Loved to Death
Let it be known that wanting is better than having.
Crypt Keeper: (fires an arrow near a statue of Cupid) Dying for a date? Aching for a little prick of... (fires an arrow into the statue's heart, which bleeds) -passion? Well, be careful what you what you wish for, or like the young man in tonight's terror tale, you may just get it! I call this nauseating number: Loved to Death.
Edward Foster (Andrew McCarthy), a former haberdasher and aspiring screenwriter, has developed a massive crush on Miranda Singer (Mariel Hemingway), a struggling actress in the apartment across the hall who doesn't want anything to do with him. In an effort to obtain Miranda's love, Edward buys a love potion from his landlord, the woman-hating Mr. Stronham (David Hemmings), and slips it into Miranda's glass when he's invited over for a drink. The love potion takes an almost-instant effect, and Miranda becomes plagued by an uncontrollable infatuation for Edward, as well as a non-stop sex drive. Overwhelmed by what he's brought upon himself, Edward goes back to Mr. Stronham, who presents an extreme solution to Edward's new problem.
Tropes:
- Abhorrent Admirer: Edward, the horny dork who craves Miranda's love. Miranda herself becomes an even stronger one as the love potion kicks in.
- Adaptational Alternate Ending: This episode is a remake of the episode "The Chaser" from The Twilight Zone (1959). At the end of the original episode, Roger (Edward's counterpart) drops and spills the poison he was about to give Leila (Miranda's counterpart) when she reveals that she's been knitting booties for their future child. In this episode, Edward accidentally drinks the poison himself, collapses dead, and goes to a Fluffy Cloud Heaven, only for Miranda to kill herself and join him up there, trapping him with her in the afterlife instead of regular life.
- And I Must Scream: Edward is doomed to be stuck with Miranda forever, the poor woman still lovestruck and freshly mutilated, for eternity without a way to escape. The only thing he can do is start screaming.
- Anti-Hero: With the underhanded methods he uses to obtain Miranda's love, combined with his disturbing behavior when invited into her apartment and his spying on her in the basement, it's clear that Edward is NOT a hopeless romantic pining for her affection, but a dorky, perverted stalker who desperately wants hot sex with her.
- Author Avatar: When visualized to the audience, Edward's script has him appear as the male lead. As expected from a pathetic and perverted loser like him, his character is an absolute
Marty Stu who his wife Louise (appearing as Miranda) endlessly praises and lusts towards. Once he drugs Miranda with the love potion and the script basically becomes reality, Edward finds that it isn't as pleasurable as he imagined it. - Bait-and-Switch: When one of his neighbors remarks that he's probably making movies that are full of foul language and nudity, Edward clarifies that he intends to write a decent, wholesome, and kid-friendly film. The neighbor replies, in a deadpan tone, "Well, that's too bad.".
- Be Careful What You Wish For: Edward soon learns that having the love of your life isn't quite what it's cracked up to be, especially when said love is even hornier than you are.
- Body Horror: Miranda dies by throwing herself out the window after Edward himself died. As a result, her face is gruesomely mutilated in the afterlife.
- Chivalrous Pervert: In spite of his perverted tendencies regarding Miranda, Edward does go out of his way to try and be civil around her. Of course, that changes when his perverted fantasies start manifesting.
- Death of Personality: Miranda's original short-tempered personality is overridden by Mr. Stronham's love potion.
- Downer Ending: Edward is tricked into drinking the poison himself, and even in death, he's stuck with Miranda. What's worse, Miranda disfigured her face when she threw herself out the window.
- Driven to Suicide: When Edward accidentally ingests the poison he meant to kill Miranda, the woman herself, unable to live without him, throws herself out the window to her death. Her love for him was apparently strong enough to join him in Heaven instead of sending her to Hell, where he'll continue to be harassed by her unending love forever.
- Early-Bird Cameo: Miranda is first visualized as Louise, the wife in Edward's script, several minutes before she first appears in person.
- Facial Horror: Miranda threw herself out the window after Edward died, so when she gets to Heaven, he finds that her face isn't what is used to be.
- Fluffy Cloud Heaven: The afterlife where Edward ends up resembles one, although he's still stuck with Miranda there.
- Foreshadowing: In Edward's opening fantasy, his wife "Louise" sips a glass of champagne and is suddenly overcome with pure lust, desiring Edward right in their kitchen. This later happens in real life, after Edward slips Miranda the love potion.
- Gold Digger: At first, Miranda tells Edward to his face that she doesn't want a relationship because he doesn't have money or connections in show business. Despite this, she still tells him in a gentle way (as gentle as she can be, anyway) that she's being practical because she needs better work and conditions, and she has nothing against him personally.
- Gone Horribly Right: Edward finds that his landlord's love potion works as intended, but it makes Miranda even more sex-crazed than he ever was.
- He-Man Woman Hater: Mr. Stronham is staunchly opposed to the female gender, and manipulates his male tenants into killing them for his own sick pleasure.
- The Hermit: Mr. Stronham never leaves his office, keeping watch over his building with surveillance cameras and a microphone.
- Indulgent Fantasy Segue: The episode opens on a dramatization of Edward's script, where his character's wife Louise (played by Miranda) endlessly praises him and prepares to give him hot sex right in the kitchen.
- It Amused Me: Mr. Stronham's entire motivation for giving Edward the love potion, and later, the poison. It's clear that he's made a habit of repeating the cycle numerous times, given the numerous crossed out pictures of women he has in his office.
- Jerk with a Heart of Gold: Despite her shrill voice and aggressive nature, Miranda does have her moments of kindness before ingesting the love potion. When she throws Edward out of her apartment for going through her mail, she apologizes and invites him back later for a drink. When she returns that night with another man, she recognizes her insensitivity the next day and re-invites him over. Then, when she tells him that he can't be her girlfriend because he doesn't have money or a job, she lets him know that she personally has nothing against him, but she needs work and money, so she's making an executive decision. Even then, she tells Edward that she'll look him up when he becomes rich and famous so she can potentially reconsider.
- Karma Houdini: Mr. Stronham gets away with causing Edward's eventual death, and will no doubt continue to replay his woman-killing racket with other men.
- Laser-Guided Karma: Edward wants Miranda to love him and effectively brainwashed her into his love slave, then tried to kill her when she got way too clingy. He dies from the poison he was going to kill her with, since she switched glasses with him out of affection, only to find that he's now stuck with her for the rest of time.
- Lingerie Scene: Fitting for the story's nature, Miranda gets several of them, in and out of Edward's perverted mind.
- Lovable Sex Maniac: Edward craves sex with Miranda and uses underhanded methods to do so. That part of his personality fades away when Miranda becomes a sex maniac herself. An even hornier sex maniac.
- Love Potion: Edward is given one by Mr. Stronham to let Miranda fall in love with him, only to find it worked too well.
- A Man Is Always Eager: Subverted. After Miranda is drugged with the potion, Edward quickly grows exhausted from her non-stop desire for sex.
- Mood Whiplash: Edward's fantasy starts off romantic and light-hearted... but then "Louise" suddenly gets immensely horny and rips her clothes off, then begins to strip Edward and makes love to him right in their kitchen.
- No Indoor Voice: Miranda is loud and shrill, almost always raising her voice when she speaks.
- No Sense of Personal Space: When he's invited inside Miranda's apartment for the second time, Edward suddenly visualizes Miranda as Louise, the wife from his script, and begins groping and fondling her from behind. This earns him a slap in the face and being thrown out the door.
- Obviously Evil: Mr. Stronham, Edward and Miranda's landlord, is a reclusive, gravelly-voiced, and surveillance-heavy woman hater who gets his jollies from giving hopeless romantic a love potion, and then gives them poison to kill their new lovers.
- Oblivious to Hints: For the life of him, Edward can't tell that his landlord is a woman-hating murderer, or that the girl of his dreams is a shrill loudmouth who can't stand him. It's justifiable since he basically lives in his own fantasy world.
- Poisoned Chalice Switcheroo: Before Edward and Miranda toast at the end of the episode, she notices that her glass, housing the poison, is dirty, so she switches glasses with Edward and unknowingly tricks him into drinking the poison.
- Recursive Canon: The episode's title is also the name of the in-universe script Edward is attempting to write.
- Self-Insert Fic: Edward's script is basically a fanfiction where Miranda (as his wife, Louise) showers him with non-stop praise and hot sex.
- Sexophone: The episode is heavy on the saxophone, given how lustful it gets at times
- Shout-Out: Edward has a poster of It's a Wonderful Life in his room, and he usually talks to it (specifically Jimmy Stewart's image) when he needs some inspiration.
- Show Within a Show: The Bimbo Beach Patrol film series that Miranda has starred in. Given her tone of voice as she's talking to her agent, she isn't happy with only appearing in something so blatantly trashy and exploitative.
- Single-Target Sexuality: Edward only has his sights set on Miranda, no other woman. He changes his mind when she similarly has a non-stop drive for love-making.
- Spanner in the Works: The drugged Miranda swaps her poisoned drink with Edward's, simply because its glass was dirty and she thought Edward should have the clean glass.
- Stalking is Love: Edward spies on Miranda a couple of times throughout the episode, visualizing her as Louise, the wife from his script.
- This Isn't Heaven: Edward takes being dead pretty well at first, considering that he's brought here and is finally free of Miranda. Unfortunately, he hears her all too familiar voice...
- Villain Protagonist: Edward is gradually revealed to be one, being a horny admirer/stalker of Miranda who ultimately resorts to drugging her to fall in love with him, then plans to kill her when she won't stop invading his personal space.
- Whole-Plot Reference: The entire episode is a remake of The Twilight Zone (1959) episode "The Chaser", updated with Hotter and Sexier overtones for HBO.
- Writers Suck: Edward is trying to make a go at being a screenwriter, but given that he's a perverted dork, his script keeps turning into a blatantly self-serving fantasy where the woman of his dreams, playing his wife, endlessly sings his praises and gives him hot sex.
Crypt Keeper: (smoking a cigarette and laying in a heart-shaped bed) Good old Edward. He should have stuck to sending mash notes. Maybe then he wouldn't have ended up in a state of holy deadlock. (takes a drag of the cigarette, then turns to a skeleton in a wig lying next to him) So, was it good for you, too? (the skeleton's head falls off) Oooh, talk about head over heels. (cackles)
