Pain Killer
Harvey Turman (Lou Jacobi), ordinarily employed in an auto dealership, has been forced to study computer programming by his nagging, overbearing, hen-pecking wife Nadine (Peggy Cass). On one dark and stormy night, Harvey suddenly begins suffering from chronic back pain, seeing a strange man outside his window when confined to the kitchen floor. When he goes to see local physician Dr. Roebuck (Farley Granger) for a prognosis, Harvey recognizes him as the man outside his window. Roebuck ultimately comes to the conclusion that Nadine is causing the back pain, and the only way the pain will disappear is if Nadine disappears as well.
Tropes:
- Awful Wedded Life: Very heavily implied. Harvey doesn't outright say or show it, but he's not at all happy with Nadine. She's an overbearing crow who's made it her mission in life to push him to move up in the world by getting the job she wants him to get, with no intention of getting a job herself. When Roebuck tells Harvey that Nadine may have to "disappear" to remove his back pain, the thought initially horrifies Harvey. Initially. Regardless, the doctor doesn't have trouble tempting him when he brings up all the times she was ever condescending and unkind to him, and if it's any indication, Harvey asks "When can it be done?"
- Chain of Deals: Roebuck's method for relieving patients of their (faked) pains are to have them kill a relative of his most recent patient, having pulled the stunt on several people in the past. Anne Tracey, the old lady who kills Nadine, did so because she was Roebuck's latest victim, and Harvey becomes next in line when he's tasked with killing the ailing attention-whore father of his next victim.
- Hate Sink: Nadine denies Harvey from pretty much anything that makes him happy, forces him quit being a mechanic and start being a computer programmer, and relies on him to be the sole breadwinner of the household. She doesn't even share her caramels with the poor guy. It's a big relief when we learn that she's been run down by an old lady.
- Henpecked Husband: Poor Harvey. Denied his favorite sweets, forced out of his regular line of work, and treated as a doormat by his wife.
- Jerkass Has a Point: As much as Nadine nags her husband, she's half-right when she figures Harvey's back ache is made up as Dr. Roebuck, being the Devil and all, was making Harvey feel back pains he didn't really have. She was also right when she figured Roebuck was simply scamming them, but the only thing she didn't see coming was that he would "prescribe" Nadine be rubbed out.
- Morally Ambiguous Doctorate: Being the Devil, Roebuck offers to cure his patients of their psychosomatic aches and pains if they commit murders for him.
- Mythology Gag: Harvey and Nadine spend the first scene of the episode watching Night of the Living Dead (1968), which series producer George Romero directed.
- Satan: The true identity of Dr. Roebuck. Using psychic abilities, he makes his patients endure pains that they don't actually have, then prescribes them to kill a relative of his previous patient to make the pain go away. He previously did this to the old lady who kills Nadine, and then does it to Harvey to get him to kill his next patient's overbearing father.
- "Strangers on a Train"-Plot Murder: The variation in this episode is a chain rather than a swap, as the mysterious Dr. Roebuck arranges for his patients to be cured of chronic pain if they remove a troublesome individual from another person's life. That same person is later contacted to kill someone in another person's life, under the threat of having the pain brought back.
- Time Skip: There are a few flash forwards to show Harvey's back pain coming and going.
