None but the Lonely Heart
Til' death, as they say...
Crypt Keeper: (dressed as a waiter and tending to a skeletal couple at a table; he stands by another skeleton playing a violin) Damn you, Marcel! I told you they wanted violence, not violins! (he smacks the skeleton and knocks it over) Good help is so hard to fiend, isn't it, kiddies? (to the couple) Want a little more cham-pain? (snickers; to the camera) I hope you're hungry for tonight's murderous menu. It concerns a man who's discovered that the fastest way to a woman's heart... is with a pickaxe! I call this tasty little horror d'oeuvre: None but the Lonely Heart.
Howard Prince (Treat Williams) is a sociopathic criminal who routinely courts rich elderly widows, seducing them hard enough that they agree to tie the knot with him. Once they hand over all their goods, he poisons them and leaves them to die while he reaps their riches to his twisted heart's content. Howard's partner Morty (Clive Rosengren) informs him that their rather hefty bank accounts have been noticed by the IRS, who have frozen them and sent Howard a subpoena for tax evasion. Upon hearing this, Howard decides to seduce one last old lady before he goes on the run, visiting the offies of the Forever Yours video dating service, owned by his unknowing accomplice Baxter (Tom Hanks), to check the potential candidates. Howard soon settles on Effie Gluckman (Frances Sternhagen), who predictably falls for him as her butler Stanhope (Henry Gibson) grows suspicious of his motives. Howard begins discovering that someone has been sending notes to him, saying they know about what he's done and warning him to stop. When the notes don't stop coming, even after he murders one potential culprit after another, Howard goes mad with paranoia trying to find the actual blackmailer.
Tropes:
- Adaptational Alternate Ending: In the comic, Howard is dragged into a coffin by an undead woman (one he didn't kill, by the way) to spend eternity with his "new bride." In the episode, he suffers an even more ghastly fate, courtesy of the reanimated corpses of all his murdered wives.
- Adaptational Villainy: Howard. His counterpart in the comic murdered his wives, but only his wifes. He also knew when to cut his losses, and was going to give up his scheme when he found his latest mark. The episode's version of Howard is a full on psychopath who kills anyone and everyone he thinks might be on to him, even his accomplices.
- Age-Gap Romance: Howard's chosen victims are rich old women looking for a man to spend their last years with.
- Alliterative Name: One of Howard's late wives was named Matilda Mason.
- Asshole Victim: Howard is one of the biggest ones in the entire series. There's also his accomplice, Morty, who assisted him in the murders and kept his finances from looking spotty to the IRS.
- As You Know: Morty and Howard's banter at Matilda's funeral lets the audience know about Howard's racket, and the fact that Howard already murdered his first two wives.
- Axe-Crazy: When his plan starts falling apart, Howard very quickly switches gears from a charming manipulator to a homicidal lunatic.
- Battle Butler: Subverted. Stanhope catches onto Howard and holds him at gunpoint, but Howard manages to call his bluff and correctly deduce that he doesn't have it in him to pull the trigger.
- Bittersweet Ending: The entire cast is dead by the end, but Howard ends up paying for his many crimes.
- Blackmail: The notes that Howard is given warn him to stop playing with old women's emotions, lest he face the consequences.
- The Bluebeard: Howard is a classic case. He preys on rich and lonely elderly women, charms them into marrying him, and finally murders them for their fortunes.
- The Cameo: Sugar Ray Leonard, the world famous boxer, plays the gravedigger at the cemetery, and Howard murders him when he's believed to be the only remaining suspect behind the blackmail notes.
- Cassandra Truth: The gravedigger tries to warn Howard who's sending the notes to him and what they're planning to do. Howard doesn't listen and kills him, since he seemed to be the only possible person who was sending him the notes.
- Continuity Nod: The episode's writer, Terry Black, is credited as Donald Longtooth.
- Covers Always Lie: The comic book cover for the episode shows Howard shoving an old woman in a wedding dress down a flight of stairs. Howard does this to Effie, but she isn't wearing a wedding dress when it happens.
- Creator Cameo: Tom Hanks, who directed this episode, plays Baxter, the manager of the Forever Yours video dating service who (possibly unknowingly) helps Howard pick out potential marks. When Howard thinks of him as the source behind the notes, he kills him by shoving him headfirst into a TV screen.
- Cruel and Unusual Death: Howard routinely inflicts these on the old ladies he pretends to fall in love with, and his male victims fare no better:
- He crushes Morty's windpipe by jamming his tie in a paper shredder.
- He shoves Baxter's head through a TV screen.
- He breaks Stanhope's neck with his bare hands.
- Finally, he impales the gravedigger with his own shovel.
- Howard himself ends the episode falling victim to a particularly horrific one, where he is slowly, gruesomely, and very painfully devoured by the zombified corpses of the old women he murdered.
- Devoured by the Horde: How Howard meets his end, courtesy of his zombified wives.
- Diabolus ex Machina: While Howard's zombified ex-wives give the sick bastard what he deserves, their reveal, as well as the reason they reanimated, is never given any explanation or foreshadowing whatsoever.
- Disproportionate Retribution: Believing that the gravedigger, the only possible suspect behind the blackmail notes, is wasting his time by warning him of what's about to happen, Howard pointlessly kills him with his own shovel.
- Dirty Coward: Howard is a smug and sadistic bastard for most of the episode, but when he's cornered by his undead wives, all he can do is scream and cry.
- Even Evil Has Standards: As much of a monster as Howard is, he says to Morty that he wouldn't just take his victims' money and leave them to die broke and alone. In his words, he does his victims a favor by making them feel happy and loved before he kills them. How much of that is just bullshit he tells himself, like Morty seems to think, is up to interpretation.
- "Everybody Dies" Ending: One of the few episodes where the ENTIRE cast is dead by the end.
- Faux Affably Evil: Howard can turn on the charm at a moment's notice, but he's utterly irredeemable.
- Genre Shift: The story seems like a down-to-Earth tale about a disgusting murderer who preys on old women, but the final minutes reveal that the reanimated corpses of Howard's ex-wives were the ones sending him the notes.
- Ghostly Goals: As Howard's undead wives tell him: "We couldn't live without you. And we can't die without you."
- Gold Digger: Howard, who marries widowed, rich old women, kills them, and steals all their assets.
- Hate Sink: The episode does everything it can to remind you that Howard is an utterly irredeemable monster. He's a shameless Serial Killer, an absolute jackass to anyone he interacts with, and possesses no likable or redeeming qualities of any kind (he even murders Tom Hanks!). Watching him be devoured alive by the old ladies whose lonely hearts he fooled with is downright cathartic after everything he's shown doing.
- Head Smashes Screen: Baxter croaks when Howard rams his head through Forever Yours' TV. In a bit of screwed-up humor, the TV keeps sparking and causing Baxter's corpse to twitch until Howard uses the remote to turn it off.
- Ignored Enamored Underling: It's implied that Stanhope performs a background check on Howard and threatens Howard because he has his own feelings for Effie, in addition to caring for her as his employer.
- Impaled with Extreme Prejudice: Howard subjects this fate to the gravedigger, the only logical culprit behind the notes, with the business end of his own shovel.
- It's All About Me: Howard's self-absorbed nature is what leads to his doom, as he never listens to anyone because what they tell him isn't how he wants it to be.
- I Warned You: The gravedigger warns Howard that "they" are coming for him and that he needs to start running. Howard doesn't heed this warning and kills the guy with his own shovel, just before his reanimated wives sink their teeth into his flesh.
- Jerkass: Howard is an absolute prick, and that's when he isn't killing innocent old ladies.
- Karmic Twist Ending: Howard is devoured by the undead wives he brutally murdered.
- Kick the Dog: Howard spends the entire episode doing this. Of particular note is his lament on how he had to waste such a nice bottle of wine after poisoning Matilda, his first onscreen victim.
- Killer Outfit: When Howard kills Morty, he demonstrates why neckties and paper shredders are a really bad combination.
- Lack of Empathy: Howard and his partner Morty aren't even a smidge upset after their deeds. Howard takes it up several notches when he murders Morty himself.
- Likes Older Women: Howard does. Or at least, he likes their money.
- The Loins Sleep Tonight: Howard lies to Effie that he suffers from impotence, excusing why he isn't able to perform that well in bed.
- The Lost Lenore: Effie's departed husband Theodore, whom she still holds a candle for at first.
- Love Hurts: Howard's victims really do love him... so much that they literally can't die without him, hoping to take a piece (or several) of him back to the grave with them.
- Manipulative Bastard: Howard can't be described as anything but.
- Murder Is the Best Solution: Even by this show's standards, Howard is a murder junkie, killing old women for their riches and everyone else around him when he thinks that they're on to him.
- Mysterious Note: Howard is given notes from an unidentified source who knows his modus operandi and warns him to stop before he kills Effie. The end of the episode reveals that his undead wives are the culprits.
- Neck Snap: How Howard kills Stanhope, breaking his neck with his own two hands.
- No Honor Among Thieves: Howard is more than willing to kill his accomplices, should he suspect them of trying to blackmail him.
- No Name Given: The gravedigger, who delivers the notes to Howard under the command of his zombified wives.
- Not Quite Dead: Howard's poison doesn't kill Effie like it did his other wives, so he improvises by shoving her down her stairs.
- Nothing Personal: Howard insists that what he does is just business, but no one else believes him... and for good reason.
- Our Zombies Are Different: Each of Howard's wives are in different states of decomposition:
- Effie and Matilda, his most recent victims, are still freshly rotting and slimy.
- Elizabeth, his second wife, is a dried-up husk that resembles a mummy.
- Clair, his first wife, is a worm-riddled skeleton in a torn wedding dress.
- Poetic Serial Killer: Howard watches Matilda writhe and die from the poisoned wine he slips her while reciting Andrew Marvell's "To His Coy Mistress".
- Poisoned Drink Drop: Howard's usual method for snuffing out one of his marks is to give them poisoned wine.
- The Power of Love: Howard's wives' love for him allows them to return from the grave, telling him that they can't live (or die) without him.
- Properly Paranoid: Effie could apparently sense that Howard wanted her money, but the man's sweet talk managed to persuade her otherwise.
- Red Herring: Every man who isn't Howard seems to have valid reasons for sending him the notes, which keep coming after he kills each of them, with Stanhope being the most prominent. With everyone else dead, Howard assumes that the gravedigger at the cemetery, who pocketed a piece of his suit before digging Matilda's grave, is behind the notes. He didn't write them, but he delivered them because Howard's undead wives asked him to.
- Sadist: Howard very much enjoys killing, as much as he insists that it's Nothing Personal. He's so addicted to killing that he kills every other character in the episode through one way or another.
- Screw This, I'm Outta Here: Morty tells Howard that the authorities are closing in on them, as their bank accounts having been frozen and they're due before a grand jury on charges of tax evasion in 11 days. Morty's content to take what money they have left and flee to a country with no extradition, but Howard's relentless greed makes him tell Morty that they aren't ready to leave the US just yet.
- Serial Killer: Matilda, Howard's first on-screen kill, is actually his third In-Universe victim.
- Serial Spouse: Howard ends the episode with a total of four wives, one he murders late in the episode, one he murders in the beginning, and two more that he murdered before the episode began.
- The Sociopath: Howard is a master of feigning love and empathy to reel in his victims, before he kills them without mercy.
- Staircase Tumble: This is how Effie ultimately meets her maker, as Howard has to "improvise" when his poisoned wine doesn't do the trick.
- Stealth Pun: Howard Prince is a manipulative and murderous psychopath; he's a literal Prince Charmless.
- Tampering with Food and Drink: Howard's routine with his wives is to kill them with poisoned wine. He doesn't show such a subtle method of murder with his male victims, and Effie's death show's that he's willing to Make It Look Like an Accident if need be.
- Terrible Interviewees Montage: Howard spends one scene fast forwarding through womens' dating videos as he looks for victims. None of their applications are any good to him, until he comes across Effie's video.
- Together in Death: The goal of Howard's zombified ex-wives, which they accomplish in a rather gruesome manner.
- Villain Protagonist: Howard Prince, one of the biggest villains ever to appear on this show.
- Villains Want Mercy: In the last moments of his life, Howard begs his undead wives not to kill him, to no avail.
- Voice of the Legion: Each of Howard's wives speak in a distorted voice when they return from the dead.
- Would Harm a Senior: Howard preys exclusively on rich elderly widows who desperately want some male company in their twilight years.
- Wrong Genre Savvy: Howard originally assumes that his accomplice Morty is the one blackmailing him, so he kills him, and then kills Baxter the Forever Yours owner, Effie's butler Stanhope, and the gravedigger who buried his wives when the notes keep coming. The end reveals that the zombified wives themselves are the responsible party.
- You Wouldn't Shoot Me: When Stanhope holds Howard at gunpoint and threatens to kill him unless he breaks up with Effie, Howard calls his bluff, realizing that as protective as the man is, he doesn't have it in him to kill someone. Sadly for Stanhope, Howard doesn't have that problem, using the opportunity to break his neck.
Crypt Keeper: (still tending to the skeletal couple, filling a wine glass for them) Now that's what I call a happy ending. I had a feeling Effie would win Howard's heart. Not to mention his spleen, his kidneys, and his gallbladder! (cackles) So, will there be anything else? (the woman-dressed skeleton's head falls off and shatters) Mmmmm. I love a ghoul who gives you head... and then lets you keep it! (cackles)
