Easel Kill Ya
Eat your heart out, Da Vinci.
Crypt Keeper: (dressed as a French artist and painting a still life) Greetings, art lovers. Vincent van Ghoul here with another morbid masterpiece sure to paint you into a coroner. (cackles) Hmmmmm. Something's not quite right. Ah, yes. (stabs the beating heart next to his fruit bowl) Now that's a still life. (cackles) Tonight's tale concerns a painter who's tired of people giving his work the brush. I call this pestilent portrait of the artist as a young mangler: Easel Kill Ya.
Jack Craig (Tim Roth) is a down-and-out artist who's been unable to sell any of his work to any buyer. He also suffers from heavy alcoholism and a violent temper, and regularly attends a support group known as "Obsessives Anonymous" to get his issues under control. It's at this group that he meets and falls in love with Sharon (Roya Megnot), a kind young woman who wants to help him fix his problems. On a seemingly ordinary night, Jack accidentally kills a punk neighbor who was irritating him. Overcome by a sudden sense of inspiration, Jack takes a photo of the corpse and paints a recreation of the picture. He's easily able to sell the piece to Malcolm Mayflower (William Atherton), a collector of notoriously gory works of art. Malcolm promises Jack a hefty commission for a series of similar works, driving the struggling artist down a dark path that he desperately tries to hide from Sharon.
Tropes:
- Accidental Murder: The first man that Jack kills and paints died in a genuine accident, as Jack knocked a flower pot on his head and made him fall from his fire escape when he was trying to get him to turn his music down. The other people Jack paints... not so much.
- Agonizing Stomach Wound: Jack's landlady meets her maker by being shoved down the basement stairs and being stabbed through the gut with a pair of pruning shears.
- Alliterative Name: Malcolm Mayflower.
- Ambiguous Situation: Regarding Sharon's attraction to Jack, does she love him because she genuinely wants to help him succeed? Or is it because her fragile mental state pushes her to enter relationships with obsessive or otherwise abusive people? The fact that Jack reminds her that she's in "Obsessives Anonymous" because she needs to stay away from such relationships is a definite eyebrow raiser.
- The Bad Guy Wins: In this case, it's only temporary. Malcolm gets Jack to kill three innocent victims so he can own the portraits he paints of them. When Jack is busted by the cops, Malcolm may have questions as to why his contributions have ceased, but there's nothing suggesting that Malcolm won't pay Jack's bail.
- Collector of the Strange: Malcolm collects morbid artworks, owning the biggest private collection of them in the world.
- Didn't Think This Through: When he needs a huge payment to have a talented neurosurgeon save Sharon's life, Jack heads to the parking lot and, without thinking, kills the first man he sees. To little surprise, Jack ends up killing the neurosurgeon who was on his way to save Sharon's life, and the girl dies from her injuries hours later.
- Downer Ending: Just as Jack decides to leave his life of crime behind to be with Sharon, she loses all respect for him and is hit by a car trying to escape him, leaving her in critical condition. Jack hurriedly kills a random bystander and sells the resulting painting to Malcolm to get the money needed for Sharon's operation, only to find out that the man he killed was the neurosurgeon who was on his way to save Sharon's life, leaving the poor girl to die from her injuries. Jack is then interrogated by a police detective who holds up his bloody paintbrush. All he can do is give the camera a long, cold look of utter defeat, knowing that his temper and bloodlust have cost him everything.
- "Eureka!" Moment: After painting the corpse of the neighbor he accidentally kills, Jack discovers Malcolm by finding his name in a magazine article.
- Evil Brit: Jack has an English accent, as well as a huge temper and strong bloodlust. He isn't entirely evil, largely killing people and selling the resultant paintings to Malcolm for desperately-needed money.
- Fake-Out Opening: The episode opens with one of Jack's benefactors rebuking his "ironic" paintings and telling him to go back to drinking, which prompts Jack to slam a hammer into her head and kill her. This is revealed to be a figment of Jack's imagination, which Jack is reminiscing about to his group, noting how beautiful the thought was, but how he ultimately fought back against his obsession to do so.
- Fan Disservice: During the sex scene, Jack has a hallucination where Sharon speaks to him in Malcolm's voice and then turns into him, pressuring Jack to let the darkness inside him win. He snaps out of it after he nearly bludgeons Sharon with his alarm clock.
- Fanservice:
- Jack and Sharon's love scene, like many sex scenes in this series.
- Jack has an earlier moment of fanservice where he hallucinates Sharon making seductive poses for him to paint.
- Fatal Flaw: The driving force of all the characters is obsession:
- Malcolm's obsession with gory paintings prompts Jack, who himself is obsessed with violence, to kill people and paint their corpses to sell to him.
- Sharon, who's obsessed with getting Jack to love her, finds out about his killing spree and is killed for gaining his affection.
- It's even lampshaded at the start of the episode, when Jack and Sharon attend Obsessives Anonymous.
- Good Angel, Bad Angel: Sharon plays Jack's good angel, insisting that he's a good man who has a big heart. Malcolm plays the bad angel, pressuring Jack to use the darkness within him to give his works the artist's touch.
- Hair-Trigger Temper: Jack has an incredibly easily-triggered temper. Combined with his bloodlust, this turns him into a burgeoning serial killer.
- Horrible Housing: Jack's studio/place of residence is a barren room splattered with paint and surrounded by constant noise from the street below. Jack used to think it was romantic, but he doesn't even know why he lives there when he can't stand it anymore.
- Impaled with Extreme Prejudice: Jack's landlady gets pushed down the basement stairs to her death, ultimately getting impaled through the stomach with pruning shears.
- Karma Houdini:
- Malcolm suffers no consequences for turning Jack into a serial killer who gives him new acquisitions to his collection.
- The taxi driver that kills Sharon is never tried for her murder, either.
- Kubrick Stare: Jack gives one to the camera as he's busted by the police, who found his bloody paintbrush.
- Loser Protagonist: Jack is unable to sell any of his work, mocked by nearly everyone he meets, and lives in a barren studio surrounded by noise and obnoxious neighbors. Is it any wonder why he has the fiery temper he has?
- Love Martyr: Sharon puts up with Jack's emotional abuse because she loves him. Jack even reminds her that she attends his support group because she has a habit of getting into similarly obsessive/abusive relationships.
- Love Redeems: Sharon's love for Jack convinces him to get out of his murderous routine, if only for a little while.
- Lower-Class Lout: Jack, a struggling artist who lives in a barren studio owned by a snarky landlady in a noisy neighborhood, and lives above an obnoxious punk rocker. He ultimately becomes so enraged with his life that begin killing people and selling paintings of their dead bodies to Malcolm.
- Mad Artist: Jack's bloodlust and aggression transform him into one, killing those who piss him off and painting their corpses to sell to Malcolm, even mixing the blood of his victims into the paintings themselves.
- Madness Mantra: Jack's fictional version of Sharon repeats "How about this, Jack?", while tormenting him with seductive and provocative poses.
- Misery Builds Character: Malcolm pressures Jack into continuing to paint for him by telling him that a person like him will never get any satisfaction from the simple pleasures of life.
- Morality Pet: Sharon is Jack's, since she genuinely cares about his well-being. For a brief moment, he even decides to stop his killing spree to be with her.
- My God, What Have I Done?: It can be seen all over Jack's face after he realizes that he's killed the only person who could save Sharon, right before the police bust him for his killings, letting the audience know that his life is over.
- Nice Girl: Sharon is a friendly young woman who wants to help Jack make some decent money and take notice of the beauty around him by posing for some of his paintings, and doesn't mind some of his more gory works. She tells him that she and the other members of the group have been watching him fight his inner demons, and encourages Jack to believe that he's a good person. Even if this niceness is due to her damaged mentality driving her to seek out obsessive or abusive partners (as stated above), she's still a pretty decent person.
- Nice Job Breaking It, Hero: After hearing that Sharon needs a hefty-priced operation to be saved, Jack urgently grabs the first person he can find so he can kill them and turn the scene into a new painting for Malcolm. He returns to the hospital with the money, only to hear that the neurosurgeon who could've saved Sharon died a short while ago, revealing that Jack killed the only person who could help his beloved Sharon stay alive.
- Nightmare Fetishist: Malcolm Mayflower is the owner of the biggest collection of artworks depicting bloodshed, brutality, and death in the world, and he pays Jack big money for every new piece he gives to him. Before we even meet him, we see that his gallery (the parts of it not contained in his basement vault, anyway) houses photos of police brutality, a plane falling from the sky, the execution of Nguyễn Văn Lém
, and a sea of emaciated bodies from the Holocaust, the last of which he controversially outbid from a humanitarian organization, giving us a picture of just how obsessed with death and blood this man is.- Jack himself relishes his fantasies of killing people, but he keeps them to himself and his support group. He also prefers the morbid artwork he gains inspiration from because Malcolm gives him big money for them. Sharon, blinded by her love for him, doesn't mind the macabre artwork at all.
- Not Helping Your Case: When Jack returns after finding that Sharon has discovered his secret photographs, he keeps his stoic, menacing tone when he tells her that he isn't that person anymore, then ominously says that he needs her, sending her fleeing.
- Not Quite Dead: After being impaled through the stomach with pruning shears, Jack's landlady still has some breath left in her lungs, trying to stop Jack from finishing her off.
- Oh, Crap!: Sharon has one when she discovers a paintbrush housed in a jar of blood, as well as the photos Jack took of his victims, and the photo he took of her early in the episode, making her believe that she's next on his chopping block.
- Perpetual Smiler: Sharon sees the good in everything, and tells Jack that goodwill and charity will help him reach a better state of mind. Jack eventually calls her out for all her "peace, love, and understanding" jargon when he tires of it and it doesn't actually get him anywhere. She drops the attitude after she finds Jack's photos.
- Sadist: It's undeniable that Jack is a blatant sadist, especially with the way he describes his vision of him killing one of his clients, and how "beautiful" he thought it was to watch the life leave her eyes.
- Scare Chord: The rapid trilling of piano keys plays whenever Jack claims a victim.
- Screw This, I'm Outta Here: Sharon finds Jack's photos of his victims, then points a knife at him as she makes her escape.
- Sexophone: Plenty of it is heard during Jack and Sharon's love scene.
- Sex Signals Death: Not long after making love to Jack, Sharon is killed by a taxi driver in a hit-and-run.
- Shout-Out: The punk who lives below Jack blares Quiet Riot to piss him off.
- Show Some Leg: Sharon does this while posing for Jack's paintings, both in reality and in his mind.
- Start of Darkness: Jack reaches his when he accidentally kills the obnoxious punk by dropping a flower pot on his head and making him fall from the fire escape.
- Starving Artist: Jack has been flat broke for a year after being unlucky in selling his work to anyone. That changes as soon as he accidentally knocks over a flower pot, which lands on an annoying neighbor and makes the guy fall to his death.
- Tempting Fate: Jack's landlady asks Jack for his help carrying boxes of stuff down to the basement, since an old lady like her could trip and break her neck. Cut to the old lady being shoved down the stairs by Jack.
- A Tragedy of Impulsiveness: Jack kills the first person he sees in the hospital parking lot so he can paint his death and sell the painting to pay for Sharon's surgery. He never stopped to think it was the neurosurgeon who could easily save Sharon on his way to work.
- Troll: Jack's neighbor, an annoying punk rock enthusiast, blares his music while Jack is working. When Jack asks him to turn the noise down, he appears to comply... then plays the music louder.
- Tropaholics Anonymous: Jack attends a support group known as "Obsessives Anonymous" in order to control his flaring temper, his alcoholism, and his heavy bloodlust.
- Villain in a White Suit: Malcolm Mayflower, the gore-obsessed collector who sets Jack on his path to darkness.
- World of Jerkass: Jack may be a hot-tempered serial killer on the rise, but that isn't to say his victims are any better, such as Ellen, the promoter who shrugs him off and tells him to go back to drinking, the annoying neighbor who trolls him with his music, and his landlady, a snarky, smoking hag who mocks his unpopularity.
Crypt Keeper: (painting a new picture with a severed finger mounted on a stick) Well, Sharon's croaking is sure to leave a very bad taste on Jack's palate. What a shame she turned into such a... Moan-a Lisa. (cackles) You know kiddies, some artists prefer watercolors, others prefer oils, but me, I prefer... (gestures to the camera with his mounted finger) finger painting! (cackles)
