Cutting Cards
It's a poker night you'll never forget.
Crypt Keeper: (sitting at a makeshift poker table, wearing a visor and looking over his hand) You know, kiddies, after a night of slithering through the sickening slime of my crawly Crypt, I take a tip from the Marquis de Sade. He likes to unwind with a little red-hot poker! (cackles) Tonight's tale, from my collection of terror tomes, is about a couple of real sharpies who'll do anything for a stab at the jackpot. So ante up, fellas: The game's about to begin.
Hotshot gambler Reno Crevice (Lance Henriksen) enters a casino looking for his rival, Sam Forney (Kevin Tighe). The two men have won and lost enormous amounts of money to each other over the years, and Reno wants to settle the score permanently. He's down to his last $100, but Sam offers to play a game against him in which the loser has to leave town for good. Reno rolls the dice and gets a double-six, but Sam gets the same roll for a draw. In an abrupt shake-up, Reno suggests that they play Russian Roulette, using the revolver Sam keeps in his car. Reno loads one chamber, spins the cylinder, and allows Sam to go first. Neither man backs down as they hit one empty chamber after another, and Reno prepares to die on the sixth and final turn, but the gun fails to fire. Sam protests that the round may have been too old or wet to fire correctly, but Reno accuses him of rigging the game. They then move on to Chop Poker, a five-card draw game with no chips or betting. The winner of each hand gets to chop off one part of the loser's body with a meat cleaver, starting with the fingers. Sam loses the first two hands, then wins one and ignores Reno's desperate offer to let a doctor reattach a lost finger as he gleefully hacks off one of Reno's. The scene cuts to a hospital ward some time later. Reno and Sam are now patients here, their arms and legs reduced to stumps, having come out even once again. They continue to bicker as they play checkers, using their noses to push the pieces and passing a piece of chewing gum back and forth.
Tropes:
- Absurdly High-Stakes Game: The gamblers' games start off with a simple roll of the dice. When they come out even, they abruptly switch to Russian Roulette. When the last round doesn't fire, they then switch to a game called Chop Poker, where the person with the winning hand gets to chop off a part of the loser's body with a meat cleaver.
- All for Nothing: By the end of the episode, despite hacking off all their limbs, Reno and Sam haven't let up one bit. The last we see of them, they're still trying to best each other, this time in a game of checkers in their hospital room.
- An Arm and a Leg: The episode ends with Reno and Sam in the hospital, their arms and legs reduced to stumps as the result of their Chop Poker game.
- The Bet: After years of winning and losing huge bets to each other, Reno and Sam decide to play one more game, with the loser leaving town for good (alive or dead). Unfortunately for the gamblers, they keep ending up deadlocked, and they're still at it as the episode ends.
- Creepy Souvenir: When his luck in Chop Poker turns good, Reno considers pickling Sam's fingers in a jar and showing them off to his buddies.
- Everybody Lives: A rarity in this series. Reno and Sam are both alive right up to the end, albeit with their limbs cut off.
- Face Death with Dignity: Thinking that his luck's run out in Russian Roulette, Reno brings the gun to his head and pulls the trigger, but not before monologuing about how he doesn't want people thinking he was a coward. As it turns out, the shot was a dud.
- Fingore: Reno and Sam engage in a game of "Chop Poker", where the player with the losing hand gets a finger hacked off with a meat cleaver. The stakes only get bigger as the game drags on.
- Freeze-Frame Bonus: During Sam's third turn in the Russian Roulette game, he cocks the hammer and points the gun at the nosy couple who have just driven in. After they speed away, he cocks the hammer again and pulls the trigger, hitting nothing. This gives an alternative explanation for the outcome of the game: that second hammer-cock allowed Sam to skip the loaded chamber altogether. (Neither man thinks of opening the cylinder to see if the round has a firing pin indentation, which would show that it had been hit and was a dud.)
- The Gambling Addict: Reno and Sam. As each has won and lost large sums of money to the other over the years, they decide to settle the score once and for all, with each of them unwilling to call it quits on the other.
- Irony: Despite how many games the gamblers play that should wind up with one of them dead, this is one of the few episodes of the series where no one dies.
- It's All About Me: Reno and Sam have this mentality, only focusing on their egos and getting the other out of town permanently.
- Life-or-Limb Decision: Chop Poker allows for the player with the losing hand to have a body part chopped off. Thanks to Reno and Sam's unending pride and continuous deadlocking, they keep playing until all their limbs are gone.
- Lighter and Softer: About as light as you'll get for this series. There's still plenty of blood, what with the two main characters hacking the other's limbs off, but it's all played for laughs.
- Loser Leaves Town: The non-lethal result of the original bet between Reno and Sam is that the loser gets out of town for good, but they keep coming out even and raising the stakes.
- Mistaken for Servant: The tourist who tries to drive into the parking lot, where Reno and Sam are staging their Russian Roulette showdown, thinks that Reno is a valet. The gamblers pressure him to drive away in what is notably the only time they agree on anything in the whole episode, Sam even calling Reno his friend as he points the gun.
- Mutual Disadvantage: Reno and Sam show themselves to be equally matched in the art of gambling. They keep coming to a draw during every game they play, and the end of the episode still sees that neither of them have won.
- No Ending: When we last see them, Reno and Sam are playing checkers in the hospital, reduced to quadruple amputees through their game of Chop Poker. And they're still trying to outdo one another.
- Only a Flesh Wound: In real life, the gamblers' games wouldn't have gotten as far as "chopping off limbs", and they would have been lucky to make it as far as a single hand before going into shock from blood loss.
- Pride: Reno and Sam live and breathe pride, to the point where they refuse to settle for a draw and engage one another in a series of increasingly dangerous games to satisfy their ego-fueled competition.
- Professional Gambler: Reno and Sam are professional gamblers, and their pride keeps them from accepting a draw.
- The Rival: Reno and Sam see each other as archenemies, since neither of them are willing to settle for a draw.
- Russian Roulette: Reno and Sam play a game with Sam's gun after they both roll a double-six on the dice. To the shock of both, the final shot is a dud.
- Skewed Priorities: Reno just survived a game of Russian Roulette, and his concern is over the fact that the bullet didn't work (i.e. the bullet wouldn't have killed Sam if he had lost).
- Too Much Alike: Reno and Sam are both gambling addicts with too much pride to settle for a draw, seeing each other as rivals that must be defeated in a bet, and after years of winning and losing to the other, the rivalry has gradually driven their lives down the drain, costing them their lovers and possessions. Neither of them are able to spot the similarities throughout the episode, resulting in both of them losing their limbs in an Absurdly High-Stakes Game — and they're still trying to outdo the other.
- Visual Pun: The Crypt Keeper's outro has him cooking some very literal finger food.
Crypt Keeper: (cooking Reno and Sam's severed fingers in a frying pan) I've heard of giving someone the finger, but this is ridiculous! But at the risk of going out on a limb, I've got to hand it to Crevice and Forney. They'd do anything to elbow their way to the top! (shows off the cooking body parts) Dinnertime! (cackles)
