Parlour Floor Front
Doug and Linda (John Calonius and Donna Bullock), a young couple who have bought a large house in the city to renovate, learn that the only hurdle to their new lives is Mars Gillis (Adolph Caesar), a kindly old Haitian man who has been living with his sister in the parlor floor front, the building's best room, for 40 years. Linda sees Mars as a burden to her new property, especially seeing as how he's a practitioner of voodoo. She has attempted to drive him out of the building, but has been unable to evict him under the local rent control laws, so she instead hatches a new plan to blame him for various mishaps after he supposedly places a voodoo curse on them.
Tropes:
- Awful Wedded Life: Linda's burning hatred for Mars and his way of life gets Doug riled up, and he straight up ditches her when he learns she lied about a miscarriage and killed their cat as part of her plan to drive him to suicide.
- Bad People Abuse Animals: Linda shamelessly poisons her cat so she can blame its death as a statistic of Mars' curse.
- Beware the Nice Ones: After being driven to hang himself, the kindly Mars has nothing but vengeance in mind for the woman who drove him to do so.
- Bitch in Sheep's Clothing: Linda wants herself and her husband to live a loving life together in a big house, but she utterly despises Mars for his religion and the fact he can't be evicted like she wants him to be. To this end, after he supposedly curses the couple, she kills her cat and pretends to have miscarried an unborn child to force Mars out of the building, driving him to suicide by gaslighting him and making him feel guilty for something he didn't actually do. After her husband rightly ditches her, she tries to steal a ring she gave to Mars from his coffin. Despite being told to not steal anything, since all the evil in Mars' customers has accumulated in the gold his corpse possesses, she swipes her ring anyway, prompting Mars' ghost to brutally kill her.
- Bittersweet Ending: Mars kills himself, but he gets revenge on Linda for her lies driving him to his fate.
- Bookends: The episode begins with Linda sealing some cracks on the walls, claiming that she enjoys it and that cracks are meant to be sealed. The ending has Mars' ghost return from the grave to take Linda's ring back, his supernatural presence re-opening the cracks.
- Driven to Suicide: Linda's claim that Mars' "curse" killed her cat and caused her to suffer a miscarriage renders him terribly distraught, as he only intended for his curse to play some minor mischief on her and Doug. Convinced that his powers have become too strong, Mars proceeds to hang himself.
- Entitled Bitch: Linda, who bosses her husband around, insults Mars to his face, and drives him to hang himself without guilt just because she wants her new house to be perfect.
- Evil Is Petty: Jealous that Mars can't be evicted from the only home he and his sister have had for 40 years and that he gets to stay for free while she and Doug have had to scrimp and save nearly everything they had on the house, Linda murders her cat, fakes a miscarriage, and shamelessly gaslights Mars into killing himself.
- Evil Redhead: Linda, who drives Mars to suicide when she can't evict him.
- Foreshadowing: When Linda (unemotionally) claims that Mars' curse made her fall off a ladder, Doug argues that it could be her guilty conscience that's making it seem like she's cursed, to which Linda rebuts that she doesn't "have a guilty conscience". Given that she's responsible for Mars' suicide, she was right on the money saying this.
- It Began with a Twist of Fate: Linda's phony curse scheme is engineered solely because Mars trips on a paint can she left lying around and accidentally breaks an antique vase belonging to her and Doug, which she thinks he broke on purpose.
- It's All About Me: Linda is immensely self-centered, only caring about renovating her new home and getting Mars out of the way by any means necessary. Even when her husband is pissed at her for instigating the "curse" that killed Mars, she only cares about getting her ring back from the witch doctor's casket.
- Karmic Twist Ending: After driving Mars to suicide without remorse and swiping her ring from his coffin, Linda is brutally killed by the spectre of the former witch doctor. Her husband also dumped her right after she admitted to her plot, letting him be spared from Mars' ghostly wrath.
- Kick the Dog: Linda frequently blames accidents that occur to herself and Doug on Mars, her voodoo-practicing tenant, even going as far as to guilt-trip him into suicide. She also steals her ring back from his coffin despite leaving it with him on purpose, but Mars' ghost gets the last laugh.
- Killed Offscreen: Linda, by way of Mars' ghost.
- Maybe Magic, Maybe Mundane: For most of the episode, it's ambiguous whether Mars is a real witch doctor or not, as most of the effects of his "curse" turns out to be the work of Linda trying to get him out of the building. Subverted at the end, which proves he was the genuine article all along.
- Nice Guy: Mars, who isn't that bothered by Linda's seething hatred of him, and even when he curses them over a minor accident, it's meant to be harmless mischief. His sister even warns him early in the episode that he's "too good" for his own good, allowing Linda to easily take advantage of him.
- Power Incontinence: Played with. Mars invokes his magic onto Doug and Linda to curse them, but only by causing some small mischief in order to avenge a broken vase. Linda later reveals how his magic killed her cat and caused her to miscarry, prompting Mars to believe that his powers are getting too strong for his own good. It's subverted near the end, as Linda faked all these misfortunes in order to drive Mars out of the building.
- Real After All: In the end, Linda finds out that Mars was indeed a witch doctor, albeit a dead one now.
- Screw This, I'm Outta Here: As Linda confesses that she faked her pregnancy/miscarriage and killed their cat just to get Mars out of her life, Doug is disgusted to learn the woman he's loved for years is actually an unscrupulous sociopath and leaves her on the spot, ignoring her sobbing pleas for him to stay (just so he can get her ring back from Mars' coffin for her).
- The Sociopath: Linda turns out to be a complete classist/racist who looks down on Mars for his voodoo practices and the fact that he lives in the best room of her new house rent-free, so she poisons her cat, lies about miscarrying a pregnancy, and drives him to suicide just to get him out of the way, all without a hint of remorse. When Doug confronts her about the truth, she only begs him to get her ring back from Mars' dead body without taking his feelings into consideration.
- Tempting Fate: Before leaving Linda, Doug coldly muses on how funny it would be if it turned out Mars was a real witch doctor. His claim is proven true in the form of Mars's ghost coming back to retrieve the ring from Linda, viciously killing her in the process.
- Too Dumb to Live: Linda swipes her ring from Mars' coffin despite being explicitly told not to, prompting his ghost to kill her.
- Witch Doctor: Mars is one of them, and unlike most examples, he's a kindly man who uses voodoo to perform favors for anyone who asks, provided they take part in his rituals.
