Take My Life... Please!
Billy Diamond (Tim Thomerson), advertised as "America's Hottest Comic", wraps up his latest talk show appearance by leaving the audience in stitches. On his drive home, he is held at gunpoint by Dave (Xander Berkeley), a fellow comedian from which Billy stole his act, leaving him broke and struggling to care for his pregnant wife. Billy tries to escape his predicament with some manic swerving, only to crash headlong into a truck. When he awakens, Billy meets Max (Ray Buktenica), a strange man who claims to be his new agent, having already booked his latest performance. Much to Billy's shock, however, the audience in his new club remains stone-faced unless he tells them deeply shameful stories from his personal life.
Tropes
- Alas, Poor Villain: Billy has a Heel Realization and sincerely wants to change, but since he's already dead, it's too late.
- Bittersweet Ending: Billy gets his karma for ruining Dave's life and the other deplorable deeds he’s committed in his life, but Dave himself is likely to have died in his car crash as well, leaving behind a widow who is both pregnant and broke. Billy also realizes what a monster he is and comes to regret it, but since he's trapped in Hell and Dead to Begin With, it's too late for him to make up for his sins.
- Calling Your Nausea: After finishing his “act” in Hell’s comedy club, Billy says he thinks he’s going to be sick.
- Chromosome Casting: There are no speaking roles for women in the episode.
- Cruel Twist Ending: Billy dies in the car crash and ends up in an Ironic Hell. The audience at the "club" where Billy auditions only laughs when he tells them about all the horrible things he's ever done.
- Dead to Begin With: Callous stand-up comedian Billy is killed in a car accident early in the episode, and he's stuck in Hell being forced to recall highly unpleasant experiences in his past for a sociopathic audience.
- Distracted by the Sexy: After Max tells Billy he has him booked in Hell’s comedy club for two eons, a woman with tight pants and a big butt walks by. Max ogles her and then walks after her, telling Billy he has some “executive business” to take care of.
- Elder Abuse: Billy reveals, during his audition, that he threw his mother out of his house solely because he found her annoying. She was forced to move back to her older, poorly-maintained house in Philadelphia, where she died of hypothermia.
- Evil Has a Bad Sense of Humor: The evil audience doesn’t laugh when Billy tells normal jokes, but they laugh hysterically when he talks about the horrible things he did in his life.
- Evil Old Folks: Billy is old enough to have a head of gray hair, and he’s the meanest comedian you’ll ever meet.
- Faux Affably Evil: Max, Billy’s new agent. He has a friendly, cheerful attitude, but he’s also an agent of Hell and shares the evil audience’s sadistic sense of humor, laughing after Billy finishes his “act”.
- The Heckler: The audience in Hell’s comedy club includes a heckler who brings up Billy’s most shameful deeds and goads Billy to talk about them.
- Heel Realization: Billy finally realizes how much of an ass he was in life after he's trapped in his Ironic Hell, telling Max that he doesn't even like himself anymore.
- Heel–Face Door-Slam: Billy's "act" for the audience where he confesses all his sins causes him to realize what a monster he's been throughout his life, and sincerely regret it. Unfortunately, since he's in Hell, it's much too late for him to do anything about it.
- Ironic Hell: After dying in a car crash, Billy is sent down to Hell, which appears as a comedy club where he's forced to recount all of the horrible things he's ever done to a bloodthirsty audience that will only laugh at his crimes, such as beating up a prostitute, throwing his mother out into the cold, and knowingly stealing the material of a starving colleague with a pregnant wife.
- It's All About Me: Billy was extremely selfish when he was alive. He stole jokes from other comedians, he threw his own mother out of his house because he was tired of hearing her complain, and he once broke a hooker’s jaw and left her in pain without calling an ambulance because he didn’t want his reputation to be ruined. However, after being forced to recount his selfish actions, he finally feels guilty about them.
- Jerkass: Billy. He steals material from other comedians, broke a hooker’s jaw and left her in pain instead of calling an ambulance, and threw his own mother out into the cold because he was annoyed about listening to her complain all the time.
- Karma Houdini Warranty: In his life, Billy injured a hooker, threw his own mother out into the cold, and stole material from other comedians without anyone ever finding out about it. Once he dies and goes to Hell, he finally gets his comeuppance.
- Me's a Crowd: The heckler who prods Billy into revealing his shameful past actions is strongly implied to be a clone of him, likely his conscience, since he wears the same outfit and speaks in Billy’s voice.
- Nice Character, Mean Actor: The world knows Billy as funny and charming. Once he's stuck in an Ironic Hell, Billy faces an audience that forces him to share stories about the real him: a violent drunk who put a prostitute in the hospital, indirectly killed his own mother, and stole a married, struggling comedian’s act without paying him any royalties.
- No-Sell: Billy's regular jokes are only met with silence or booing from the audience. However, shameful personal stories about his less-than-admirable actions are met with raucous laughter.
- Number of the Beast: Billy's new agent, Max, lets him know that he can have nearly anything that he wants by dialing 666 on the phone in his hotel suite.
- Plagiarism in Fiction: Billy steals a joke about a gorilla eating a banana peel from a struggling comedian named Dave, who approached him for advice on how to be funny. He performs the joke on Larry Gibbon's Hollywood, unaware that Dave is in the studio audience. As he drives away from the studio, Dave pulls a gun on him from the backseat, having become desperate as he has no money and his wife is pregnant. The two men struggle with the gun, but they are killed when the car crashes. Billy finds himself in an Ironic Hell where he is forced to tell a picky and sadistic audience about all of the terrible things he's done, including stealing Dave's routine. Billy also implies during his “act” that this was far from the first time he’s stolen a joke from another comedian.
- Pop-Culture Pun Episode Title: The episode's title is a reference to comedian Henny Youngman's famous "Take my wife...please!" routine.
- Rimshot: When Billy performs in Hell, a drummer does a rimshot every time he tells a joke, until Billy gets sick of it and tells her to knock it off.
- Rule of Three: During his audition, Billy is made to recount three shameful incidents from his past: assaulting a prostitute to the point of putting her in the hospital, stealing Dave's act and leaving him struggling to make ends meet, and kicking his mother out of his house in the dead of winter, leading to her dying of hypothermia.
- Sadist: The evil audience Billy performs for. They think stories about Billy doing things like breaking a hooker’s jaw are utterly hilarious. Max also laughs after Billy finishes his routine.
- Stealing the Credit: When he was alive, Billy had a habit of stealing jokes from other comedians.
- Too Dumb to Live: Billy ends up being responsible for his own death by swerving around the road in an attempt to disorient Dave. In the process, he rams right into a truck without even attempting to stop.
- Tough Room: When he arrives in the afterlife, Billy promptly performs his usual act for a crowd, but none of them even crack a smile. It soon becomes clear to him that he's in Hell, and the only way to make this particular audience laugh is to share with them all of the horrible things that he has done throughout his life. His new agent, Max, tells him that he's been booked to perform this act for at least the next two eons.
- Villain Protagonist: This episode’s protagonist, Billy Diamond, is a sleazy, selfish asshole who’s committed many bad deeds in his life.
- Villain with Good Publicity: Billy is known as "America's Hottest Comic" and has audiences "all over the world" going gaga over his act. In reality, he's a violent, selfish, neglectful alcoholic who knowingly and willfully steals the material of fellow comedians. Once he dies, having to admit to his numerous offenses becomes the core of his Ironic Hell.
- What Happened to the Mouse?: Dave’s fate after the crash is never shown, though it's highly likely he died.
- Would Hit a Girl: One of Billy's more atrocious acts was to assault a young prostitute, which the audience prods him to remember.Heckler: Come on! Tell us about the time you put the girl in the hospital!
Billy: (notably uncomfortable) Hey, look, this is a show! You know, entertainment! You don't wanna hear about me beatin' up a hooker!
(the audience finally begins laughing)
"Let's hear it for him, ladies and gentlemen. A big hand for Billy Diamond, a mad-cap kind of guy who'll make you laugh until it hurts. Late of Hollywood and Las Vegas, now leaving 'em rolling in the aisles — of the Twilight Zone."
Devil's Alphabet
In Victorian England, Andrew, Brian, Cornelius, Deaver, Eli, Frederick, and Grant (Osmund Bullock, Jim Piddock, Wayne Alexander, Ethan Phillips, Robert Schenkkan, Ben Cross, and Hywel Bennett) are seven poetry students at Cambridge University who have established the Devil's Alphabet Society, a private club where they can drink, smoke, discuss poetry and literature, and overall enjoy their company as friends. As the years pass, the members of the society slowly die one by one, some under mysterious circumstances. The last remaining members, Frederick and Cornelius, realize that they have been bound by the pledge they made when they founded the society, where the members are to continue attending every meeting on All Souls' Day, dead or alive.
Tropes
- Adaptational Name Change: The seven members of the Devil's Alphabet Society are named Andrew, Brian, Cornelius, Deaver, Eli, Frederick, and Grant. In the short story "The Everlasting Club" by Arthur Gray, their names are Alan Dermot, Charles Bellasis, Henry Davenport, Francis Witherington, James Harvey, and William Catherston, with the seventh member going unnamed. Dermot and Bellasis respectively correspond to Grant and Frederick, but it isn't made clear with respect to the other five.
- Bittersweet Ending: The Devil's Alphabet Society sans Frederick is dead, but thanks to some clever thinking on his part, he and the ghosts of his comrades are able to free their souls from their occult pledge, allowing the spirits to move on and freeing him from his burden.
- Chekhov's Gun: Frederick, resident lawyer of the Devil's Alphabet Society, utilizes his practice by planting an escape clause in the society's oath, allowing it to be properly broken if all the members adjourn the meeting. At the end, as the only living member of the club, he and his ghostly friends adjourn the meeting and free their souls.
- Chromosome Casting: All seven main characters are male, and there are no speaking roles for any women.
- Driven to Suicide: Deaver shoots himself after losing everything he owns in a card game in October 1896. On November 2 that year, his ghost attends the meeting of the Devil's Alphabet Society with the six surviving members, because of the pledge they made at their last meeting before graduation. One year later, Andrew appears to hang himself from a high ceiling, but it is unclear how he did so, since no chair was found near his body. That night, Andrew's ghost appears to Grant at the meeting, prompting Grant to likewise hang himself. By 1898, Cornelius and Frederick are the last two surviving members of the society, as Brian and Eli were killed the previous year in a carriage wreck. Unable to face what awaits him at that night's meeting, Cornelius shoots himself.
- Duty That Transcends Death: Grant suggests that he and the other members of the Devil's Alphabet Society meet every year on All Souls' Day, whether alive or dead. Although he is entirely serious, the others agree to his motion without much thought, as they don't take it seriously. In 1896, the society discovers that they are being held to the occult bargain they made 20 years earlier. Shortly after committing suicide, the ghost of Deaver makes his presence known by signing his name on the register and drinking wine poured for him. Over the next two years, five of the other members die from various causes. Frederick, the last living member, proposes to dissolve the society so that his friends' ghosts may rest. Although Grant initially objects, the motion is passed unanimously.
- Dwindling Party: Deaver is the first member of the Devil's Alphabet Society to die, when he shoots himself after losing everything in a card game. The year after that, Andrew hangs himself, but may have been compelled to do so. That night, his ghost attends the yearly meeting and frightens Grant so much that he also hangs himself. After the meeting, the horse pulling Brian and Eli's carriage suddenly goes berserk. The carriage spontaneously catches fire and crashes, killing them both. The next year, Cornelius commits suicide by shooting himself, leaving Frederick as the last surviving member. Seeking to bring an end to his deceased friends' torment and spare himself from the same fate, Frederick proposes that the society be dissolved and their agreement to meet every year, irrespective of death, be rescinded. The others agree, though Grant is initially reluctant.
- Monochrome Apparition: The ghosts of the members of the titular society are entirely green.
- Psychic-Assisted Suicide: In 1897, Andrew hangs himself from a high ceiling in his home. However, there was no chair found in the room, so it is a mystery how he was able to reach the rafters. The implication is that he was assisted by the occult forces with which he and the other members of the Devil's Alphabet Society had unwittingly entered a pledge that transcends death.
- Setting Update: The short story by Arthur Gray is an account of the activities of the titular society from 1738 to 1766. The episode updates this setting a century later, from 1876 to 1898.
- Smoky Gentlemen's Club: The titular society, where the seven members can discuss literature, drink and smoke to their hearts' content, and overall just enjoy each other's company.
- Sole Survivor: Frederick becomes the last surviving member of the Devil's Alphabet Society, after Cornelius commits suicide on November 2, 1898.
- Spared by the Adaptation: In the episode, Frederick is the only member of the Devil's Alphabet Society to stay alive by the time that their agreement to meet every year alive or dead is rescinded. In the short story, his equivalent character Charles Bellasis was frightened to death by the ghosts of the other members.
- Speak Ill of the Dead: Grant makes it a point to mock the dead members of his society as though it were funny, despite the fact that the other members think otherwise. As far as he's concerned, he holds nothing sacred except for his part in crafting the oath.
- Time Skip: The episode keeps lurching ahead a few years at a time, going from 1876 to 1898.
The Library
Aspiring author Ellen Pendleton (Frances Conroy) applies for a new job in a private library. She soon discovers that this library houses books that document the lives of every living person, accurate to the second. When she has trouble writing due to her neighbor's late-night passion, Ellen breaches the library's rules regarding the books and alters the book detailing said neighbor's life. Unfortunately, this alteration results in unpleasant changes in the life of Ellen's neighbors and her sister Lori (Lori Petty), leaving her scrambling to alter more books, then turning desperate for a way to fix things in a way so they don't backfire.
Tropes
- Adaptational Job Change: In-Universe, whenever Ellen rewrites someone else's life story, Lori's job changes, going from a waitress to a lawyer to a janitor.
- An Aesop: Your life may not always be perfect, but you should at least try to make the best of it. Trying to change a person's life may also result in drastic changes for yourself and others, as everyone's lives are interconnected.
- Be Careful What You Wish For: Ellen gets a job in a magic library filled with books detailing the lives of every living person. When she discovers that the books can be altered to change peoples' lives, she can't resist the temptation to meddle to get some quiet time. Every new alteration she makes to fix things ends up making them even worse, and it's only when Gloria finds out that Ellen's been altering the books that she fires her and resets everything to normal.
- Bigger on the Inside: The titular library is much bigger on the inside, and it needs to be in order to house a book corresponding to every living person on Earth. When she first sees it, Ellen suspects that it must be some kind of trick, as the building that she saw from the outside was nowhere near big enough.
- Cutting the Knot: Ellen tries to do this after seeing the rent strike, changing her own book so that she and Lori live in a house by the sea. It doesn't work, as Lori drowns saving a little boy.
- Disaster Dominoes: Every time Ellen alters a person's book to change their life, another person's life becomes plagued by hardships.
- For Want Of A Nail: Ellen's life-changing misadventures begin when Doug and Carla keep distracting her with late-night sex. If those two had been less disruptive, and Doug had been less rude to her, Ellen wouldn't have felt the need to tamper with reality itself.
- Four Is Death: Ellen rewrites the books of four peoples' lives during the episode, and her last alteration results in her sister drowning by rescuing a little boy.
- From Bad to Worse: Every alteration that Ellen makes to the library's books, while it fixes one particular person's life, utterly ruins the life of another person:
- Doug and Carla keep Ellen awake with their love-making and keep her from getting any writing done, so she rewrites Doug's book to turn him into a Catholic priest who takes a vow of chastity.
- As a result of this alteration, Carla is suicidally depressed at being alone, as Doug was the only man who was willing to start a relationship with her in her old age. Ellen rewrites Carla's book to give her a new boyfriend in her other neighbor Edwin.
- While Carla is happy and receiving numerous luxurious gifts from her new boyfriend, Ellen learns that Edwin has gone bankrupt after compulsively buying Carla all those gifts. Ellen then rewrites Edwin's book so that he becomes rich from real estate, which he's always wanted to pursue a career in.
- Ellen soon discovers that Edwin is now her landlord and has inflated everyone's rent to outrageous prices. This has led Lori and all the other tenants to form a strike to protest against Edwin and his unfair financial practices. This prompts Ellen to make another alteration, this time to her own book.
- By rewriting her own life story, Ellen tries to avoid the hassles of her neighbors all together by making it so that she and Lori share a nice house on the beach. Alas, even this alteration isn't without troubles, as Lori drowns in the ocean while saving a little boy. This prompts the devastated Ellen to return to the library and admit what she's been doing, to which Gloria throws her out and rewrites the books to fix every change Ellen made.
- Get Out!: After learning that Ellen has been tampering with the books, Gloria demands the defaced books and throws Ellen out of the library, no doubt terminating her employment at the place.
- Heroic Sacrifice: When she rewrites her own life story to give Lori and herself a house on the beach, Ellen finds out that her sister drowned in the sea while saving a little boy.
- Magical Library: The titular library is apparently housed in a pocket dimension, and its books are up-to-date accounts of the lives of every living person on Earth. Ellen discovers that altering the text in these books alters reality to change the life of the book's corresponding person, which she attempts to use to her own benefit.
- Reset Button: Once Ellen admits that she's been changing reality by altering the contents of the books in her library, Gloria rebukes her and throws her out, but not before returning everything to normal. As a result, the building the library was previously housed in is now owned by a man who has never heard of someone named Gloria.
- Rewriting Reality: Aspiring writer Ellen gets a job working at a private library run by Gloria, who explains to her that every book on the shelves is an accurate account of the life of a living person:
- That night, Ellen is annoyed by the noise made by her obnoxious neighbor Doug and his live-in girlfriend Carla. The next day, she rewrites Doug's life story so that he is an extremely dedicated Catholic priest. However, she soon feels guilty because Carla is suicidally miserable at being alone in her old age, so she uses the opportunity to rewrite her life story to set her up with fellow neighbor Edwin.
- When she returns home, Carla is happy again and wearing an expensive fur coat, but Edwin is now bankrupt from compulsively lavishing Carla with presents.
- Ellen rewrites Edwin's life story so that he's rich from getting into real estate, but she finds that he is now her landlord and Lori is leading the building's tenants on a strike against the inflated rent that he charges.
- The next day, Ellen rewrites her own life story so that she and Lori live in a nice house by the ocean. However, as soon as she arrives at her new home, Ellen learns that Lori drowned after rescuing a little boy from the raging sea.
- The devastated Ellen admits to Gloria what she has been doing and pleads for her help. After chastising her for her actions, Gloria fires Ellen and throws her out of the library. Ellen immediately finds Lori alive and well, as well as having returned to her original self. She also learns that the building the library was housed in is now owned by a man who has never heard of Gloria, relieving her of the opportunity to change others' lives.
- Ripple-Proof Memory: Ellen begins altering reality using the books in the magic library, which record the events of people's lives. When Gloria fires her and fixes everything, she is the only person to remember the way things used to be.
- The Unreveal: We never know what purpose Gloria's library serves, other than the fact that its books document peoples' lives. Given the books' natures, Gloria's name, and the duties of its unseen "owners", the library might have connections to Heaven, especially when the "owners'" discovery of the alterations cause the building to shake and rumble furiously.
