Episode 1: The Man Who Was Death

 
Original Scaredate: June 10, 1989
Director: Walter Hill
Writers: Robert Reneau and Walter Hill
Starring: William Sadler, John Kassir

Quick Kill: Executioner loses job, goes rogue, finds that the system frowns on unsanctioned murder.

Review: First impression: I'd forgotten how raspy and creepy the Cryptkeeper tends to be in these early episodes. Just a ghoul and his shroud.

Sadler plays Niles Talbot, the state executioner, and the man enjoys his work. In an excellent and claustrophobically directed opening sequence, Talbot describes the effects of an execution over the action of one. After this execution, the state legislature decides to abolish the death penalty, and Talbot is out the door. Since he's the prison's spectre of death, he can't even get his old electrician's job back.

Soon, a number of murderers are let free, and Talbot uses his electrician's skills to enact some vigilante justice. The show definitely makes some leaps of logic/timeline here to move the episode along, as Talbot is captured in the act without any real explanation of how the cops got onto him, then the death penalty is reinstated just in time for Talbot's comeuppance.

"The Man Who Was Death" is primarily Sadler's show. Talbot spends a great deal of the episode monologuing, often directly into the camera as to his philosophies of life and death. Sadler does an excellent job of falling into and building this character very quickly. He's a slightly misogynistic country boy who believes in a justice that eventually exists outside the bounds of the law. We may know that he has fallen into the category of evil that he lives to punish, but he doesn't see it in that light. And on the strength of Sadler's performance, we believe he really feels that way.

Although Sadler is the center of the episode, there is some good supporting work, primarily from Roy Brocksmith as a bartender who may love the death penalty as much as Talbot does.

The character writing is solid, but the pace of the story forces some leaps in logic/timeframe that can come off as a little silly in an episode that doesn't otherwise have the campy quality that other episodes in the series do. This is particularly true in the abolishing and quick reinstating of the death penalty. But given that this, like many EC stories, was a quick morality play/twist ending story, it's a minor quibble overall.

Walter Hill does a very good job directing the episode, particularly in the mirrored opening and closing sequences, where we see Talbot first as punisher and then as punished as we wait for that red phone to ring. "It all evens out, don't it, baby?"

All in all, a solid opening to the series.

Best Death: A surprisingly gore-free start, but the spa electrocution features some very...expressive death acting.

Creeper Corner: Ladies: A shower/spa scene from one of Talbot's victims (Dani Minnick), and a few go-go dancers in a club. Fellas: Gerrit Graham is in the spa scene as well, but (shocker) shows much less skin than his female counterpart.

Cryptkeeper's Line of the Week: "What a reVOLTing development!"

Episode Rating: 3 out of 4 Cryptkeepers