Stories that make no sense

Sometimes stuff in the Darkside episides just kinda, are...well... there and the viewer is left to fill in the blanks any which way they want.

heres my ideas.

1: He was getting sick because Chow Ting stopped doing his laundry.

2: He may have said "sayonara!" as a joke, or to be sarcastic, or as a hint he wasnt Chinese. He doesnt sound surprised at Groppers offer of his soul. One guess is that he was some sort of eastern wizard who just enjoyed the game as it were for the magical services, as certainly his customers seem to be getting "something" from it more than clean clothes. He was interested in winning the lottery despite how much he was getting from who knows how many people. So perhaps for Chow Ting the winning of the lottery by sheer chance was a big thrill, a sign, etc.

Love Hungry was one of those odd episodes to me. Why was she selected? Why make the devices non-removable? (Aside from the idea of point blank forcing the user to lose weight.) Well aside from the fact its a Darkside ep and they didnt allways make sense in the normal... er, sense.

1. I recall that it was relatively clear that the sickness was due to being cut off from the service, thus afflicting him with an overwhelming guilt that he was incapable of living with.

2. I don't understand why him saying "sayonara" would make you think that it was all a scam. If he had said "i'm going to disney world" would that have led you to believe that he was a KGB agent disguised in America in order to control the world's supply of gold? I just don't understand your line of logic. He says "sayonara" because it's the only word that Americans recognize as meaning "i'm out of here for good" and the reason that he wins the lottery is because it's a literary device used to explain why he would simply stop performing his service without warning. He could have died, or gone into the insurance game, but the TFTD writers decided he should win the lottery. And that's nice because he needed some time to relax.

lol of all the nonsensical stories, you chose one of the more coherent ones to complain about tiny details that don't even matter?

both those can be easily explained. you're not reading deep enough, more like.

I was looking down and missed the ending. Does the main character decide to commit suicide? And in this show doesn't the main character suddenly die right at the conclusion quite often?

I have to admit that the first few times I saw this episode, I didn't get it either. One of the issues with many Tales from the Darkside episodes is that the short run time does not allow for enough detail. However, I am a huge fan of James Hong, so I watched it a lot for that reason. And although it took a while, I finally came to an understanding.

What Chow Ting does is remove sins and guilt. Gropper went to Chow Ting because he wanted to be able to do his job without guilt. Chow Ting gave Gropper the prices and Gropper had a small amount of laundry which was the right amount of sins to be washed away by the money. Chow Ting makes a very strong point of not being contacted and was not happy that Larchmont told Gropper.

Most of what happens in the plot is revealed in the next scene. Rather than continue to perform his job and live his life the way he did with a moderate amount of sin and guilt, the fact that Chow Ting's laundry service DID work convinced Gropper that he could commit more and more sins and profit from them without guilt.

Larmont calls Gropper and he is distressed when he finds out that Chow Ting knows that he told Gropper about the special service. Keep in mind that Larchmont goes crazy before Gropper. The assumption is that Chow Ting cut Larchmont off right away for breaking the rules.

Gropper's secretary announces that his 10 year old son Marvin has called him collect, to which Gropper appears proud. He takes the call and tells his secretary to come in and update the charts.

While taking the call from his son, the effects of being guilt free begin to show. Marvin is upset that his friend Billy told him that Gropper's company kills baby seals to make coats. Gropper assures his son that fur looks better on people than on a seal. He tells his son to act like his son and stop sniffling. He says To his secretary's surprise, Gropper tells his son to bring home a piece of Billy's nose and he will double his allowance.

Gropper is realizing he can do whatever he wants to do without consequence of guilt. There is an old saying that to kill without remorse is to feel like a god. The problem is that without guilt, Gropper continues to do more and more horrid things.

His secretary tells Gropper that Chow Ting has doubled his prices again due to extra labor charges. Chow Ting is not ripping Gropper off. Gropper is just committing so many sins now and Chow Ting has to wash them out that Gropper needs to pay more and more.

Gropper has his son's friend's dad murdered because of the baby seal comment. As soon as he orders the murder, he sends flowers to the man's wife. Chow Ting has not stopped picking up the laundry. Gropper just does not realize how many sins he is committing because he is guilt free.

As Gropper gets worse, he makes the fatal mistake of calling Chow Ting. He broke the arrangement. Because his clothes are piling up, you get the impression that a lot of time has passed, but it hasn't. Gropper is now starting to lose his mind because he hasn't been washed free of his sins.

Chow Ting did not win the lottery and he did not move to Florida. All he did was cut off the relationship with Gropper because he broke the rules. In the same call, he mentions Larchmont killed himself because Gropper is aware that Larchmont broke the rules. If Gropper paid more attention to Larchmont's mistake, he would not have done it too. That's why Chow Ting says he hopes that Gropper handles the news of Chow Ting's retirement better than Larchmont. You broke the rules like he did and will end up like he did.

As far as "sayoonara" goes, I am not really sure. My theory is that it is a statement made to the viewer of the episode that in real life there is nothing than erase sin and guilt and whatever you believe is doing it is a lie.

Gropper realizes what he has done. He realizes he can't be free of sins and guilt and kills himself. If you can, watch the episode again and pay close attention to everything Gropper does in his office. I am actually writing a Tales from the Darkside wiki right now and I watched this episode several times in order to correctly talk about the plot and dialogue. It was through that I noticed that there is so much more happening in this episode than any other episode in the series.

Probably the most WTF one for me was Going Native towards the end of Season 4. Just a very bizarre episode that I felt didn't fit.

Season One's "THE TEAR COLLECTOR" episode

What in the world was that about?


http://www.freewebs.com/demonictoys/

You screen-name makes you sound like a rock nazi, dude. I appreciate more than one genre of music.