Effect and Cause
The free-spirited Kate Collins (Susan Strasberg) rediscovers a rather ghoulish painting in her old collection, and white-washes the canvas to reuse it. After doing so, a pair of paramedics come to her door claiming that someone in the house broke their leg, seconds before she herself falls down the stairs. It's after this incident that Kate discovers the laws of cause and effect have mysteriously been reversed. As time goes by, Kate finds out that she can now control reality itself within her home, but her unrestrained mind leads her to lose control of her new powers, which she believes are the result of "bad karma" accumulated from the painting she defaced.
Tropes:
- Ambiguous Situation: How do Kate's powers work? Are they tied to the painting she white-washes, or were they dormant within her all along?
- Chekhov's Gun: Kate's stove and doorbell. Specifically, the fact that they respectively leak gas and spark.
- Cosmic Plaything: The universe subtly begins toying with Kate before gradually killing her, largely because it doesn't want to be proven wrong as she gets too deep into its workings.
- Creepy Changing Painting: The painting that Kate reuses for its canvas, which may be the source of her powers.
- Crying Wolf: Kate's sister Janet thinks she's doing this as she calls for help from the topsy-turvy land that was once her house.
- Deadly Closing Credits: The credits begin as the doorbell sparks, after which the sound of an explosion is heard.
- Delayed Causality: This occurs to Kate a couple of times before she masters her reality-warping powers. The first time, a pair of paramedics arrive at her house seconds before she breaks her leg falling down the stairs. The second, a grocery delivery man who enters the kitchen lists off the items he's carrying, all of which Kate already has and witnesses disappearing from the shelves as the grocer lists them.
- Disabled Means Helpless: After she breaks her leg, Kate notably struggles with getting around her own house, and when she loses her crutches, she's left to watch as reality itself conspires to blow up her house.
- Downer Ending: As reality goes haywire and the stove spews gas, Kate hears a fire engine and notices sirens outside. As she cries, a pair of police officers approach her front door and ring the bell, which sparks and causes her house to blow up.
- Five-Second Foreshadowing:
- The end of the episode has Kate screaming in terror when police lights flash outside the house and officers head to the door, the bell of which is sparking.
- The opening act has the sounds of an ambulance approaching Kate's house, just as a pair of paramedics come to the door and ask about a woman with a broken leg.
- Foreshadowing: David and Kate smell gas at one point while they make tea, with David blaming her old stove. Near the halfway point, the old doorbell sparks as the delivery man rings it. Both of these items contribute to Kate's house blowing up in the end.
- Hope Spot: Just after it appears Janet's talk has made reality stop going mad, Kate witnesses a ceramic mouse figurine turn into a real mouse, revealing that nothing's changed.
- Horrible Housing: Many comments are made about the state of Kate's house, with the wonky stairs, sparking doorbell, and gas-spewing stove.
- Motor Mouth: Kate goes on long-winded rants about the universe and energy vibrations as she explains her powers.
- New-Age Retro Hippie: Kate is said to have been a hippie who did LSD back in the 60s, as well as being into astrology, Tarot, and the I Ching. She hasn't changed a bit, refusing to reuse her canvases under the threat of "bad karma" and spouting hippie slang every so often. Janet initially doesn't believe her newfound powers are real, instead thinking that she's undergoing acid flashbacks.
- Nothing Is Scarier: Everything about the mysterious and horrifically sinister painting Kate reuses. Was it truly one of her own works? And if so, what was she thinking/on when she painted it? We don't even know if it's actually the cause of Kate's newfound powers, but it appears on the door as Kate's house goes up in flames, hinting that it's at least somewhat responsible.
- Oh, Crap!: As David suddenly watches Kate fall down the stairs and break her leg, right after the paramedics at the door say they got a call about such a case.
- Order Versus Chaos: Kate undergoes such a battle as she tries to control her powers. She also rambles to David that she believes that the universe is naturally chaotic, and is only given what is perceived as "order" by those who perceive the concept of order at all.
- Pick a Card: Kate demonstrates her newfound abilities on a deck of playing cards to David, telling him to pick a card that she expects won't be in a regular deck. He's somewhat convinced when he draws the "Seven of Clocks" and "King of Frogs".
- Power Incontinence: With her free-spirited, unrestrained nature, Kate proves to be very inept at controlling all of reality, though in her defense, she's focusing more on just letting stuff happen.
- Reality Is Out to Lunch: The climax of the episode has reality within Kate's house going bonkers, with flames shooting from the kitchen faucet, water spraying from the stove-burners, objects disappearing and changing, and a doorknob becoming limp and noodly.
- Reality Warper: Kate becomes one after she whites out that painting.
- Reality Warping Is Not a Toy: Kate tries to make this point to David when he learns about her powers, trying her hardest to let things happen naturally instead of making them happen.
- Self-Inflicted Hell: Kate's powers going haywire on her house are assisted by her weak-willed nature and her lack of mental restraint.
- Sibling Yin-Yang: Kate's sister Janet is a no-nonsense businesswoman who thinks of her as a kid for believing in superstition and sticking to her hippie way of life. Kate similarly thinks lowly of her for being so narrow-minded.
- Tempting Fate: As she tries to calm Kate during what will be the last time she'll ever hear her voice, Janet tells her not to worry about anything. Cue Kate spying more objects randomly transforming into different objects.
- Theory of Narrative Causality: Kate theorizes about the paramedics and the grocery boy coming to her house just before she needed them, concluding that they came to her because they knew she would need them.
- Totally Radical: Kate spouts 60s slang from time to time, being a former hippie and dropper of acid.
- Unwitting Instigator of Doom: Kate's friend David is the one who gives her the idea to whitewash her canvases when she can't afford new ones.
- Your Mind Makes It Real: Kate's powers seem to come from the belief that a person should "get rid of the 'shoulds' and 'ought tos' cluttering up [their] brain" and let things take their own shape.
