Lover Come Hack to Me
Peggy (Amanda Plummer), a timid young woman, has just gotten married over her Aunt Edith's (Lisa Figus) objections that her new husband Charles (Stephen Shellen) is a gigolo who is obviously after the fortune her mother left her. That stormy night, on their way to a hotel to start their honeymoon, Charles almost crashes into a tree that fell in the storm, just as Peggy finds a revolver in the glove compartment. Charles tries to move the tree with no success; when he returns, the keys are missing from the ignition. Neither he nor Peggy claim to know anything about these incidents, but they decide to take shelter in a nearby empty house, with Peggy suddenly finding the keys just as Charles tries to break down the door.
As they start to make love in front of a blazing living room fireplace, Peggy stops and asks her new husband if they can use the bed instead. They find one in the upstairs bedroom immaculately made despite the disrepair of the rest of the house. As Peggy freshens up, Charles hides the revolver he took from the car. Peggy emerges from the bathroom, sporting black lingerie and a sultry personality completely different from her original timid demeanor, at which point she and Charles make love in a way she believes is "as perfect as it will ever get."
Later that night, Charles wakes up alone, hearing the sound of a slamming car door and a man's laughter. He sees Peggy meeting another man, Allen, on the lawn and inviting him into the house, where they make love in the living room. After the act, Peggy aims to keep her love with Allen "perfectly complete" by killing him with a large battle ax mounted above the fireplace. Charles rushes in to stop her, but he phases right through her body, concluding that the pair are ghosts. Remembering that Peggy told him that her father was named Allen, and that he died before she was born, Charles concludes that Peggy's mother killed her husband on their wedding night, when Peggy was conceived.
Charles snaps awake in the bedroom, finding Peggy standing over him with concern. He dismisses everything he saw as a dream, but Peggy shocks him by admitting it to be the truth - and then revealing the same ax so she can have the same "perfect" love her mother did. Charles confesses that he never loved Peggy, only married her for her money, and has been planning to kill her and frame it on a burglar. He goes for the revolver, only to find that she has unloaded it. Fully believing the lies he told her, Peggy hacks Charles to death with the ax.
A week later, Peggy surprises Aunt Edith (who subtly set up the events in the house ahead of time to continue the family's man-killing legacy) with the news that she's going to have a baby girl... who's going to need her own man one day.
Tropes:
- Adaptational Villainy: Charles being a murderous gigolo wasn't part of the original comic. It's the only major change that the episode makes.
- All Just a Dream: Charles believes this is the case of Peggy's mother murdering her father, as the event ends when he wakes up in bed.
- Asshole Victim: Charles is a Gold Digger who wanted to kill Peggy for her money. Nobody feels bad when Peggy hacks him to bits.
- As You Know: The fact that Peggy's mom killed her own husband on the night Peggy was conceived was never brought up earlier in the episode, and is only revealed when Charles narrates the fact to himself.
- Ax-Crazy: Peggy's mother and Peggy herself. If the ending implications are anything to go by, Aunt Edith is similarly insane.
- The Bad Guy Wins: Peggy gets the perfect honeymoon she's always wanted, murdering her husband and conceiving a daughter in the process.
- Black Widow: Every woman in Peggy's family is one, killing their husbands as a way of keeping their love "perfect" forever.
- Card-Carrying Villain: Charles, who Aunt Edith can see through in a heartbeat.
- Catapult Nightmare: Charles bolts upright screaming after he wakes up from his nightmare of Peggy's mother butchering her father.
- Chekhov's Gun: The revolver that Charles keeps in the glove compartment. While he intended to use it to shoot Peggy and blame the killing on a burglar, Peggy planned ahead for her "perfect honeymoon" and unloaded it, preventing him from using it against her.
- Cute and Psycho: Peggy is adorably sweet and timid on the surface, but once she's alone with her new husband, she wastes little time in hacking him to bits.
- Distracted by the Sexy: Charles plans to kill Peggy for her fortune, but those plans stop dead in their tracks when he sees Peggy dressed in sexy lingerie and possessing an entirely new demeanor, so he decides to have sex with her first.
- Does Not Like Men: Aunt Edith. It's justified at first since Charles is clearly after her niece's money, but once he's out of the picture, her focus shifts to men in general, revealing that she inflicted the same warped views into Peggy's mother and Peggy herself.
- Dress Hits Floor: When Peggy changes out of her soaked street clothes and changes into her lingerie.
- Evil Old Folks: Aunt Edith. At first, she can see just who Charles is and just what he wants from her niece. When she reunites with Peggy after his death, it's revealed that she's a maniacal man-hater who conditioned Peggy's mother and Peggy herself into carrying on the family's man-murdering legacy, even setting up the abandoned house in advance to help Peggy fulfill her duty.
- Glass-Shattering Sound: Peggy's climactic scream shatters the glass face of the house's grandfather clock, stopping the hands at midnight.
- Gold Digger: Charles marries Peggy just so he can kill her and get her fortune.
- Gory Discretion Shot: As Alan is killed by Peggy's mother, and Charles gets killed by Peggy, each death cuts away to the walls and the furniture being splattered with blood.
- Here We Go Again!: At the end of the episode, Peggy reunites with Aunt Edith and announces that she's pregnant with a little girl... who's going to need a man of her own one day.
- History Repeats: Just like her mother before her, Peggy butchers her new husband with an ax, after becoming pregnant with a girl.
- Hoist by His Own Petard: Before they have sex, Peggy suspects that her aunt's suspicions about Charles were true, prompting him to lie that he truly loves her to deflect her suspicions. As Peggy moves in to kill him near the end of the episode, Charles admits the truth, but Peggy is too thoroughly convinced in his lies to see otherwise. That, and she also empties the gun he intended to kill her with ahead of time.
- Hypocritical Humor: In spite of being a Gold Digger who fully planned to kill Peggy and run off with her fortune, Charles has the audacity to curse out Peggy when he sees her cheating on him with another man. He quickly snaps out of it when he reminds himself that what's truly important to him is her money.
- Immodest Orgasm: Peggy, when she consummates her marriage with Charles. Peggy's mother similarly achieves this with Alan on their own wedding night.
- Irony: Charles only wants to marry Peggy for her money, opting to kill her and run off with it. Peggy begins to suspect the truth about him, but he lies to her that he genuinely loves her for who she is. By the end of the episode, as Peggy moves in to kill him, Charles flat out admits his real motives and prepares to shoot her, but the gun he packed was unloaded by Peggy, who now fully believes his lies.
- It Runs in the Family: Every woman in Peggy's family murdered their husband to preserve their love the moment they consummated their marriage, not wanting it to be soured and worn away by time. Each of them also apparently gave birth to a girl.
- Let's Wait a While: Peggy wanted to save the moment she and Charles first have sex (and when she kills him) after they're married. Peggy's mother went the same route.
- The Man Behind the Man: Aunt Edith, who never approved of Charles' marriage to her niece, is revealed to have orchestrated everything that happened on their wedding night to carry on her demented family's legacy. She is also hinted to have done the same for Peggy's mother.
- Nightmare Fetishist: The women in Peggy's family get turned on by making love to their husbands, then killing said husbands to preserve the moment forever.
- Old, Dark House: Peggy and Charles stay in a conveniently-discovered one when the road is blocked by a tree. It's set up in a way that makes it look like it was meant just for them.
- Or Was It a Dream?: Charles is corrected by Peggy when she approaches him with the ax and tells him that her mother murdering her father on their wedding night was no dream.
- The Perfectionist: Peggy repeatedly tells Charles how she wants the perfect wedding night and the perfect honeymoon over and over. In her mind, this includes murdering her new husband so their love won't be worn away by time.
- Shout-Out: A pair of newlyweds experiencing car trouble on a stormy night and being forced to stay in an old, dark, creepy place for the night, with plenty of sex and even an ax murder to go around? Now where have we seen that before?
- Stocking Filler: As Peggy changes into her sexy lingerie, she slowly rolls black stockings up her legs.
