The Moth
Sybil (Debbie Harry) is a mischievous and heartless young woman who practices witchcraft, which her devout Christian mother (Jane Manning) greatly disapproves of. When she returns home fatally stabbed by Annie Lee, who had her husband enchanted to fall in love with her and his soul stolen, she’s convinced that her soul will exit her body in the form of a moth. When this phenomenon occurs, Sybil tells her mother to capture the moth and put it back inside her mouth before dawn so she can come back to life. Not wanting to subject herself and the townsfolk to all the years of pain and misery Sybil has inflicted on the village, her mother becomes determined to stop her wicked daughter, though her divine faith and inexperience with black magic hinders her attempts to do so.
Tropes:
- And I Must Scream: Sybil writhes in agony as her time of death finally chimes, the moth that is her soul finally exiting her mouth at the end of the first act.
- Antagonistic Offspring: Sybil despises her mother for not allowing her to practice her witchcraft, and later takes over her body when she actively tries to stop her from cheating death. The mother notes that the feeling is mutual, as she hates how her daughter practices black magic and uses it to raise hell in their village, yet still treats her as a beloved daughter regardless.
- As the Good Book Says...: As Sybil lays dying in bed, her mother reads Psalm 23 to keep her faith strong and Sybil's wickedness weak.
- The Bad Guy Wins: Sybil manages to cheat death by taking over her mother’s body, reclaiming her spellbook and preparing to inflict more evil on the world.
- Batman Gambit: Sybil plans one to get possession of her mother’s body no matter what she tries, as she noted that not all the details of her ritual were written in the spellbook. The ending shows that it succeeded with flying colors.
- Beat It by Compulsion: Sybil's mother pours a line of sand in front of her daughter's bedroom entrance, meant to simulate the Earth for her daughter's corpse to think that she's dead. She suggests that the soulless husk count the grains to keep her occupied. It's somewhat successful, as Sybil ends up counting those grains into the next morning, but her mother still becomes her new vessel.
- Bottle Episode: The episode is set within the confines of Sybil and her mother's rustic cabin home.
- Cannot Cross Running Water: By reading Sybil's spellbook, her mother learns that the dead cannot cross water, and their bodies must be surrounded by it if they're to be prevented from getting their souls back. She attempts to keep Sybil's body from leaving the bed by surrounding it with jars filled with water, but the soulless body manages to circumvent this by turning the water into milk.
- Can't Get Away with Nuthin': Hours after she fatally stabs Sybil, Annie is said to be dead by the young witch's mother, having been shot by her brainwashed husband Eugene.
- Card-Carrying Villain: Sybil very clearly loves causing trouble with her demonic magic, and she has no hesitation with possessing her mother's body to cheat death.
- Chromosome Casting: Sybil and her mother are the only characters to appear on screen.
- Clingy Macguffin: The jar Sybil's mother traps the titular moth inside, which rolls back to her when she throws it across the room and becomes impossible to break. The mother assumes that Sybil enchanted the jar so only she can open it with her last breaths.
- Demonic Possession: Sybil takes control of her mother when she dies, thanks to her attempts to interfere in the ritual to return her to life.
- Dissonant Serenity: Sybil remains stoic and nonchalant (albeit weakened) after she returns home stabbed in the chest, even passing the time until she dies by manipulating a voodoo candle of Annie to make her husband shoot her. It can be assumed that she's so calm because she already had her plan to take over her mother's body thought out from the very beginning.
- Downer Ending: Sybil takes over her mother’s body when she absentmindedly clutches the titular moth, and ends the episode preparing to go out and cause more evil.
- Foreshadowing: As Sybil tells her mother near the end of the opening act, she's going to die, but she's not going to "leave this Earth".
- For the Evulz: Sybil’s mother notes that she enjoys using her black magic just to cause trouble. The plot comes about because she was stabbed by local woman Annie Lee after stealing her husband's soul and forcing him to fall in love with her. Sybil claims that she did so because Annie always hated her, but her mother rightly accuses her of just wanting to mess with her.
- I Have No Daughter: Sybil's mother convinces her daughter's corpse that her real daughter is dead, and that the body should just return to the grave.
- Immune to Fire: Sybil's mother tries to burn her evil daughter's spellbook when she finds it hidden in her dresser, but learns that the book is impervious to flames.
- It Amused Me: As stated above, Sybil uses her powers to screw with other people for her own sadistic amusement, such as stealing Annie's husband's soul and prompting her to fatally stab her.
- Love Martyr: A familial version occurs with Sybil's mother, who calls her daughter evil and notes that she's brought nothing but pain to her ever since she was born, but she still loved her nonetheless, and this makes it difficult for her to choose between destroying her daughter's soul or letting her stay alive and cause more trouble.
- Macabre Moth Motif: Sybil's evil soul manifests as a moth which crawls out of her mouth after she dies, and her mother tries to keep it away from her body so she can't come back to life.
- Morton's Fork: If Sybil's mother had done as her daughter instructed, she would've gone on to do more black magic. When the mother tries to use Sybil's spellbook to get her away from her soul, she ends up getting possessed by her daughter's spirit by grabbing the moth. Either way, there was no outcome where the mother came out on top.
- Our Souls Are Different: Sybil's soul appears as a moth that exits her mouth once she dies, and must be placed back inside before dawn so she can return to life. The end of the episode has the moth entering the mother's body when she grabs it to keep it from Sybil's corpse, allowing Sybil to use her mother as a new vessel.
- Our Witches Are Different: As Sybil demonstrates, a witch's soul takes the form of a moth that climbs out of the mouth once they die, and can be put back inside the witch's mouth to make them return to life, so long as it's before dawn. They also share some traits with vampires, such as an inability to cross water and a compulsion to count miniature objects like grains of sand when their soulless bodies reanimate.
- Poor Communication Kills: If Sybil's mother had bothered to learn what could happen if she disobeys her daughter's request, she might not have been so quick to keep the titular moth away from her.
- Small Role, Big Impact: Annie Lee, a woman who Sybil says always hated her, fatally stabs her after she steals her husband Eugene's soul and enchants him to fall in love with her. Because of this, Sybil ends the episode possessing her mother to gain a new life, but not before manipulating Eugene into shooting Annie.
- The Sociopath: Sybil, who uses black magic to screw with the local villagers simply because she can.
- Somewhere, an Entomologist Is Crying: The moth that represents Sybil's soul is heard chittering like a squirrel or mouse as it flies around the jar it's locked in. Some moths are known to make squeaking sounds, but none like this. Furthermore, the moth itself resembles a painted lady butterfly more than an actual moth.
- Soulless Shell: As her mother works on keeping the titular moth away from her, Sybil's soulless corpse awakens and goes right back to asking her mother if she saved the moth. She even attempts to leave her bed to get the moth back, showing some hesitancy towards the protective wards that her mother left on and around her.
- Time Skip: Near the end, as Sybil's body honors her mother's request to count the grains of sand the mother put in front of her door to simulate the earth she's buried under, the episode skips to the next morning, where she finally finishes counting all those grains.
- Tome of Eldritch Lore: Sybil's spellbook, which her mother tries to destroy, but unfortunately discovers to be fireproof.
- Unnamed Parent: Sybil's put-upon mother and future vessel.
- When the Clock Strikes Twelve: Sybil declares that she'll die of her stab wound by midnight, and that her soul has to return to her mouth before dawn to bring her back to life. Her mother tries breaking the clock to prevent this,
- Wicked Witch: Sybil, who lives to cause trouble, keeps torturing people with magical artifacts as she's near death, and takes over her own mother's body to keep living and keep inflicting evil.
