Beauty Rest
And the title of "Miss Homicide" goes to...
Crypt Keeper: (wearing a skull headband and doing push-ups) Seven. (notices the viewers) Hello, kiddies. What's sinew? (cackles wheezily) I was just in the middle of my deadly dozen. First, I do a few pull ups, then a few jumping hacks, and then I like to finish with a little die impact aerobics. (lets out another wheezy cackle, then does another push-up) Eight. I'm getting in shape for tonight's tale. It's about an ambitious young actress who's looking for her big break. Will she make it? Only her scare-dresser knows for sure. (more wheezy laughter and another push-up) Ohhhhh. I call this dismal drama: Beauty Rest.
Helen (Mimi Rogers) has spent the last ten years trying to make her big break into the world of modeling, but she has little to show for her efforts, thanks in large part to her rotten attitude. After losing out on a commercial audition to her roommate Joyce Palmer (Kathy Ireland), she accuses Joyce of sleeping with the director to get the role. Joyce denies doing this, but she does show off a note written by a man she's been seeing. The note is intended for George (Buck Henry), the MC of an upcoming beauty pageant, and it directs him to make her the winner. Despondent over Joyce's beauty and easy success, Helen prepares to kill herself with sleeping pills, but she stops just short of swallowing them and instead decides to mix them into a cup of tea she gives to Joyce, intending to put her to sleep long enough for Helen to take her place in the pageant. The dose turns out to be far too strong, and Joyce dies in seconds.
Helen stages the incident as a suicide, then reports for the pageant in Joyce's place, showing the note to George in order to enter. She is put in a dressing room with another contestant named Druscilla (Jennifer Rubin), who regards her with scorn and demeans her as having slept her way in, just as Helen did to Joyce. During a Question & Answer segment with George, Helen learns that the pageant emphasizes "What you are on the inside" as its central theme. Partway through the competition, George suddenly reneges on his promise to make Helen the winner, after which she discovers Druscilla has not only slept with him, but has also threatened to sue him for sexual harassment unless she wins. Helen snaps and strangles Druscilla to death, then tells George that she decided to drop her complaint and withdraw from the pageant. When George asks Helen if she still wants the prize, she accepts, upon which she's hustled into a dimly-lit back room, where a makeup artist begins slathering cosmetics onto her face. George injects her with a syringe of glowing blue liquid as she struggles in vain to break free. During the finale of the pageant, George sings as Helen's corpse, her torso sliced open and her internal organs on display for the cheering crowd, is revealed as winner of the title: "Miss Autopsy 1992."
Tropes:
- Accidental Murder: Helen puts a boatload of sleeping pills in Joyce's tea in an attempt to knock her unconscious so she can take her place in the pageant. She ends up putting one too many pills in and Joyce winds up dead.
- Always Someone Better: As far as can be told, there will always be another woman who one-ups Helen at everything, from Joyce to Druscilla. The only way she finally wins something is to murder both of them, and even then, she doesn't actually get to enjoy her "victory".
- The Bad Guy Wins: George and the pageant staff crown Helen the winner... posthumously. They're not showing any signs of stopping the pageants anytime soon, either.
- Be Careful What You Wish For: After struggling for years to make it as a model, Helen finally wins a beauty pageant by killing her competitors (one accidentally, the other on purpose). Unfortunately for her, this pageant can only be won posthumously.
- Beauty Contest: The main setting of the episode is one of these, and it's simultaneously Played for Drama and horror.
- Blackmail: Druscilla plots to sue pageant MC George, who's sleeping with her, on charges of sexual harassment if she isn't made the winner.
- Call-Back:
- The Crypt Keeper's closing segment has him using the same dumbbell that he used in The Switch.
- The pizza box Helen pulls out of Joyce's fridge is that of Zemeckis Pizza, the chain named after executive producer Robert Zemeckis that was previously featured in The Trap and Undertaking Palor.
- Casting Couch: Helen accuses Joyce of sleeping with Emilio to get the Ball Buster job, as well as at least two other commercials before that, and in an ironic dose of karma, her rival Druscilla later accuses her of doing the same thing to get into the pageant. Near the end, Druscilla shamelessly reveals to Helen that she's doing it herself with George, threatening to sue him for sexual harassment to force him to crown her as the winner.
- "Could Have Avoided This!" Plot: It soon comes to light that if Helen hadn't spiked Joyce's tea and just let her go to that pageant and give George the note saying "Make sure she gets it!", she would've been the one in Helen's position, freeing Helen of her rival and giving her an easier shot at getting her big break.
- Dead Guy on Display: Helen winds up being killed by the pageant staff, who slice her chest open for all to see and carefully pose the corpse as the winner of "Miss Autopsy 1992".
- Die Laughing: Joyce overdoses on the sleeping pills Helen drugs her tea with while she's laughing about the prize for the pageant.
- Dies Wide Open: Joyce's eyes and mouth are left stuck in a wide-open face of shock when she overdoses.
- Downer Ending: After all the strife she goes through, including murdering two women, Helen finally gets her shot at fame by winning the pageant. Unfortunately, this comes about because she's killed and has her corpse split open to be presented for the sociopathic audience at the event. The pageant staff also show no signs of stopping the event every year, even if they have to abduct women right off the streets like they used to do in the old days.
- Driven to Suicide: Believing that Joyce slept with Emilio to get the Ball Buster job, Helen attempts to kill herself by gulping down sleeping pills, but then gets another idea of what to do with those pills.
- Even Evil Has Standards: The question that George gives Helen during the interview segment is about the guiltiest thing she ever did, as well as why she did it, hinting that he's aware of how she really got accepted into the pageant.
- Exact Words: George's note from Tom has the message "Make sure she "gets it"!" regarding the winner of the pageant. The end of the episode has Helen, becoming the winner by default, "getting it" in a way that she never sees coming.
- There's also a line about how the pageant is about how "It's what's inside that counts". It turns out that this is referring to the winner's internal organs.
- Foreshadowing: Helen's lines during the Ball Buster commercial, where she talks about how she's not just any woman and how she wants to be taken seriously, spells out her entire character arc and her atrocious attitude before the commercial is over. As her agent Archie says, she truly is "the Ball Buster Girl".
- For Want Of A Nail: As noted above, if Helen didn't give Joyce the spiked tea, Joyce would have been the one to be killed, sliced up, and nailed to a board, and Helen would have gotten her big break a lot easier.
- Additionally, if she backed out and let Druscilla win the rigged pageant, Druscilla would have fared the same fate and Helen could've gotten away from George and the others.
- Four Eyes, Zero Soul: George is the evil, bespectacled leader of the sinister group that organizes the pageants. His glasses also ominously reflect the glowing syringe he gives Helen a lethal injection of.
- Frivolous Lawsuit: Druscilla plans to sue George (who she slept with) for everything he's got on phony charges of sexual harassment if she isn't crowned the winner of the pageant.
- The Ghost: Tom, the man who sets the plot in motion by making Joyce (and Helen, indirectly) the rigged winner of the ghastly pageant, is never seen in the episode itself.
- Gilligan Cut: Emilio, the Ball Buster commercial director, applauds Helen's performance and assures that the role is hers. Cut to Helen in Archie's office, unable to believe that she didn't get the part.
- Gleeful and Grumpy Pairing: Helen is the grump who wants nothing to do with Joyce, the sweet and gleeful rival who she feels is ruining her chances for a modeling career.
- HA HA HA—No: A variation occurs when Helen demands that Archie tell her who got the role in the Ball Buster commercial. Archie humorously jokes that he doesn't understand why the auditioning process works the way it does and unloads a bit of fake laughter, then bluntly tells her that Joyce got the part.
- Hate Sink: Helen may be a grumpy nag after years of failure, but her rival Druscilla is a malevolent manipulator who's a great deal more evil than her, as she hypocritically accuses Helen of sleeping with the pageant directors to take part in the show, hurls several insults at her in the process, and admits near the end that she's not only doing the same with George, but is also suing him for sexual harassment if she isn't made the winner. It's nothing short of a relief when Helen breaks the wicked woman's neck in a blind rage.
- Heartbreak and Ice Cream: Freshly returning to Joyce's apartment after firing Archie, Helen snacks on a rice cake to ease her pain. As soon as Joyce enters the room, she switches to spitefully gorging herself on Joyce's ice cream. And after that, she goes for some cold pizza.
- Hypocrite: Druscilla accuses Helen of sleeping with Tom to get into the pageant and win it, and after Helen had previously accused Joyce of sleeping with directors to appear in commercials. As it turns out, not only is she doing the same with George, but she's also planning to sue him for sexual harassment if he doesn't crown her the winner.
- Ironic Echo: As George reminds Helen, it's what's on the inside that counts, and the pageant takes this theme quite literally.
- It's All About Me: Helen has a sharply self-centered mindset, firmly believing that everyone around her is at fault for her failing career when its really her horrific attitude and insecurities.
- Karma Houdini: George and the rest of the pageant staff come out on top, free to keep slicing up unsuspecting women at their leisure... and may even go back to straight up abducting them like Rudi wanted to do.
- Lingerie Scene: Courtesy of Joyce, played by the drop dead gorgeous Kathy Ireland.
- Loser Protagonist: Helen is one of the more pathetic protagonists of the series, losing out on desperately needed deals for commercial gigs and modeling opportunities to the younger and hotter roommate who she insists is sleeping her way in, is derided as a shameless slut just as she previously did to said roommate (by a woman who admits that she's one-upping her by suing the pageant host for sexual harassment), and is ultimately gutted like a fish for a bloodthirsty audience of sociopaths.
- Meaningful Name: Joyce is perpetually cheerful and upbeat, even as Helen rebukes her.
- My God, What Have I Done?: Helen is absolutely mortified when she finds out the drugged tea she gives Joyce causes her to overdose, but it quickly disappears when she frames the incident as a suicide and moves ahead with taking her place at the pageant.
- Never My Fault: Helen is actually pretty attractive for a woman her age, but as Archie tells her, she has a pretentious and rotten attitude. It's glaringly obvious that this attitude, along with her self-centered mindset and various insecurities, is what's actually keeping her from hitting the big time, instead of the younger women she insists are sleeping their way to the top. Archie even says that she's viewed as "the Ball Buster Girl" for a reason.
- Never Suicide: After Joyce overdoses on the drugged tea she gives her, Helen manages to set up the scene to look like she deliberately overdosed on the sleeping pills, thanks to the shame of her supposedly being a slut.
- Nice Girl: Despite what Helen may say about her, Joyce is a cheerful and happy young lady who's as friendly as she is beautiful. She does get a bit angry at Helen for eating her food and accusing her of stealing her opportunities for stardom thanks to her alleged willingness to sleep with directors, but she manages to cool herself and insists that she hasn't done anything to Helen personally, even telling her that she understands the stress she's going through trying to make it big.
- Nightmare Fetishist: The episode seems to be set in a world full of them, given that a popular pageant committee routinely abducts and kills women, then slices them open like frogs in a biology classroom for an audience that applaud the gutted corpses as if they were pageant queens.
- Parody Commercial: Helen opens the episode filming a commercial for Ball Buster Perfume, ostensibly for no-nonsense women who want to make it big.
- Post-Stress Overeating: Helen stuffs her face with junk food as Joyce's happy-go-lucky attitude drives her mad with jealousy, rage, envy, and a smorgasbord of negative emotions.
- Punch-Clock Villain: It's implied with George and the rest of the pageant staff. The man himself does his job with a smile, but he privately warns Helen to get out while she can. Just before this, there's also his question about the guiltiest thing Helen's ever done and her motives for doing so, hinting that he can tell what exactly Helen did to get into the pageant.
- Recycled Premise: This episode basically has the exact same plot as Top Billing, since both episodes have desperate protagonists who resort to murder to get a part intended for their rivals in order to get their big break, only to be killed for the twisted satisfaction of their "directors". The protagonists even murder their rivals in the exact same way.
- The Rival: Helen has to put up with two of them over the course of the episode.
- Her roommate Joyce is a pretty big threat to her chances at stardom, but in a partial inversion of the trope, Joyce playfully humors Helen's burning hatred of her and isn't even aware that she got the commercial gig she initially wanted.
- Druscilla plays the trope far straighter, being a lot more vile about winning the pageant and resorting to shamelessly underhanded means to do so.
- Slave to PR: George's makeup artist, Rudi, hates the beauty pageant idea that George came up with to disguise their racket, and wants to go back to the old days of "picking them off the streets". That right there is the final red flag that Helen should have heeded, which she tragically does not.
- The Sociopath: George and his staff are pretty blatant ones for what they do to aspiring pageant queens, and the audiences who willingly attend these pageants and applaud the "winners" are a whole other story.
- Suicide by Pills: The episode begins with Helen, failing to land another modeling gig after trying for 10 years and hearing that her loathed roommate got the gig she was promised, preparing to end her life by downing sleeping pills. She stops herself and puts the pills in the cup of tea she brings to Joyce, intending to knock her out so she can take her place in an upcoming beauty pageant. The dose is too strong and Helen ends up accidentally killing her.
- Too Good for This Sinful Earth: Joyce, the nicest character in the episode, who understood what Helen was going through and wanted to help as best as she could despite her alleged eagerness to sleep with directors for acting gigs, dies after Helen causes her to overdose on sleeping pill-spiked tea.
- True Beauty Is on the Inside: This is the often-repeated theme of the pageant, and the ending shows that it's meant in a very literal sense.
- Villain with Good Publicity: George and the pageant directors are treated as respected professionals regarding their abduction and dissection of women. It's justified at the end, which reveals that their audience and fanbase are equally sadistic.
- Wrap-Up Song: George ends the episode by singing a tribute song to "lucky winner" Helen, whose dissected corpse is on display to the bloodthirsty pageant audience.
Crypt Keeper: (holding a dumbbell made of bones with two skulls on the end) Good old Helen. Talk about an opening night! Now, that's what I call a horrid body. Well, I got to get back to my workout, kiddies. (lifts the dumbbell once) Ooh, I love that burn! (cackles)
