Three to get deadly and four to go... away.
Crypt Keeper: (wearing a loud suit and performing at a comedy club) I tell you, ladies and germs, that ghoul-friend of mine makes me so crazy. She told me she thought she'd look good in something long and flowing, so I threw her in the Mississippi! (Rimshot, the audience groans) Hmm. And how about that Ernest Hemingway, always shooting his mouth off! (he's met by dead silence again, only hearing the sound of Chirping Crickets) Oh. Hello? Anybody? I know you're out there, folks. I can hear you bleeding! (another Rimshot) Is this on? (taps his microphone, producing feedback) Hmm. I know what this crowd wants. A little slay on words! Maybe a couple of nasty fright gags?
Heckler: Get a life!
Crypt Keeper: Something along the lines of tonight's nasty nugget? It's a little tale about marriage, or if you prefer, about wife and death. I call it: Two for the Show.
Andy Conway, a self-absorbed workaholic who loves talking about himself non-stop, is taken aback when his wife Emma tells him that she's been having an affair and wants a divorce. Incensed at the news after initially talking over the announcement, mainly because a divorce will make him look like a pathetic schmuck to his friends, Andy tries to fight back against Emma's decision and ends up stabbing her to death. The altercation is brought to the attention of Barney Fine, a police officer who has marital issues similar to Andy's. After interrogating Andy and taking a suspiciously personal interest in the accusation of him murdering his wife, Barney leaves when it becomes apparent that nothing actually happened in Andy's apartment. After Barney leaves, Andy hacks up Emma's dead body, stuffs her in a suitcase, and boards a train to get rid of her corpse by way of throwing it out of the baggage car. As soon as Andy boards, he finds out that Barney has also boarded the train, leading to a psychological game of cat and mouse between the cop and the killer. Or is it the other way around?
Tropes:
- Adaptation Name Change: In the original story from Crime SuspenStories #17, the Villain Protagonist was named Harry Jameson, the wife was named Sarah, and the cop wasn't named at all.
- Adaptational Villainy: Barney. In the comic, he was just some nameless detective who got suspicious of the Villain Protagonist, which leads to various events seen here (the wife's corpse being chopped up, the husband's attempt to dispose of it, getting on the train, etc.). In the episode, Barney is a Dirty Cop who murdered his own wife in the exact same way and psychologically manipulated Andy to help him get away with it. This change was due to the episode maintaining the trunk switch; the comic version also had a chopped up body in the switched trunk, being the result of the twist from "One for the Money..." from the same issue. That story was never adapted into an episode and was too extraneous to include here, so the change was required.
- Ambiguously Bi: Pretty much averted. Emma and Barney's wife are ultimately revealed to have been bisexual, since both women were married to men, but were having an affair with each other.
- Awful Wedded Life: Emma and Andy, in spades. Barney and his own wife are implied to be equally miserable with one another.
- The Bad Guy Wins: Barney gets away with killing his wife and duping the FBI into arresting Andy, who may likely come face to face with the electric chair.
- Bury Your Gays: Both wives, Emma and Barney's wife, get murdered because the two women were having a passionate and romantic affair with each other.
- Chekhov's Gun: The ID card that Andy fills out before he gets on board the train, which is swapped for a different one by Barney.
- Chekhov's Gunman: The FBI agents who are set to search the train for drugs possibly being smuggled by a millionaire trafficker. Barney initially springs this on Andy in the dinner car and gets him paranoid to throw his corpse-filled luggage out early, but inadvertently abets Barney by exposing his crime to the agents when he meets them.
- The porter who also has Andy fill out his ID card for his luggage is also one, as Barney watching Andy fill out the card gives him the idea to swap it for another card, exposing his wife's corpse and letting Andy take the fall for his killing.
- Cut Himself Shaving: Andy gives Barney this excuse to explain a slash on his face, caused by Emma with a pair of scissors.
- Destroy the Evidence: The episode ends with Barney feeding Emma's corpse into his garbage disposal while reading a newspaper covering Andy's arrest.
- Dirty Cop: Barney is revealed to be one of these, having killed his wife, chopped up her body, and hoping to ditch the evidence via throwing the body (locked in a trunk) off a train. His entire goal was to find a patsy to pin his own murder on, and he accomplishes said goal by framing Andy for the murder of both men's wives.
- Disposing of a Body: Andy and Barney were plotting to dispose of their respective cheating wives' bodies by cutting them up, stuffing them a suitcase, and then throwing them off a moving train.
- Downer Ending: Andy is thrown in jail and will likely face the death penalty after Barney pins him for murdering both his wife and Emma, while he gets away with getting his own cheating wife out of the picture.
- Evil Sounds Deep; Barney's voice is low and deep, and his tone is stoic, establishing how he's a crooked cop who killed his cheating wife.
- Evil Versus Evil: The egotistical, wife-murdering, workaholic Andy goes up against a Dirty Cop who did the exact same thing.
- Flipping the Bird: Emma's severed arm looks as though it's doing this as Barney shoves it down his garbage disposal.
- Foreshadowing:
- The scene at the police station introduces us to Barney, showing him having an argument with his wife over the phone.
- While on the train, Barney and Andy discuss their marital issues with each other. In particular, Barney asks a "hypothetical" question: If you actually did murder your wife, how would you do it?
- While he's asking this question, Barney psyches Andy out by accurately depicting how the guy would murder his wife, and he does so in a way as though he knows from experience, even saying that they "have a lot in common."
- Framing the Guilty Party: Barney intended all along to frame Andy, who murdered his own wife, for murdering Barney's wife, too, so he could be cleared of killing her himself.
- If I Can't Have You…: Once Emma announces to Andy that she's having an affair and wants to leave him, Andy flies into a rage and kills her.
- It's All About Me: All Andy ever focuses on is himself, preaching nonstop about his accomplishments at work to the utterly bored Emma. In fact, the main reason he snaps at her when she wants a divorce and ultimately kills her is because he thinks a divorce will make him look like a schmuck in front of his co-workers.
- Jerkass: Make no mistake, Andy is a self-absorbed jerk, treating his wife as a trophy to show off to his co-workers, telling her to doll herself up for said co-workers when he drags her to boring weekend cocktail parties, talking over her and critiquing her behavior, and treating her finances as an "allowance" that he gives her money for like that of a child. And that's all before he kills her in a rage.
- Lipstick Lesbian: Emma and Barney's wife, both of whom were very feminine in style and were having an affair with one another. And one of whom is played by Traci Lords.
- Love Triangle: The result of Andy's publicized murder is framed as the result of such a triangle.
- Married to the Job: Andy only ever talks about how awesome he is at his job, and about how his co-workers idolize him.
- Memento MacGuffin: The class ring Andy and Barney find on the former's bedroom floor. Barney later reveals that it belonged to his wife, and she gave it to Emma when they started seeing each other.
- Not Helping Your Case: Barney's suspicions about why Andy wants to board a train for Chicago are increased when a porter tells Andy that he needs to sign his name and address so his luggage isn't lost, noting that the railway has a history of permanently losing suitcases.
- Not His Sled: Inverted. The story maintains the trunk switch, but due to "One for the Money..." not being made into an episode, or made part of this episode, the owner of the second trunk and the corpse within had to be changed.
- Overly Narrow Superlative: Barney delivers one to Emma's corpse as he shoves her into his garbage disposal: "You know, Emma, you don't look so bad for a woman who's been hacked up and thrown off a train."
- Paranoia Gambit: Barney, the cop who actually knew all along what Emma, Andy, and his wife have been up to, plays one on Andy. He follows Andy everywhere he goes, and keeps getting into his head with hints that he's onto him, saying that additional cops will be coming to his apartment, the Feds will be on the train for a random drug search, etc. It works perfectly for Barney in the end, where the irrational Andy ultimately blurts out that he killed Emma in front of FBI agents, who take him away and likely put him on death row.
- Pragmatic Adaptation: Since the showrunners needed to maintain the trunk switch for the twist, but didn't have the screen time to add "One for the Money..." onto the story, Barney was made to be the one with the other hacked up body in a trunk that Andy switched.
- "The Reason You Suck" Speech: Emma verbally tears Andy a new one with his obsession with his work and his constant talking down to her, but Andy is so absorbed into his latest yarn that he doesn't listen/believe Emma at first.
- Red Herring: The high school class ring that Andy finds on the floor of his and Emma's room. He initially thinks that Barney left it behind, but the cop himself shows him that he wears his own class ring with pride. Then, when Andy accuses Barney of having sex with Emma and mentioning the ring he found, Barney tells him that it's a woman's ring, and reveals that his wife gave it to Emma when the women began their affair.
- Right for the Wrong Reasons: Andy thinks Barney is the one having an affair with his wife. Emma was having an affair with someone Barney knows personally, but not Barney himself, which is why Barney has been after Andy the whole time.
- Small Role, Big Impact: Andy's unseen neighbor, who phones the police to report the disturbance between him and Emma, and gets Barney rather interested in the case.
- Spot the Thread: Barney assures one of the FBI agents that Andy didn't kill both of their wives. He explains that Emma left on a plane for Cancun... except Andy's cover story was that she went to Chicago.
- Stalker without a Crush: Barney follows Andy everywhere he goes after the two first meet, as part of his above-mentioned Paranoia Gambit.
- Strange Minds Think Alike: Unbeknownst to Andy, Barney, the officer who interrogated him over Emma's murder, did the exact same thing that Andy did with Emma to his own wife (kill them, cut them up, stuff them into a trunk, and board a train to get rid of the evidence.)
- "Strangers on a Train"-Plot Murder: Indirectly. Andy and Barney had murdered their own wives in the exact same way, and had boarded the same train in order to dispose of the bodies. The swap comes into play when Barney manages to trick Andy into taking the fall for his murder.
- Thriller on the Express: Andy and Barney find themselves on the same train after committing the same crime, where the crooked cop psyches Andy out by making him think that the FBI is plotting to search the train when it arrives in Peoria, falsely convincing Andy that he's on the train because one of the passengers is a millionaire who's smuggling drugs on the train who he's tasked with busting.
- Trophy Wife: Andy strongly hints that he views Emma as one of these.
- Unwitting Pawn: Andy is the unknowing fall guy for Barney, who aims to pin him for the murder of his own wife by his hand.
- Villain of Another Story: Barney apparently found out everything that his wife was up to, and with whom, before the episode began. He sets his sights on Andy to dupe him into taking the fall for his own murder of his own adulterous wife, who he dealt with in the same way Andy did.
- Assuming his lies have some kernel of truth to them, Barney points out that one of the passengers is a drug-smuggling millionaire he's working to bust, and he's the reason why the FBI is plotting to search the whole train.
- Villain with Good Publicity: Barney is viewed as a responsible officer by the FBI agents who raid the train searching for drugs, who arrest Andy for the murder Barney himself committed.
- Villain Protagonist: Andy, who kills his wife and boards a train to ditch her body.
- Wham Shot: After swapping tags with a different trunk in the luggage compartment, Andy decides to open it to show Barney and the FBI that he doesn't have anything of note inside... only for it to reveal a cut up corpse. What really makes things bad about this? It's not Emma's corpse. It's the corpse of Barney's wife. It turns out Emma was having her affair with Barney's wife, something that Andy did not know about while Barney did. Barney uses this reveal to pin the blame on Andy for murdering both of their wives.
- Whole-Plot Reference: To Strangers on a Train, given that it focuses on two strangers aboard a train who share a connection in the form of spousal murder.
- Workaholic: Andy is noted to pay far more attention to his work life than his married life.
- World of Jerkass: Our main protagonist is a self-absorbed bore who only cares about his standing at his job who kills his cheating wife when she tries to leave him, and his rival is a crooked cop who did the exact same thing with his own cheating wife. The only thing the viewer needs to worry about in the end is who gets caught, since redeeming anyone in this episode is impossible.
- Yandere: Andy murdered his wife Emma because she was having an affair and was planning to ditch him. Barney murdered his wife for the same reason.
Crypt Keeper: (still onstage) That Barney's my kind of guy. He comes up with a plan, but it's Andy who has to hatchet. (snickers) I guess it's true what they say: Better dead than wed! (another Rimshot, he is once more met with silence) Hmm. Time for my finish. (whips out a grenade, then pulls the pin and lobs it into the audience, where it explodes, leaving all the skeletons in the crowd in pieces) Now, that's what I call bombing! Take my life, please! (a final Rimshot sounds as he cackles)
