A simple job at a salon leads Charlie to discover how a Hollywood legend covered up a deadly crime 40 years ago.
Tropes
- Accidental Murder: Lily's death came as a result of Laura taking drastic measures to make sure she could film the scene properly, but not intending to kill the actress. The deaths of Max and Arthur, however, are intentional indeed.
- All for Nothing: Laura killed Arthur and Max to cover up her role in Lily's death, but she's exposed, ends up going mad, and killing herself by the end.
- Break Out the Museum Piece: Charlie and Raoul manage to find an old school movie projector and play the incriminating film on the same screen as the commemorative video for Max and Arthur.
- Call-Back: Laura's trick to bypass the facial recognition on Max's laptop is essentially the same one Charlie tried on Natalie's tablet in "Dead Man's Hand". Laura's version is rather more successful, what with her using an incredibly lifelike model from a master effects artist as opposed to the simple photograph Charlie had to work with.
- Cardboard Box of Unemployment: Charlie sees one in Raoul's hands and realizes that Laura fired him.
- Character Tic: Normally, Charlie would say "bullshit" as a Verbal Tic whenever she hears a lie. But working in a barbershop where people lie ALL the time has given her an eye twitch this episode instead.
- Either that, or she has developed the tic as a result of not being able to say "bullshit", as that would get her fired.
- Cutting Corners: Arthur's movie was running over budget and they could not afford any more delays. However, the water tank scene was not safe and Lily kept pushing the panic button. Laura disabled the safety light so they could finish shooting the scene and did not have to pay for another day of shooting. They got the scene shot on time but Lily died as a result.
- Driven to Suicide:
- Max dies from jumping off of Laura's balcony, but the poison she slipped him was gonna kill him anyway...
- Laura jumps to her death like Max did while experiencing a mental breakdown from her guilt.
- Facial Horror: Max's face after his fall is not shown clearly, but we can tell it is smashed to Hell. This was likely intentional on his part, as he probably knew Laura would use the face of his dead body to unlock his laptop and delete the incriminating file.
- Failsafe Failure: The water tank scene was dangerous so a panic button was installed that Lily could press when she felt unsafe and she would then be pulled out of the water. Laura disabled the safety system by simply unscrewing the lightbulb. Without the panic lighting up, Arthur and the film crew thought that Lily was acting and did not realize that she was actually drowning until it was too late.
- Fictional Counterpart: Lights and Motion (LAM) is one to Industrial Light & Magic (ILM), although it appears to be a much smaller company overall.
- GPS Evidence: Charlie figures out Arthur went to Laura's house before he died when she notices the gravel from her driveway in the treads of his car's tires.
- Have You Told Anyone Else?: Both Max and Arthur fall for this, and Laura uses it to her full advantage both times.
- He Knows Too Much: Laura kills both Max and Arthur because they found video evidence of her sabotaging a safety precaution leading to a young actress' death.
- It's All My Fault: Arthur ultimately blames himself for Lily Albern's death, think his pushing her too hard on the scene led to her not telling them she was drowning.
- Mundane Utility: Charlie always knows if someone is or isn't the father on Maury, to the befuddlement of the barbershop owner.note
- No Celebrities Were Harmed: Arthur Liptin, the legendary stop-motion visual effects artist who is working on a "non-narrative" feature, is quite reminiscent of Phil Tippett, whose Mad God came out the previous year. (Tippett and his studio also did the stop-motion work on the episode.)
- Once More, with Clarity: The opening has Laura seemingly upset about Max jumping off the balcony in a suicide. We then see Max jumped as he was already dying from the poison, with Laura dropping the tears fast.
- Power Incontinence: Charlie is completely overwhelmed by the constant stream of bullshit she hears in a hair salon, and is relieved to meet the straight-talking Arthur afterwards. The experience did cause her to develop an eye twitch upon hearing lies, however.
- Refuge in Audacity: Charlie sneaks into the gala's backstage to find the Medusa head wearing a giant, obvious horse costume. She's eventually spotted, but it still takes a hilarious long amount of time for her to be caught while walking around in the suit.
- Sanity Slippage: Despite her best efforts, the guilt from murdering Max, and later Arthur, ends up completely unraveling Laura by the end of the episode.
- Suspiciously Specific Denial: Laura is actually a good liar, and normally this trope wouldn't apply, since she keeps her lies broad enough to fool most people… but when she unknowingly triggers Charlie's Living Lie Detector sense with one lie, Charlie's visibly growing horror causes Laura to specifically mention she had nothing to do with the deaths of both Arthur and Max…
- Tampering with Food and Drink: Laura puts poison into drinks she serves both Max and Arthur. Max jumps off a balcony before the poison takes full effect, while Arthur manages to drive home before it does him in.
- Tempting Fate: While selling Arthur the BS story that she needs a statue of Max made to talk to him and ask forgiveness, she says "maybe I'm damned to follow him over that cliff". Come the end, she jumps to her death just like Max did.
- Thanatos Gambit: Max quickly and desperately calculates that committing suicide by diving face-first off a cliff Laura has built her house on will prevent her unlocking his computer and erasing the digital copy of the film. She circumvents this, but it delays her long enough for Arthur to discover her treachery with Charlie's help, allowing Charlie to eventually expose her.
- Through the Eyes of Madness: Laura's hallucinations at the end are played out before the audience, including a shift into old school style, low-definition visuals.
- Unintentional Backup Plan: Arthur's main reaction to seeing the film of Laura's original lethal mistake is to simply go and confront her about it, but before he does so he splices out the incriminating footage and drapes it over the Medusa head - it's ambiguous why exactly he did that (maybe to see if she was remorseful about it), but when Laura kills him even after he seems to burn the footage in front of her, it leaves the film still in play for Charlie to find.
- Unwitting Instigator of Doom: Charlie's talk with Arthur, where she spells out how much his "non-narrative" feature mirrors his past demons, inspires him to pull the footage from the night Lily died. He discovers Laura tampered with the failsafe light. Instead of going to the police, he confronts Laura and is poisoned by her.
- Villainous Breakdown: Laura is clearly coming apart at the seams from guilt at the LAM gala, stumbling through her speech before evidence of her crime is put on display. After that, she starts hallucinating and eventually leaps to her death.
