Three's a Crowd
An anniversary to die for.
Crypt Keeper: (acting as a DJ, speaking into a microphone) Hello, party animals. Are you ready to bop till you drop? Dead, that is. (cackles) Tonight, I've chosen a fiendish little tale from my hold of moldy oldies. We've been invited to an anniversary celebration of holy deadlock. You know, to love and to perish; for richer, for horror; in sickness and in stealth; 'til death do us part. (cackles) This is one anniversary... the husband will never forget!
Married couple Della and Richard (Ruth de Sosa and Gavan O'Herlihy) aren't having the best of luck financially as they approach the date of their tenth wedding anniversary. Alan (Paul Lieber), Richard's best friend and the couple's former best man, has invited them to spend their anniversary at his cabin in the mountains. Richard, meanwhile, thinks that his wife is planning, or is currently having, an affair with Alan, likely being the reason he invited them to his place, and it certainly doesn't help that nearly everything Alan and Della say is taken the wrong way. As Richard slowly descends into lunacy over his inferior state and his wife's supposed infidelity, he decides to turn to his own methods of fixing the problem.
Tropes:
- All for Nothing: After Richard kills Alan and Della, he comes across a surprise party where he learns that Della was pregnant, not only revealing that he was wrong about everything and murdered his best friend and wife for no reason, he also murdered his unborn child.
- Always Someone Better: Richard grows to resent Alan after being forced to move into his cabin, seeing him as a better provider to Della than he could ever be.
- Awful Wedded Life: Averted, actually. Despite her stupidity regarding the Alan situation, Della genuinely loves Richard and wishes that he'd stop belittling himself so much.
- Bond One-Liner: When confronted on where Alan is, Richard tells Della that he's "hanging around somewhere".
- "Could Have Avoided This!" Plot: If Alan and Della just came clean to Richard, and not spent the episode idiotically flirting in front of him, the unfortunate tragedy could have easily been avoided.
- Cruel Twist Ending: Easily one of the cruelest in the entire series. Thanks to a misunderstanding and his growing paranoia, Richard ends the episode murdering his best friend, his wife, and his unborn child.
- Death of a Child: Richard and Della's unborn baby, by Richard himself.
- Double-Meaning Title: The "Three" in the story's title doesn't just relate to Richard, Della, and Alan, but the former two and their unborn child.
- Flat Character: Alan and Della are primarily characterized as idiots who appear as though they're flirting with one another constantly.
- Foreshadowing: Hints to Della's surprise pregnancy are present throughout the episode:
- The opening scene has Richard lamenting about how he's been unable to give his wife children.
- Della doesn't drink any alcohol for the entire episode.
- She's also seen wearing bigger clothes, including a fur coat Alan buys for her.
- Alan also calls Della about telling Richard the truth about a certain something, hinting at the surprise party.
- Graceful Loser: Similar to Della in the above-mentioned Awful Wedded Life, Alan admits that he does regret not being able to steal Della from Richard when he had the chance, he playfully accepts the couple's relationship and decides to move forward with his own life... or what life he has left, anyway.
- Green-Eyed Monster: Richard grows insanely jealous of Alan for being richer and better for Della than he could ever be, as well as the fact that he thinks the pair are having an affair.
- I Love the Dead: Richard drags Della's corpse back to the cabin with the intention of making love to it.
- Impaled with Extreme Prejudice: Alan is killed when Richard shoots him through the stomach with a crossbow.
- Imperiled in Pregnancy: Poor Della. The woman could've saved herself and her child if she and Alan weren't being too stupidly intimate.
- Loser Protagonist: Richard, who tried to go into insurance and was since reduced to an out-of-work bartender, views himself as a pathetic failure who isn't worthy of a woman like Della.
- Love Triangle: One between Richard, Della, and Alan. Or so Richard thinks...
- Mistaken for Cheating: What kicks off, and continues to drive, the plot.
- My God, What Have I Done?: Though Richard doesn't say these words, you can tell he's thinking them after everything that's happened.
- Nice Guy: Despite having a previous attraction to Della, Alan accepts her relationship with Richard, having been the best man at their wedding and offering to let them move into his cabin 10 years later, vowing to give them an anniversary they'll never forget.
- Not Helping Your Case: Alan insistently buys Della a fur coat, fills the couple's new home with flowers and expensive jewels, and reveals that he's been in love with her since he and Richard were in high school and regrets not making the first move. Shoving all of these things in the increasingly-insane Richard's face doesn't help him stay alive in the slightest.
- Sanity Slippage: Already feeling like a colossal failure compared to Alan, Richard descends into insanity when Alan and Della appear to act as though they're having an affair, to the point where he murders both of them (and his own unborn child) in cold blood.
- Shout-Out: Alan's cabin is the same one Chester and his family vacationed in from The Great Outdoors.
- Surprise Party: Richard blindly stumbles into one as he's dragging Della's corpse into the cabin, where he learns too late that he killed his own child.
- That Came Out Wrong: To establish how idiotically insensitive Alan and Della are, everything they tell Richard about the other (such as Alan telling Richard that he's lucky to have her when he's been in love with her since high school and regrets not making his move first) comes off as poorly-phrased, giving Richard incentive that his theories may be true.
- Too Dumb to Live:
- The whole episode, Alan and Della blatantly act like they've got the hots for one another. They always do so in front of Richard, fueling his suspicions that his wife is cheating on him, and continue to withhold the truth of why they decided to bring Richard to the cabin from him, even when they realize he's about to kill them.
- Then, when Della discovers that Richard killed Alan and that she's next, she runs upstairs instead of out of the cabin. To further add to the stupidity, she could have easily run back to the cabin, where Richard would have discovered the truth.
- Tragic Villain: Richard, driven to murder because of how his friend and wife idiotically appeared to flirt with one another. He was already feeling inferior compared to Alan, but their supposed affair was the breaking point.
- Wham Shot: When the Surprise Party is revealed in the Cruel Twist Ending, we see a banner that reads, "Happy Anniversary, Richard! You're Going to Be a Daddy!"
Crypt Keeper: (wearing a party hat and surrounded by balloons; blows into a noisemaker, then throws some confetti) That's what I call dragging your wife to a party! I guess Richard was the guest of horror, after all. Just goes to show you what can happen when you let your imagination run away with you. (raises a toast) Here's to your bad health. See you next time, boys and ghouls! (cackles)
