Abra Cadaver
When magic meets medicine.
Crypt Keeper: (dressed as a surgeon and overlooking a "John Doe" cadaver on a gurney) Ah! A corpse by any other name would smell as sweet. Unless of course, it isn't dead yet! (cackles) Tonight's tawdry tale is about a man who's gravely concerned about matters of life and death. Why he'd care about that remains to be seen. (cackles lightly) I call this putrid piece: Abra Cadaver.
Many years ago, back when they were medical students, Carl Fairbanks (Tony Goldwyn) played a rather ghoulish prank on his brother Martin (Beau Bridges) as a birthday surprise. The shock from the prank gave Martin a heart attack, rendering him suffering from permanent hemiparesis. In the present day, the resentful Martin is stuck as a medical researcher and teacher while his brother has gone on to be a successful surgeon. After studying some peculiar techniques in Haiti, Martin gradually plots revenge on his brother by injecting him with Suspensor, an experimental drug that stops his heart, but keeps his brain alive, giving Carl a first-hand experience on what it's like to be a corpse.
Tropes:
- A Birthday, Not a Break: Martin had the heart attack that paralyzed his hand on his birthday, as Carl set up the prank that resulted in said attack as a birthday surprise for him.
- Ain't Too Proud to Beg: After his abusive treatment of Martin, Carl's inner monologue pleads for his brother to fix whatever he did to render him clinically dead.
- And I Must Scream: Carl discovers that his brother's theory of continued brain function after death was right, rendering him able to see, hear, and feel everything around him without being able to do anything about it. The real clincher is that he re-enters this state at his own autopsy, only able to scream as an epidermal saw cuts into his head.
- Birthday Party Goes Wrong: Carl's morbid surprise party for Martin's birthday gives his younger brother a heart attack, which renders all the guests into panicking messes.
- Bookends: The episode begins and ends with a Fairbanks suffering a heart attack.
- Deadly Prank: The prank that Carl pulled on Martin for his birthday had people disguised as dead bodies screaming, leaping off their slabs, and throttling him, so it's no wonder he had a heart attack. Martin's own prank to get back at Carl, stated below, is no better.
- The Dog Bites Back: After his brother's birthday prank gives him permanent hemiparesis and ruins his dreams of being a surgeon, Martin gets revenge on Carl by injecting him with Suspensor (an experimental drug that renders him clinically dead), has his body treated like a cadaver, and ultimately pretends to subject him to brain removal for a class of med students.
- Downer Ending: Martin accidentally kills Carl, as the older brother suffers a heart attack after the shock of the younger one's revenge prank, which likely strips Martin of all his credentials. What's worse is that while Martin's theory of continued brain function after death is proven correct, the only thing he got wrong was the sense of touch being the first thing to go, as Carl finds out when he prepares to feel everything during his own autopsy.
- Dreadlock Rasta: The doctor who helps Martin tends to Carl's faux-corpse is a jovial Jamaican man who smokes weed on duty, puts his joint in Carl's mouth, and toys with him for fun. It's later revealed that he's an African-American member of Martin's research team who wearing a wig and putting on an accent for Martin's prank.
- Everyone Has Standards: As much of an arrogant and selfish jerk Carl is, he says that he's not one to forget his brother's birthday, even if the way he celebrated it was rather morbid.
- Evil Cripple: Martin gives off the vibes of one, aiming to get spiteful revenge on his older brother after his gruesome birthday prank gave him permanent hemiparesis.
- Fate Worse than Death: While clinically dead, Carl is left traumatized while experiencing everything that a cadaver goes through, especially being hung from a hook in the meat locker, getting embalmed, and having his brain removed for a class of med students.
- Finger-Twitching Revival: Carl's finger is seen twitching during Martin's medical class, a sign that his clinically dead state is wearing off.
- First-Person Smartass: After he's rendered a faux corpse, Carl's thoughts are vocalized to the audience. Despite being terrified out of his wits at what's happened to him, he still manages to throw out quite a few one-liners.
- Five-Second Foreshadowing: Just before Martin's prank is revealed, eagle-eyed viewers can spot that the scalp that he's supposedly cut off of Carl's head doesn't have Carl's hair.
- Foolish Sibling, Responsible Sibling: Both Fairbanks brothers went into medical school together, but while Martin is an active bookworm who is genuinely interested in medical science, Carl is a slacker and ladies' man who uses his attractiveness (or his genius brother) to cruise through his work with no fuss.
- Gone Horribly Right: Martin wanted to make Carl think that his theory of brain activity after death could have merit. He succeeded, but in a way that ultimately cost him everything.
- Hollywood Heart Attack: Martin has one at the beginning of the episode. Carl has one of his own in the middle, and another at the end of the episode.
- Homage: The opening scene of Carl and Martin in their younger years can be seen as one to Night of the Living Dead (1968), given that it's in black and white and has them surrounded by dead bodies that suddenly come alive.
- I Love the Dead: Carl shows shades of this trope in the flashback, when he gets a little touchy-feely to an attractive blonde on a slab in the morgue. It's justified a moment later because she's actually his still-living girlfriend.
- Inner Monologue: Carl's thoughts are heard constantly after he's rendered clinically dead.
- Large Ham: Carl's inner monologue really gets in on the ham, especially during the autopsy scenes.
- Mad Doctor: Martin's dabbling in voodoo and his desire for revenge on his brother give him the characteristics of one.
- Monochrome Past: The flashback to Martin's birthday; the day he suffered his heart attack.
- Mood Whiplash:
- The opening scene goes from creepy, to outright scary, then comedic, and then tragic, all in five minutes.
- The second-to-last scene has the Fairbanks brothers apparently making amends with one another for their feud, just before Carl suffers a second heart attack.
- My God, What Have I Done?: When Carl has his own heart attack, Martin, who had finally gotten his revenge on his brother for robbing him of his future as a surgeon, immediately scrambles for his medical team to help him save Carl.
- Nested Story Reveal: The end of the episode implies that everything up to Carl's second heart attack was actually a story that the mortician preparing to cut into his body was telling his partner.
- No Sympathy: Years after his birthday prank gave Martin a heart attack and ruined his prospective career as a surgeon, Carl still treats his brother as his go-to victim for whenever things go wrong, usually threatening to cut his funding.
- Not Quite Dead: Once it's injected into Carl, Suspensor keeps his brain alive after his heart stops. In this state, he can still feel, hear, and see everything around him, but can't move or speak. As such, he's treated like a cadaver to be cut into and moved around.
- Only Mostly Dead: Suspensor has this effect on Carl, as it preserves his brain function after his first heart attack and lets him see, hear, and feel everything that a cadaver experiences.
- Post-Modern Magik: Ever since he returned from a trip to Haiti, Martin has been dabbling in voodoo (which he argues is a technical form of medicine), even bringing supplies from the island nation to his lab to utilize in his research on brain activity. Suspensor, the drug he creates and injects his brother with, borrows elements of a ritual known as les morte vivante, which Martin says lets the dead be cognizant of their surroundings.
- P.O.V. Cam: Half of the episode is framed from Carl's perspective while he's clinically dead.
- Pun: Martin jokes that his clinically dead brother will be "hanging around", while he's hung on a hook in the meat locker.
- Related in the Adaptation: In the comic, the two main characters were close friends, but not related. Here, they're brothers.
- Scary Surprise Party: Carl's idea of a surprise for his brother's birthday is to have people pretending to be undead corpses scare the living shit out of him.
- Second-Face Smoke: The Jamaican doctor blows marijuana smoke into the clinically dead Carl's face as he visits him in the meat locker, causing Carl's inner monologue to cough. Immediately after this, Carl's monologue lampshades how unusual it is when he isn't actually able to cough.
- Shout-Out: While toying with Carl's corpse, the Jamaican doctor pretends to be the Robot and states "Danger, Will Robinson! Danger!"
- Sickly Green Glow: Suspensor, the drug that Martin creates and injects Carl with.
- Tampering with Food and Drink: Martin starts his revenge on Carl by slipping a mix of lethal chemicals it into a glass of scotch that he guzzles down, which slowly kills him so he can be injected with Suspensor.
- Voice of the Legion: Every voice Carl hears from his clinically dead P.O.V. is deep and distorted, with the exception of his own.
- Waking Up at the Morgue: Quite a few characters go through this in the episode, such as the friends at Carl's impromptu surprise party, and later Carl himself.
- What Happened to the Mouse?: Martin is never seen after Carl's second heart attack. Considering the circumstances and the idle chatter of the morticians who perform Carl's autopsy, it's very likely that the incident made him lose all his credentials and ruined his life for real.
Crypt Keeper: (looming over the camera, holding an epidermal saw; he opens his blood-spattered visor) Tsk, tsk, tsk. And Carl thought he was the family's practical choker. Wanna play doctor? Then open wide and say: AAAAAAAAAAAGGGGGGGHHHHH!!!!!! (cackles)
