Split Second
All this to not be bored.
Crypt Keeper: (dressed as a lumberjack and sharpening an ax) Sometimes, life can be such a grind. Know what I mean? That's why I like to get out every now and then and (throws the ax) swing a little. (the ax hits something offscreen, causing a man to scream) So much for his family tree! (cackles) Tonight's tale concerns a young woman who's about to do a little swinging of her own. She wants to prove that a good man is hard to find, but easy to get rid of. I think you'll like this little chopping spree I call: Split Second.
Liz Kelly (Michelle Wilson), a woman with no morals nor any shame, has ended up stranded in a logging town in the Pacific Northwest, having taken up work as a barmaid to save up for a bus ticket. During her shift, lumber camp manager Steve Dixon (Brion James) saves her from being harassed by a rowdy patron named Banjo, and marries her that same night. Things go well in the pair's married life until Liz shows up in a skimpy outfit in front of Steve's workers, prompting him to reveal himself as violently jealous. Soon after, a new lumberjack named Ted Morgan (Billy Wirth) shows up at the camp, looking for work and hoping to train for a local woodcutting competition. His muscular physique instantly grabs the attention of the sultry Liz, who knows full well what Steve could do to the guy, but nonetheless goes ahead and seduces him, all to rid herself of perpetual boredom.
Tropes:
- Abhorrent Admirer: Steve becomes one to Liz, marrying her on the night she meets him. When his men start taking note of her and her attractiveness, he becomes insanely and violently protective of her.
- Allergic to Routine: Liz does whatever she wants without thinking solely because she hates boredom. Case in point, she gets bored of her marriage to Steve incredibly quickly, and when Ted comes looking for work, she decides that the cure for her boredom has arrived, proceeding to seduce him despite being married to Steve and knowing of his violent temper.
- Asshole Victim: Steve and Liz. They both end the episode Bound and Gagged inside hollowed-out logs, which the now-blind Ted cuts into with a chainsaw.
- Awful Wedded Life: Liz quickly becomes bored in her marriage to Steve, and seduces Ted to entertain herself. On the other side, Steve's marriage turns him into a homicidal lunatic who is willing to kill anyone who makes even the slightest crack at his wife.
- Ax-Crazy: Steve Dixon. He's verbally and physically abusive to his workers once he marries Liz, attacking Artie for making a crack at Liz for her sexual history, to the point where Snazz had to pull him off the poor guy. He later beats up Ted after catching him sleeping with Liz, slamming an ax into his head to permanently blind him. What's worse, Snazz says that Steve was "a helluva guy" before he got married.
- Battle Cry: Snazz helps the blinded Ted work a chainsaw by chanting "Do it, Ted! Amputate! Make it pay for its mistake!"
- Be Careful What You Wish For: Liz wanted to find a cure for "terminal boredom" her entire life. As she's about to be cut into pieces by the man she cheated on her husband with and indirectly rendered blind, she narrates that Steve's workers finally found it.
- Bedroom Adultery Scene: Steve catches Ted and Liz in bed after Liz seduces the younger lumberjack.
- Benevolent Boss: Steve starts the episode being a pretty nice guy to hang around with. When environmental protests get in the way of current operations, he decides to relocate to the North side of the mountain rather than lay off any of his workers. He's also quite chummy with his men... before they see and react to Liz.
- Between My Legs: The episode's comic cover is a scene of Steve attacking Ted, as viewed between Liz's legs.
- Beware the Nice Ones: Artie and Snazz. They put up with Steve's abuse at first, but once he blinds Ted, they hold him at knife/gunpoint and use him as a practice log for their contest.
- Big Damn Heroes:
- In the opening scene, Steve stops Banjo from forcing himself on Liz.
- Steve accuses Artie of sleeping with Liz and grabs him. Due to what had happened the last time the guys made a crack at Liz, Snazz immediately intervenes by admitting that he was the one who made the joke in the first place.
- Blood-Splattered Innocents: Ted gets splattered with Steve's blood as he unknowingly saws into the hollowed-out log he's bound and gagged inside. The other lumberjacks get his blood on them also as they cheer Ted on.
- Bound and Gagged: Twice near the end of the episode. Steve and Liz are given this treatment and placed inside hollowed-out logs, where Ted slices them to pieces. After the story ends, the producer of the series itself is given the same treatment by the Crypt Keeper, only he's tied to the outside of his log.
- Chainsaw Good: Steve and Liz, trapped inside hollow logs, meet their ends by being chainsawed by Ted, the lumberjack the former blinded and the latter seduced.
- Creator Cameo: The wraparound segment at the end features Joel Silver, a producer of the show, Bound and Gagged to a giant log on his birthday, as the Crypt Keeper cuts into him with his own chainsaw to give him "final cut".
- Deadpan Snarker: Liz isn't just deadpan in her snark, she's deadpan in everything.
- Died on Their Birthday: The Crypt Keeper cuts into his producer on his birthday, giving him "final cut" as a present.
- Disproportionate Retribution: Artie laughs at Snazz's joke about Liz sucking people off for a nickel. Overhearing it, but misinterpreting who said it, Steve responds by assaulting Artie and shoving a sharpened piece of plastic down his throat, to the point where he coughs up blood and can't breathe.
- Distracted by the Sexy: Steve's workers let out catcalls and wolf whistles when Liz walks into their meeting in skimpy clothing. It makes Steve violently snap at both them and Liz.
- The Dog Bites Back: Ted, at first unknowingly, cuts up the abusive boss who blinded him, and ends the episode preparing to do the same to the flirtatious wife who seduced him and encouraged the beating.
- Emotionless Girl: Liz displays no emotion for the whole episode, since she's constantly engaged in her battle against boredom.
- Eye Scream: Steve's attack on Ted after he sees him in bed with Liz renders the young lumberjack blind.
- First-Person Smartass: Liz narrates the story as it happens, and not once does she stop being snarky.
- For the Evulz: Liz is a loose, uncaring, unfeeling skank who has slept with dozens of men without second thought because she's constantly bored, and in her opinion, there's nothing in the world worse than boredom. She purposely seduces Ted, knowing full well how jealous, possessive, and violent Steve can get. When Steve catches Ted and Liz in bed, she cries rape, which leads to Steve beating Ted with an ax and rendering him blind. Liz doesn't feel any remorse for the situation she caused, which, again, she did solely because she was bored.
- For Want Of A Nail: Had Banjo simply backed down and respected Liz's wishes, Steve wouldn't have come to her rescue, they would've never gotten married, and they wouldn't have been cut to pieces by the workers they assaulted and rebuked.
- Fourth-Date Marriage: Steve and Liz marry on the very night they meet.
- Gold Digger: Downplayed. According to Liz, Steve boasted that he had a good amount of money when he proposed. Though she liked the idea of being taken care of, her narration indicates she had a "Meh, why not?" flippancy to the proposal, rather than immediately seeing dollar signs.
- Handicapped Badass: After being rendered blind, Ted manages to cut up logs with Liz and Steve stuck inside them.
- The Hedonist: Liz has engaged in a life of nonstop sex and bad decisions as the result of her constant boredom.
- Idiot Ball: Ted sleeps with his boss' wife, even though they both know full well that he's unhinged about her. They also get it on in his cabin, where he easily walks right in.
- Inner Monologue: Liz's is heard throughout the whole episode.
- Irony:
- Steve doesn't want any women around the workers except his wife, commenting that women cause trouble in places like a lumber camp. Guess who ends up actually causing all the trouble?
- The beginning of the episode had Steve pulling his gun on Banjo to get him away from Liz. The ending has Snazz and Artie similarly holding him at gun/knifepoint to complete their bloody revenge on him and Liz.
- It Amused Me: Liz engages in all the shameless acts she commits solely to not be bored, and get some actual thrills out of life.
- It's All About Me: Liz focuses on engaging in one-night-stand after one-night-stand to keep herself from being bored, showing that she cares only for herself. Even then, she voices it in a way that makes it seem she doesn't care about herself at all.
- Jumping Off the Slippery Slope: Steve's not exactly wrong to be concerned about Liz being around his men, given how she was immediately greeted with wolf whistles and derided as a slut for her sexual history. But he immediately takes it too far by attacking Artie (who simply laughed at a comment that Snazz made), and he gets even worse from there.
- Lack of Empathy: Liz has virtually no remorse, empathy, sympathy, morality, or any evidence of a conscience whatsoever. Case in point, she observes the workers helping Ted work their equipment after he was blinded by Steve, who assaulted him after she seduced him and even encouraged him to finish him off. Rather than express any sympathy for the situation she helped cause, Liz thinks that the workers must have nothing better to do.
- Love at First Sight: Steve falls for Liz as soon as he sees her, even marrying her on that same night.
- Love Makes You Dumb: Ted does realize that sex with Liz isn't going to end well, but unfortunately for him, he ends up listening to the wrong head, and soon loses his eyesight for the trouble.
- Mighty Lumberjack: All the male characters are strong, hardy, and (mostly) physically attractive lumberjacks, since the episode is set in a Pacific Northwest logging community.
- Mr. Fanservice: Ted has a lean and muscular physique, and is seen cutting a huge log in half with only an ax in the span of seconds. This catches Liz's attention, and she decides to seduce him, despite being married to the jealous and insanely violent Steve.
- My Girl Is Not a Slut: After Steve flips out over a joke made about her sexual history, Liz's narration reflects on this trope.Liz: What is it about men?! When they want you the first time, they don't care what anybody thinks of you. But as soon as they think of you as theirs, they want you to be as pure as the fucking Madonna!
- Nerves of Steel: When Steve shows up at the bar angrily insisting that someone's been sleeping with his wife, Snazz is the only one willing to stand up to him, since everyone else is too scared (although you can't really blame them after what Steve did to Artie).
- Oh, Crap!: After cutting the supposed log amid cheers, Ted has this expression during a close-up. He's apparently realized what actually happened, but gets over the shock and joins the cheers before gearing up to cut the next log.
- Posthumous Narration: Given that Liz ends the episode preparing to be cut up by the blinded Ted, it can be safe to say that she's narrating from the grave.
- Really Gets Around: Liz is known by nearly all the men in town as an absolute whore, to the point Snazz quips that Steve must be into sloppy seconds. Liz even acknowledges how she was with several of Steve's men before she married Steve himself.
- Sanity Slippage: Steve immediately flips out in response to his men's reactions to Liz. While trying to reason with Steve at the bar, Snazz says that he was a great guy before getting married, and warns that Liz is driving him off the deep end.
- Shameless Fanservice Girl: Liz spends all of her time showing off her attractive figure and parading herself in skimpy outfits to get reactions out of Steve's men, another side effect of her constant boredom.
- Small Role, Big Impact: Steve and Liz only get together because of Banjo, a rowdy bar patron who wasn't taking "no" for an answer and prompted Steve to come to the rescue.
- The Sociopath: Steve and Liz are clear cases, the former devolving into a violent madman who grievously injures his own men, and the latter being incapable of feeling empathy or compassion for anything, even herself.
- Tempting Fate: During her narration, Liz admits that she thought she'd actually be happy after getting married to Steve and settling down in his big house in the mountains, but it doesn't take long for her boredom to resurface.
- Took a Level in Jerkass: In the opening scene, Steve intervenes when Banjo won't stop bothering Liz, even when at risk of getting stabbed for his trouble. He gets substantially worse immediately after he marries Liz.
- Tranquil Fury: When Snazz and Artie show up at Steve's place, they have calm smiles on their faces. However, their reason for being there (to kidnap him) makes it clear that they're angry about what he did to Ted.
- Unwitting Instigator of Doom:
- Liz unnecessarily flirts with Ted to ease her boredom, leading to their infidelity and driving Steve to become abusive to his workers, Ted being blinded, and her and Steve's eventual deaths.
- Banjo, the bar patron in the opening scene, is the very reason why Steve meets Liz in the first place, having fought him off when he tried to harass her.
- We Used to Be Friends: While tearing into Steve, Snazz tells him that he was a great boss and a great friend, but all that disappeared when he married Liz. By the end of the episode, they trap him in a hollowed log and trick the blinded Ted into cutting him up with a chainsaw.
- Wham Shot: Blood suddenly starts gushing from a supposed log, during which the camera pans up to reveal Steve Bound and Gagged.
- What the Hell, Hero?: Snazz berates Steve at the bar and tells him he's going crazy, reminding him that he was a real fun guy to be with before he married Liz.
- Wrong Genre Savvy: When Steve discovers a work glove in his bed and realizes that Liz has been sleeping with one of the men, his first suspect is Artie, due to the joke he laughed at earlier.
Crypt Keeper: (pops into frame wearing a hard hat) Mmmmm! Now, that's what I call "sushi roll". I guess Liz was right. A good man is hard to find... especially after he's been chopped into so many pieces! (cackles) Well, kiddies, I've got a little chopping to do of my own. (the camera zooms out to reveal a man bound and gagged while strapped to a log) It's my producer's birthday. He's always wanted final cut, and that's exactly what he's getting! (cackles maniacally and begins cutting the log, causing the producer to writhe in agony)
