Even by Tales From The Crypt standards, season 5 has been a fairly rambunctious offering so far. In only five episodes, we’ve seen Tim Curry play a family of murderers, a melting Steve Buscemi and Bill Paxton come a cropper at the hands of ice cream selling conjoined twins, so obviously at some point the Crypt Keeper’s got to take his moldy foot of the gas, right? Well, taking a more grounded approach, “Two For The Show” opts to take a break from the more excessive urges of the show in order to take a more Hitchcockian stance thanks to a story that bears more than a passing resemblance to Strangers On A Train.
A murdered wife, a husband desperately trying to save himself from the electric chair, and an incredibly nosey cop all come together to prove that, while you don’t need to go all out to provide a memorable Crypt episode, it does help if you cut Traci Lords into itty bitty pieces and stuff her in a suitcase – metaphorically speaking of course.
Andy Conway is the kind of self-important businessman who loves nothing more than the sound of his own voice, but after years of hearing him boast, complain, rant and hype himself up entirely about his work, his wife, Emma, simply can’t take it any more. Finally breaking the news to him that she’s having an affair and that she’s fleeing to Chicago, Emma’s break for freedom is unfortunately cut short when an outraged Andy snaps and alternates between strangling her to death and stabbing her with a pair of scissors.
Realising that he needs to ditch the body ASAP, Andy is interrupted by Officer Fine, a local cop who is investigating a noise complaint after a neighbour reported Emma’s screams. However, after some probing questions about his wife’s whereabouts and an inquiry about a scratch on Andy’s face, the suspicious Fine leaves, and so the murderous husband can continue with some grisly body disposal. But after chopping his spouse into pieces and popping her into a trunk, Andy’s plan to abandon the gruesome luggage on a train bound to Chicago is scuppered when an off-duty Fine shows up again and continues to get chatty.
Forced to ride the train with Fine, with his murdered wife in the baggage car, Andy attempts to throw off the cop’s ever more suspicious line of questioning, but after he discovers he’s running out of time before the train is searched from top to bottom by the FBI, the businessman tries one last trick in order to shift blame. Swapping the labels on the luggage and throwing Emma’s remains off between stations, Andy thinks he’s got away scott free – but it turns out that the majority of things that Fine’s been telling him are lies in order to pull off a massive set-up. You see, it turns out that the affair that Emma was having wasn’t with a man at all, but with Fine’s wife. And it seems that the luggage Andy swapped tags with contains the gory results of the cop’s jealousy – after all, why not frame someone who is guilty of chopping their own wife up?
While I’ve truly relished just how awesomely fucked-up season 5 has gotten in such a short amount of time, I can appreciate how important it is for an anthology show to mix things up. Thus we find “Two For The Show” delivering something far more subtle as we ditch the mutants, telepaths and melty viruses in favour for some good old fashioned, down to earth crimes of passion. Directed by Kevin Hooks – who also gave us Passenger 57 – the episode is yet another grounded installment that wisely avoids attempting to be overly jokey, and instead realises that the story can stand solidly if it’s played as a straight-faced pastiche of the type of overblown murder plots that tended to float the boat of Alfred Hitchcock.
Gifting character actor, David Paymer with the kind of leading role he was rarely awarded in a multitude of supporting parts, he gets to spread his wings as the type of egotistical workaholic who can’t see that he’s neglected his wife until it’s too late. Also, the fact that his wife is played by none other than Traci Lords means that he really must have been ignoring her considering her former career – if you know what I mean. However, seeing as he’s the type of guy who would strangle his spouse to death than rather suffer the indignity of work colleagues gossiping about his divorce, it soon becomes obvious that he’s due a Crypt-load of payback sooner or later. Director Hooks realises that even though he’s helming a more low-key instalment of Tales From The Crypt, it still helps to maintain the smash-mouth, comic book excess by including a sequence where we see Andy chopping up the body of his better half into actual halves.
However, from showcasing a bloodbath featuring blood in a literal bath, Hook switches to something more subtle as Vincent Spano’s determined cop latches onto Andy and an odd game of verbal cat and mouse begins. The interesting thing is, while we sit there watching Officer Fine and an ever more worried Andy try to out-manuver each other with hastily thought up lies, it’s actually we who are being manipulated as things turn out slightly different than we originally assumed. With all the talk of Fine also having marital issues, and his familiarity with Andy’s home address, both we and Andy are being led to think that it’s actually the cop that Emma’s been having the affair with. However, in a bizarre double-cross that doesn’t entirely make a whole lot of sense, we find that our predictions are ultimately a little skewed.
The big twist is that the affair has actually occurred between both Emma and Fine’s wife as they’ve presumably found solace in a lesbian relationship to escape their shitty husbands. However, it seems that both Andy and Fine think more alike than either would like to admit, as both men have killed their wives, dismembered their bodies and stuffed in luggage to be discarded on the train to Chicago. However, unbeknownst to Andy, he’s been set up to dispose of Emma’s corpse, only to accidently frame himself by putting his tags on the case containing Fine’s wife instead. It’s a fun twist to experience, but if I’m being honest, I’m not exactly sure how it actually works out, I mean, how would Fine know that Andy would swap tags with the correct case? The other issue with the ending is that why would the story deem Andy worthy of getting fucked over for murder, when Fine gets off scott free for pulling the exact same crime. Having someone get away with the callous killing of a gay or bi woman who was presumably unhappy in her marriage, is a strange final message for a Tales Of The Crypt episode when outlandish karma is usually the name of the game, but it isn’t enough to throw off the tension of the episode as a whole.
While the final twist suffers a little from logic issues and a strange lapse in it’s usually “fair” morals (couldn’t have Emma’s severed hand snagged Fine’s collar when he’s disposing of her body parts down the waste disposal at the end of the episode?), the Hitchcockian aspects of “Two For The Show” prove to be a refreshing break from all the rampant insanity the season has given us so far. I guess marriage counciling just isn’t a thing in the Tales From The Crypt universe…
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