frequently uses the fact that he served in the war as an excuse for his awful ways.
