The False Prophet
Cassie Pines (Ronee Blakely), a superstitious ditz heeding the advice of the electronic fortune teller Madame X, travels to Texas to find her soulmate. At a roadside diner, she finds Horace X, another electronic fortune teller who forbids her from continuing her journey, telling her to "beware of false prophets". Horace's prediction seems to have some merit when the bus Cassie was riding suddenly explodes. When Horace still repeats his warning and gets rather attracted to Cassie, in walks Heat Jones (Justin Deas), a lecherous priest who might be the very prophet Horace was warning Cassie about.
Tropes:
- The Bad Guy Wins: Horace X absorbs Cassie inside him, never letting her go again.
- Does This Remind You of Anything?: The fact that Horace X only treats Cassie kindly when it suits him, otherwise treating her badly if she thinks for herself or tries to leave, has all the red flags of a toxic and controlling relationship.Horace X: Touch me, Cassie. Touch me now.
- Downer Ending: Thanks to her sheer stupidity and insecurity, Cassie allows Horace X to absorb her inside him, leaving her trapped inside his metallic shell.
- Dumb Blonde: Cassie is a complete and utter moron. Aside from the low intellect of a stereotypical dumb blonde, she's a gullible, insecure, weak-willed individual who doesn't have a single solitary thought of her own that isn't focused on superstition and/or astrology. The clincher is that it doesn't cross her mind, not even once, that Horace X doesn't have her best interests at heart. Her continuous siding with Horace X ultimately gets her absorbed inside him forever.
- Establishing Character Moment: Cassie's first few minutes onscreen consist of her blathering to a waitress about astrology, rabbit's feet, and fortune-telling machines, then has her twisting the stem of an apple to guess the first letter of her true love's name. If you didn't know by now, Cassie depends entirely on pure superstition to tell her what to do, rather than common sense and self-reliance.
- Evil All Along: Madame X, the first fortune-telling machine Cassie spoke to, turns out to be Horace X's mother, having lured Cassie to him so her son can find the "love of his life".
- Fortune Teller: Horace X and his mother are evil, electronic variations who don't have their customers' best interests at heart.
- Horrible Judge of Character: Cassie fully believes everything Madame X and her son Horace say to her, and her complete and total dependance on them has her absorbed inside the latter for eternity.
- I Have You Now, My Pretty: Horace ends the episode by having his "lover" inside of him for the rest of time.
- Jerkass Has a Point: Heat is a borderline rapist and the "false prophet" Horace X warns Cassie about, but he's not wrong to advise Cassie that living in the here and now is better than complete dependence on knowing the future. He also points out to Cassie that if Horace X's prediction about the exploding bus was correct, there would've been police and fire trucks converging on the scene by now.
- Not Helping Your Case: Heat tries to pry Cassie away from Horace X's control, but he isn't doing himself any favors by actively molesting her as she tries to escape him.
- Nothing Is Scarier: How does Horace X absorb Cassie inside him? We don't see it happen, all we get is a human-shaped ash pile when it's done.
- Prophecy Twist: It comes into play twice. First, Madame X told Cassie that she would marry a Sagittarius. Cassie thought she would find her soulmate in Texas, but it turns out that Madame was talking about her son, Horace X. Second, Horace warns Cassie against "false prophets", one of whom Cassie thinks is Heat Jones, but that moniker applies to Horace himself as well.
- Red Screen, Take Warning: Horace X's screen goes red with fury when Cassie tries leaving him, or when Heat tries seducing her.
- Red Herring: The sleazy Heat Jones appears to be a walking red flag for anyone who crosses his path, but he's not the true false prophet of the episode.
- Reduced to Dust: Once Horace X absorbs Cassie inside him, her body collapses and disintegrates into a smoldering, person-shaped pile of ash.
- Right for the Wrong Reasons: Heat tries to plead with Cassie that it's unwise of her to rely solely on superstitious nonsense like Horace X to control her decisions, because he's just a machine. He is right on one account: Cassie shouldn't trust Horace X. And that's because he's more than a machine.
- Sinister Minister: Heat Jones, the "false prophet" Horace X warns Cassie about, is a downplayed version. He's not actively malicious, but he's very sleazy and lecherous, constantly harassing Cassie and feeling her up.
- Small Role, Big Impact: The waitress who introduces Cassie to Horace X, saying her husband bought him for their diner.
- Spanner in the Works: The diner owner who bought Horace X, and Horace's mother Madame X, who brought Cassie to him.
- Too Dumb to Live: Cassie is devoted to superstition and astrology, and Horace X and his mother take advantage of that fact to easily persuade her to be absorbed inside the former. Cassie even ignores Heat's point-blank explanation to her that she needs to live in the moment and make her own decisions, just so she can keep getting predictions from Horace.
- Yandere: Horace X, who creepily prods Cassie into staying with him and touching his screen, and gets hostile around Heat.
