¶ Intro / Opening
Way wait a sad.
¶ The Bitterest Pill
Welcome back to Midnight Viewing, the Horror Anthology podcast, where this season we're taking a look at George A. Romero's nineteen eighties series Tales from the Dark Side. Sharing the Midnight view with me are the Projection Boost Mike White, I.
Am very lazy and that will cost me a lot.
Of money true, and the Culture Cast Chris Nashu.
I don't know about the Bitterest Pill, but I have heard of a jagged little pill.
Tonight we are taking a look at two episodes from season three. Those are The Bitterest Pill and Florence Bravo. The Bitterest Pill is season three episode number three, originally aired on October the twelfth, nineteen eighty six. This was written by Michael Cube of McDowell and Julie Selbo, based on a short story by Frederick Pohle, and directed by Brian Michael Stoller. This one stars Mark Blankfield at Joe Carraffalo,
Catherine Benison, and a Jason Horst as Jonathan. It's about a mad chemist and former flame who reappears in the lives of a couple who've recently won the lottery with a promise of not just fortune but world domination. It is a bit convoluted. What did you think of it, Mike?
A bit, a bit? Ah, Yeah, I really like Mark Blankfield. I kind of grew up with him in different things. I was just recently watching what was the one he did Frankenstein General Hospitalers.
Yeah.
Oh it's terrible. It's absolutely terrible, And I'm just like, how did they make comedies like this in the past? And just know they had to know they were dogs, right?
Yeah? And what a weird bookend to young doctors in love at the beginning of the decade they gain well.
And then Jacquel and hide together again in there as well. So yeah, gosh. Yeah, he's a very special taste. He's completely unhinged in this episode, which is absolutely fine. I really like Frederick Pohl, and I think I'd like to go back and track down the original short story. I will admit that when I first started watching this episode, I thought the father was Dan casting A Letta Homer Simpson, and I thought the mom for a hot second was
Adrian Barbo. Her profile looked almost exactly like that, and I was like, Oh, I am in for treat. Oh this is going to be great. Yeah, not to offend the actors, but the caliber that they are is pretty much the caliber of the episode. And that shit eating kid, I just I didn't get it, the whole thing of Okay, we won the lottery. First, I thought that was going to be a dream or seat of something, just because of the way how odd it is. And then they get into things and I'm like, no, I guess that
was a real thing. I guess they're so rich they need a bodyguard. Now I live in some big estate, but yeah, and then this dude shows up and just starts acting crazy, and the longeraise on screen, the crazier he gets, and I wasn't here for it. Wasn't able to connect with this episode, Chris, Were you able to connect with the episode?
Oh God, I wish somebody would have connected with a right hook to my fucking temple so I didn't have to watch this episode.
Good lord.
The acting place Tinker was just Oh the way William Hickey was chewing scenery in the last episode we talked about. In the last two episodes we talked about, this was just insanity bullshit, Like, just what the fuck was it?
Father Malone? Was it?
No? It was I guess the three of us, we were talking about that weird episode one of these anthology shows where they were like in a studio and all of a sudden, the noises started existing in the studio and like aliens showed up and shit.
That was a Yeah, it was an old radio drama going on and there was a curse on the theater and everything they described appeared.
Yeah, it reminded me of that where all of a sudden, the guys just in the house. He starts making noises and dreaming and just I don't find you know what I get that. There's the idea at the center of this is, Oh, they have this kooky friend who has this whole opportunity that they could take advantage of, and if they don't, they're gonna miss out on an opportunity. And then it turns out that the kid eats it
and haha, the kid's super smart. Now, why is the whole payoff of this fucking episode like two minutes long?
Well?
Is that so strange?
Is that the kid seems to be punishing the parents and keeping the prison there.
Yeah, because they kept him prisoner. That was the one thing I was like, Okay, I get this part. I understood what they were getting at, only in as much as like they were leaving him locked in his room, and so at the end of the episode he's like, well, I'm gonna lock you in your room and it's okay, sure, but that seems illak and I don't know if you could do that me personally. Isn't this limitless? Do you guys ever see that movie with Bradley Cooper.
Isn't it just this?
No? But I saw the TV series that was based.
On on it.
Okay, but the same thing.
Right, No, you're totally right, You're you're absolutely right. As far as the power that unlocks this, the kid now seems very very rich.
Yeah, well, he's an asshole, but.
He cannot afford any sort of cover art for his book.
Come, thank you for pointing that out. That is like that looks like he's being held hostage. It looks like a ransom note.
So terrible.
Yeah, production, I'm selling New York Times book with the bitterest pill.
I'm not with that cover.
It's not no, no, he bought up your copy. That's what was happening.
Oh, okay, that's yeah. I've heard about that happening before.
My goodness, the bitterest pill. You know, halfway down my notes, halfway through the episode, I did write, Mark Blankfield is an acquired taste. I'm on your side with that, Mike. I remember him being in everything when we were kids, like you couldn't turn around and not stamp not only the ones we mentioned, but like the Incredible Shrinking Woman. I thought he was fucking hlarious in that. You mentioned
Jekyl and Hide Together again. There's a moment in that film where he's supposed to be doing a like an organ transplant and he turns into mister Hyde and he looks at the tray of oregons and he goes, oh, buds, which just lives in my brain. So Mark Blankfield, I tried looking him up more than just his credits, because I also remember him from Fridays and ABC's attempt at Saturday Night Live. He was one of the cast on that, but like.
Back when, wasn't Michael Richards on that as well?
Sure was, and Larry David was one of the writers at that.
Oh fuck yeah. I think I actually watch a lot of episodes of that. I don't know why, because nothing sticks with me. It's like there are bits from SNL from the same period of time that I can still quote. But Fridays, I just nothing's there.
Firmat because there were no reruns of Friday, so be composable. But all the SNL stuff got repackaged and reshown to us over and over again. Yeah, I wish I could have found out more about him. I've always really liked him as a performer, and he's doing his thing here. I know, Chris, it's a bit much. It is a bit all Jim Carrey or some sort of French comedian.
Jim Carrey, Hey, buddy.
Pretty similar.
Oh wait, if Jim Carrey, if there was no redeeming value to Jim Carrey, I.
Think Jim Carrey would have done the same shit in here, not that none of it. Also would have been funny because the episode is not agreed episode. They're not supposed to be doing comedy here on tell Us the dark Side. What's making me laugh on this show is the fact that the sister is going to drown the little girl like they did in the previous episode. That's the funny this. As bad as the episode is, though, it does echo the themes I've noticed have emerged on the show every season.
We're going to get a few episodes where they begin with a chaoic home environment. The show definitely seems hell bent on putting a hammer to the fifties nuclear family idea, more than any anthology show we've seen, including Twilight Zone, which was running concurrently with this. Also emasculation, there's a whole lot of emasculation on this show. Like here, It isn't just this crazy chemist from their past show. So he's the guy who tried to steal his wife away
on the night of their marriage. Oh yeah, you're dynamic to throw in all of a sudden.
Was a really smart guy.
Though, smacks or ass and stuff. When she's crawling across him, I'm like, oh okay.
And by the way she is crawling across him, I'm like, look out, fair hubby.
Yeah, with that guy. Nobody's very redeemable in this. But I think the husband's the worst character.
He is a Johnny bag of donuts. He's just a stretched out, weird, shouty sort of a guy. But the ending, I love the ending. I wanted to have gotten there. I wanted to have earned that. I wanted that kid to have been treated poorly and was getting a revenge on them, or it just came out of nowhere and he's now lording over them and Darkseide can be just fine with a with an out of the blue. Now
you're all fucked ending as far as I'm concerned. But they were going for a comeuppance here and locking your kid in his room for an hour while there's a lunatic downstairs. It's probably not the worst thing. Ever. I imagine that kid had plenty of toys while they were wealthy. Why did they stay in that house?
Yeah, no, good question.
They stayed any two bedroom bungalow and Pasadena. What they were millionaires? They won the lottery in the opening? What? This is a fucking weird episode. I wish they had pulled it out, honestly, because I'm into how chaotic it is and how firing in every direction it goes. It just can't pull it together.
No, it's too much.
I think it's just too much, too much all at once, and they don't do enough to get it there. And then the ending just I'm so disappointed because the ending. I like the idea, but it logistically makes no fucking sense.
No, they're saying that the kid is so fucking brilliant. Now because he took the pills instead of the father, then he's figured out a legal loophole to become his parents' guardians. We're just supposed to believe that he's the smartest thing on earth now, and like he'll he whatever he wants, he's going to get. That's what Blackfield kid yelling about. It's not even about the money, it's the power. You're going to have real power with this.
Right, and wish that half the episode had been the kid after he takes the pill, and right, like, all right, what's his machinations? How does he do this? I solve this. I'm gonna like, maybe be a real piece of shit. Like I note that most millionaires and billionaires really are very very nice people that want to help out people. They donate almost all of their money to worthy causes and things. I really want to. I want billionaires to
like me because I like them so much. But the thing is, show me, show me what a piece of shit this kid is. He's like, oh, I discovered the cure for cancer, but the pharmaceutical companies are paying me more than it would be worth for me to release that, so I'm making money that way. Or I discovered how to make cars run on water. But now the automotive companies are paying me more than it would be worth
for me to release it. So he just like starts making all of his money through being a real piece of shit human being. I would love that. I mean, that seems like a great thing to explore.
Such a shame of that were happening in real life and not fiction.
I know, I know right now, I know that, like the billionaires are here to help us, So that's great. I'm sure once Hollywood is done smoldering, they're just gonna pour all kinds of money into that whole thing. That'll be fantastic.
Here's some things I liked in the episode. Mark Blankfield takes up some wind up sneaker toys. Yes, just does. It's out of the blue. I love that I had friends who constantly had that ship in their pockets for some reason, that the eighties was the decade of the wind up toys.
Hey we should bring that bag you know what.
Ship.
Well, every once in a while, a little robot running across the.
People would be like, who's that cool guy over there?
Who is that genuinely cool guy?
Mike's grabbing a toy, right, now as we speak.
Yeah, it's a little hopping vampire. He just goes around and hops. So he's not going to do it now.
Oh and he's Oh.
He has hot he's he has a hop performance anxiety.
The Chinese hopping vampire.
Yes it is. Once I saw one of these, I said I have to get it.
You know, I really want one of those Godzilla wind up toys where it sparks out of its mouth.
You remember those.
I had one of those.
Kid.
Yeah, they're so fucking cool. Not tea, but it's very cool. Not teeth, not little sneakers.
I'd like something more age appropriate as opposed to something that a child would have.
Mark Blankfield.
I like. Here's another thing I like. When he's introduced, he refers to his former girlfriend A is twenty percent
¶ Florence Bravo
body fat, eighty percent lean and mean tissue cuddles. I like that description. Also, when the husband has finally thrown out Mark Blankfield and is directing his anger at the wife he could, he says that she's dressed like a dance hall fluozy, and then he takes it back. He says, oh, I didn't mean that. And all I can say to that is, if you call somebody a dance hall floozy. You fucking mean it?
Oh yeah? Wow, didn't know we needed to bring Wang Chung into this book. Okay.
The only other good thing is one of the musical beds they had going in the background was a harpsichord, which I always love when they throwing in a modern setting. It just makes everything feel a bit off. Other than that, I do not recommend this one all that much. Other than I like the concept of the ending.
Yes, the concept was good, the execution not so good.
Yeah, that's great. On to season two, episode four. This is Florence Bravo. It aired originally on October nineteenth, nineteen eighty six. Written by Edith Swinson Everybody's Favorite. Directed by John Lewis, This one stars Laurie Cardilly, David Hayward, Carol Levy, and Laryn Klein as Florence Bravo. She's currently a voice
in Red Dead Redemption. This is about an emotionally unstable wife who fears her husband is cheating and the ghost in their newly purchased home isn't helping the matter any which you think of this one, Chris.
I liked it better when they did it on Americ Kid Horror Store. I guess this is what this felt like, right. That was the first season of that goddamn show. A ghost trying to convince a wife that you're being cheated on. Wow, you murder your husband, wow, because you're possessed by the ghost man. Ryan Murphy shouldn't rip off Tales from the dark Side, And that was fine. I think actually, of the episodes that we've talked about recently, this one I think is again it's proper mean at the end, which
I appreciate. I think that the one with the little girl being drowned was proper mean, and I think it earns the meanness.
I don't know. I just wish it wasn't so fucking obvious with the Vidy.
I wish it wasn't so obvious what the fucking episode was doing more or less from the get go. She was a big time feminist. Okay, so the ghost is gonna do something here. Remind me if anybody's ever like, there's a big feminist ghost in this house, to be like, can I.
Not live there?
Because it seems like you know a lot more about the ghost than you should. And I don't want to be part of that now because I think a feminist ghost would kill me, just because if you if you know that much about a ghost, that's a problem. It seems like the ghost is in fact real, which the ghost ends up being very fucking real. So I thought it was fine, better than some of the blackout sketch ish things we've had recently, because this is not a blackout sketch at least.
Mike, what about you?
I think you liked it more than I did. I just could see everything that was coming from the beginning. I was just like, Oh, okay, so there's gonna be ghosts and oh yeah, it's gaslighting her and.
Ghost lighting her mic oh yeah.
Yeah.
It just felt very, very familiar with this whole plot, and I actually was giving this episode more credit than it deserved because I thought the ghost was actually played by the same actress that played the wife. Because a lot of times when you see the ghost, you're seeing her from the back in the rocking chair. So I'm like, oh, well, that's kind of clever. Keep her face a little bit hidden, and when they turn at the end and look at
each other, it'll be the same person looking. It would be like a mirror, be like poetry or rhymes but they didn't do that. It's a different woman. So I'm like, oh, okay, so the thing I thought you were going to do with the cool reveal, you just said, nah, nah, that's to day.
How about aout UFM.
I liked this one. It just might be in comparison to the three previous ones we got. This one did feel more Tales from the Dark Sign than not. However, did feel familiar, didn't it. That's because we trained in the trenches of Night Gallery. This does feel very Night Gallery, the ghost convincing you that there's cheating. There's plenty of those episodes, plenty of variations on it. The human who finds the ghost, and the ghost wants them to kill
her husband, and then there's the host. There were tons. Anyway, it feels like a tired genre, but it also feels with a good enough story, they can do it. I don't know that this one is it. I do like seeing Lori carn Dilly. This Tales and the Dark Sign seems a repository for a Day of the Dead actor, as we had Sherman Howard last season. Here Lori Cardilly also from Day of the Dead. I liked her performance and I liked it again. I like the concept of
the episode. I like the ambiguity of these episodes when they're done well, because baked into this is the fact that she's been she's had some sort of breakdown, and she's supposed to be taking her medication, and they make it up she is definitely not taking her medication. And seen that before, we have seen We've seen it tons of times. But here's Tails from the dark Side. So I was waiting for them to go a little more hard or on that. I guess Tails from the dark Side.
In the end, it's always going to be a supernatural landing. If this had been Tails from the Crypt, which I'm sure we got a couple of them in this, on that too, it would definitely end the other way. I don't know.
I was hoping that speaking of going harder, and I was hoping maybe the husband had been gaslighting her and made her think that she was crazy, that she actually didn't have a breakdown, or he was giving her something to give her, you know, make her unstable, I don't know, for some reason. And then the ghost is actually no, no, like I'm helping you out, like you don't know the real true truth. And then the truth will come out through the through my actions. But no, that didn't happen either.
David Hayward, who I remember from the nineties being on Beverly Hills nine oh two. I no, yes, I watched Beverly Hills nine oh two. No, but he was also on Twilight Zone eighty five and two separate episodes Gentlemen. He was in He was a reporter in a Saucer of Loneliness that was with the Yeah, the Shelley Devall episode, answered Libertini, Yeah, that's right. And he was Paul the husband in Dreams for Sale.
Oh, dreams for keeping, Gotta keep it alive, got to keep the memory alive. And that's right.
He was the husband in fucking Dreams for Sale, wasn't he? There was all that man, what's the mustache?
Too?
Even?
I'm pretty sure absolutely, And if fans of Christopher Guest, he made a non mockumentary, non improv movie called The Big Picture about a film student who's getting his big break and making a movie and the sort of the the the art house movie that he wants to make features David Hayward. They keep cutting to that movie as the and that movie keeps changing as the film progresses in the studio keeps interfering.
Oh that's so weird because I just talked with was it the screenwriter of that movie? Because I was like, oh gosh, I love the Big Picture, and yeah, I haven't thought about that in forever, and I just was thinking about it two days ago. So great poll.
Oh Man and Jennifer Jason Lee and that that that the actual Manic Pixie dream girl. Oh yes, uh, it's ghosty. This one. It's murdery. I like it, ending sure is, and I like it. I like a murderous ghost if she's a feminist or not. Here's the one thing I did notice, ordinarily, in any of these ghost stories, what will happen is the couple gets sold to Bill of Goods.
They've sold house, and then they find out afterwards that there was some sort of ghost situation here and they have to track that real estate agent down and punch the information out of them. Here it's this is a three bedroom, you know, see it's got two floors. Oh, there was a horrendous murder down here.
Check out these boards.
Pretty sure they see that's real blood, real flattered blood.
That's a bullet hole. The hole is still on the wall. Didn't even dig it out of the drywall.
You'd probably use a if you got one of those metal detectors.
Go around the walls.
See what else you dig up. There might be knives sitting here.
They a couple of safety razors that they put through the wall.
Who knows.
So far, I'm really enjoying the beginnings and the endings of the episodes and toes in the dark side this scene. It's just what's hanging in the middle that's proving to be a problem.
This season has been so far pretty mediocre compared to the first two seasons.
That's more my takeaway.
So far this show has been very lack luster compared to the first two seasons, being I would say, rather quality all the way through. Like I would say the first two seasons of this show have been pretty good overall. Third season, though not, starting out with a real fart underwater.
I'm not. I'm wondering if that has anything to do with Mitchell Galen's absence on the show, because he was the story editor for the first two seasons, and it's hard to put a price tag on the importance of that job when it comes to a fucking anthology. Show. It isn't like, oh, now we'll have our characters spend the day at the sub shop. No, it's we need beginnings, middles and endings that are fucking great.
That people want to watch, that people enjoy. And I have not really enjoyed these four episodes.
Maybe all things equal, If that's the only kind of big thing other than the involvement of George Romero, which that first episode of this season not great in and of its own right, maybe that had something to do with it, because yeah, man, I liked the ending and I liked the beginning, but yeah, I guess the middle is not great.
I don't know.
I did like it more than you did, Mike, but I don't know. It's still not great. Compared to the first two seasons, none of these four episodes have.
¶ Closing Remarks and Upcoming Episodes
Been But he doesn't compare to any of the Bad Night Gallery or.
Oh no, these are just middle of the road. These are middling at best. They're not really awful.
No, I haven't been like offended by any of these as far as how bad they are.
On the next episode of Midnight Viewing, we're gonna be taking a look at the next two episodes of season three. Those are the gezen Stacks and Black Widows Midnight Viewing. The Horror Anthology podcast is a proud member of weirding Way Media Group and our theme song was composed by HP with an assist by Donald Rubinstein. Until next time? What are you working on? Where can people find it?
Chris Dashu, Well, I've been too busy eating a whole stack of gezons to be knowing what to do. Just geezing Stacks now, what a fucking weird name. Thank you for saying it out loud.
What am I doing?
A whole lot of audio things over at Weirdingwaymedia dot com other than one podcast which can be found over at patreon dot com, slash Culturecast or patreon dot com slash Projection Booth, which is ranking on Bond which Father Malone's gonna be joining us here pretty soon to talk about another James Bond movie, another Timothy Dalton film.
But we're chugging right along.
We're gonna have to figure out what we're doing next, because man, I think we're about two thirds of the way done at this point. Feels like we've just been cruising right along through James Bond. And if you want to hear us now and when we started Patreon dot com slash culturecast or projection Booth, what about you, Mike White.
Pretty much the same thing, all those great things then all the audio diversions that we do over at Weirdingwaymedia dot com, like the Life and Times of Captain Barnie Miller, which also is about rap, but probably a lot sooner than mister bond Is, because we haven't even started on those Daltons or Braslin's or what's the other guy's named Craig Greg, Greg, Greg Craig.
Greg, Craig Greg and old Craig.
So we'll get there.
We will definitely get there, and we might take some stops along the way to visit our old friend Johnny English as well. So fingers crossed. But yeah, everything is available at widowaybedia dot com. How about you, fatherom.
Alone as for me what they said, but also head over to Patreon dot com slash fa them alone, where you're gonna get episodes early and commercial free and bonus content which you can only get there if money's tight. You could also do us a favor by giving us a five star review, subscribe like share tell someone else. Thank you all for joining us here at midnight, viewing until next time. Try to enjoy the daylight.
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