Deadline
Read all about it.
(the interior of the Crypt is designed as a bar; a skeletal waitress with a tray walks past the camera)
Crypt Keeper: (tending a bar packed with skeletal customers) So, what'll it be, stranger? Can I interest you in a mai-die? Or would you prefer a rum and choke? Or maybe you'd like something a little stronger. I've got just the thing. It's a nasty little snootful about a newshound named Charlie, who needs a murder story and a drink. But not necessarily in that order. Ah, what some people won't do for a good stiff one. I call this little eye-opener: Deadline.
Charlie McKenzie (Richard Jordan) was a freelance news reporter who, once upon a time, would do anything for a story. Nowadays, his career and his life have hit rock bottom after many years of severe alcoholism. While gulping down his woes at his local watering hole, he meets Vicki (Marg Helgenberger), an attractive blonde who accompanies him to his apartment for a one-night-stand. Charlie soon grows enamored with Vicki, saying the girl makes him feel like he’s 25 again, and he even considers getting his old job back and putting his life back together, just for her. Unfortunately, everyone from Charlie's sister Mildred (Rutanya Alda) to his old contacts are skeptical about his claims to give up drinking, and his former boss Phil Stone (Richard Herd) reluctantly gives him a chance to get back to work on the condition that he successfully brings in a murder story. As the clock ticks and people keep hanging up on him, Charlie becomes increasingly desperate for his story and nearly lapses back to drinking, that is, until Nikos Stavo (Jon Polito), the owner of the greasy spoon he's having coffee in, gets into a fight with his wife in the kitchen, and apparently kills her in a fit of anger. Just as Charlie thinks he's finally got his scoop, his life is turned upside-down when he finds out who the unlucky victim is.
Tropes:
- Abhorrent Admirer: Charlie has a serious case of unrequited love for Vicki, aiming to turn his life around just for her.
- The Alcoholic: Charlie has a drinking problem that's ruined his life and his career. It's so bad that his friend Mike, a bartender, pleads for him to cut back on the sauce.
- All for Nothing: After everything Charlie does for Vicki, trying to turn his life around and get back on the wagon, he finds out that she had no real affection for him and was only using him to humiliate her husband. This makes Charlie snap and strangle her to death himself.
- All Love Is Unrequited: Despite his growing feelings for Vicki, the woman herself repeatedly tells Charlie that she's had lots of boyfriends in the past and only wants quick sex from him, nothing long-term.
- Awful Wedded Life: Nikos and Vicki's marriage is not all happy, as Nikos tells Charlie, after he supposedly kills Vicki, that she's been having sex with pathetic winos she meets in bars just to humiliate him.
- The Bartender: Mike, Charlie's friend, who helps his most loyal customer ease up on the booze for his own good.
- Battle Discretion Shot: Vicki and Nikos' fight in the kitchen is left unseen as Charlie listens in on the struggle and slowly makes his way to the kitchen.
- Bittersweet Ending: Vicki receives her just desserts for her horrid treatment of her husband, and Nikos is free of having a whore for a wife, but while Charlie does get his murder story to the news company, he throws his entire life away and gets thrown in the nuthouse to do so.
- Breaking the Fourth Wall: Charlie spends the episode talking to the viewers about himself and his problems. The end of the episode implies, since he's locked in an asylum, he's been talking to open air the whole time.
- Cool and Unusual Punishment: Charlie tells the viewers that once his time in the asylum is over, he's apparently been sentenced to write a book about his double life as a reporter and a killer.
- Despair Event Horizon: When Charlie discovers the truth about Vicki, he instantly loses all faith in himself. He strangles her to death, calls his boss to report his crime, and relapses on alcohol as he makes the call, deciding that nothing matters anymore.
- Everyone Has Standards: Mike is a bartender who makes a living by selling booze to customers, but he can't stand to watch Charlie (his close friend and one of his best customers) destroy himself, cutting him off for his own good.
- Exact Words: Charlie repeatedly says that he'll do anything to get a story, and as the ending shows, that includes making the story's elements happen himself.
- Foil: Charlie is one to Dale Sweeney, the Immoral Journalist from "Mournin' Mess". While both of them are boozing newsmen who live crappy lives, Charlie has a lot more goodness in his heart, not resorting to underhanded means to get his stories (at first). Their love lives are also reversed, with Dale kicking one-night-stands out of his place and Charlie becoming obsessed with the woman who only wants one-night-stands with him.
- Foreshadowing: Vicki tells Charlie early in the episode that she doesn't want anything long-term with him, having had a lot of boyfriends and saying that long-lasting romances don't work for her. Towards the end, we learn from Nikos, her husband, that she's been going to bars and having sex with the wino patrons just to humiliate the poor guy.
- For Want Of A Nail: Had Mike not directed Charlie to Nikos' Grille, Charlie wouldn't have found out Vicki's true self and her actual motives.
- Fourth Wall Psych: The end of the episode reveals that Charlie's been narrating the events not just to the viewers, but the empty space in the asylum where he's been locked up.
- Framing Device: Charlie sitting in a dark room and telling his story to the audience. The ending reveals the room to be his cell in the asylum where he's been locked up.
- Greasy Spoon: Nikos' Grille, where owner Nikos attacks Vicki and allows for Charlie to overhear, potentially giving him his murder story.
- How We Got Here: The end of the episode reveals that the whole thing was a retelling of how Charlie got himself committed for his murder of Vicki.
- Immoral Journalist: Downplayed. Charlie's a genuinely good guy who suffers from a drinking problem that's visibly ruined his life. He genuinely wants his old job back and decides to get clean for Vicki's sake. The worst thing he does is strangle Vicki after he finds out the truth about her, doing so in a mix of sorrow and insanity.
- I Need a Freaking Drink: As Charlie's deadline ticks away and his old contacts say they can't help him get a murder story, he struggles to remain sober and gains extensive cravings for a drink. His closing line of the episode even has him saying that he needs a drink right about now.
- It Amused Me: Vicki's revealed to be a two-timing whore who's been bar-hopping and having sex with one wino after another just to watch her husband Nikos squirm.
- Jerkass: Vicki, the woman who Charlie vows to reinvent himself for, is revealed to be the two-timing wife of a restaurant owner she routinely taunts and makes squirm by having sex with drunken winos.
- Karma Houdini: Even if he isn't the one who actually killed Vicki, Nikos doesn't appear to get punished for his fight with her in the cafe's kitchen.
- Kavorka Man: Charlie admits that in spite of his rampant drinking, he's never had any problems getting a woman, having been with a bunch of hookers, a few girlfriends, even being married a couple of times. Overtime, however, Charlie says that all those lovers drifted away, so women didn't seem as important to him as his job. That changes when he meets Vicki, who he says makes him feel "special".
- Laser-Guided Karma: For screwing around with dozens of bums, winos, and drunkards to humiliate her abused husband, Vicki is strangled by Charlie, the latest wino she picks up.
- Loser Protagonist: Charlie was once a well-known reporter who rubbed elbows with mayors, senators, and athletes, but now he's a bum whose alcoholism has visibly ruined his life. Half the cast, including his sister, treat him as a drunken deadbeat and refuse to stick their necks out for him anymore, but when he falls in love with Vicki and vows to get his life back in order just for her, he finds out that she's an adulterous wife who was using him to humiliate her husband. He snaps, strangles Vicki to death, and blabs about what he did to the newspaper company, putting himself in an asylum.
- Mistaken for Prostitute: When Charlie and Vicki first meet, the former assumes she's a hooker, given that she's hanging around a sleazy skid row bar in a revealing leather outfit. It's later revealed that she is indeed a whore (though not officially employed, since these are Nikos' words) who's been going from bar to bar to have sex with the drunken bums therein solely to humiliate her restaurant owner husband.
- My God, What Have I Done?: Nikos is left horribly distraught after he thinks he killed Vicki, even though she was humiliating him by sleeping with winos.
- Nice Guy: Mike the bartender, who considers Charlie to be not just one of his best customers, but also his good friend. He tries to help Charlie get over his drinking problem by giving him coffee, restricting his access to the booze supply, and announces to the whole bar that Charlie's going on the wagon, whereupon all the other customers applaud him.
- Noir Episode: Considering that protagonist Charlie is a newspaper journalist who has a fling with an attractive blonde, and tries to search for a good murder story to write about, you can bet that shades of the trope are in this episode.
- Not Quite Dead: Charlie discovers Vicki, revealed to be Nikos' unfaithful wife, lying unconscious on the diner's kitchen floor. When she stirs awake and she recognizes him, Charlie finishes her off himself, having been broken by this revealation.
- Oblivious to Hints: Charlie just can't get the hint that Vicki doesn't want genuine romance with him, just a few cheap romps in the sack.
- Proscenium Reveal: The episode begins with Charlie sitting in a room and narrating the episode to the viewers. The end of the episode reveals he's in a straitjacket and locked in a padded cell after going nuts and murdering Vicki.
- Race Against the Clock: When Charlie is given a chance to get his old job back, Phil gives him a strict deadline to get his murder scoop, and the stress nearly makes him relapse on the booze.
- Recovered Addict: Charlie vows to get on the wagon for Vicki, but he spends a good amount of the episode's later half fighting the urge for a stiff one.
- Sanity Slippage: Charlie finds out that Vicki, the apparent love of his life, is Nikos' slut of a wife, and Charlie was just the latest in a long line of random dunkards she's been sleeping with just to humiliate Nikos. The revelation utterly destroys Charlie, so he kills her himself and reports the murder to Phil, which ends up getting him committed.
- Self-Fulfilling Prophecy: After fruitlessly searching for a murder story, Charlie ultimately commits the very murder he was hoping to write about.
- Sibling Rivalry: Charlie's sister Mildred has grown to resent her brother, since he only comes to visit her when he needs money. That money often comes from her disability pension, and he mostly spends it on booze, so the distrust is explainable.
- Spanner in the Works: Mike is the one who sends Charlie over to Nikos' Grille, where he hears the fight that ultimately triggers the climactic twist.
- What Happened to the Mouse?: We never find out what happens to Nikos by the episode's end, leaving it unclear whether he faced charges for attempted murder.
- You Have to Believe Me!: Charlie telling Phil and Mildred about how he plans to get sober is treated as Crying Wolf, given how he's made the same empty promise many times before.
Crypt Keeper: (fills up a glass of beer) Poor Charlie. I bet he wishes that he'd killed the story instead. (cackles and slides the glass down the counter, where it shatters) Perhaps now they'll let him write for the paper's horror-scope column. Care for another drink? (pulls out a half-full glass of beer and a shrunken head) Or should I just put a head on this one? (dumps the head into the glass; he cackles)
