The Once and Future King
In 1986, Elvis Impersonator Gary Pitkin (Jeff Yagher) performs his act in an underpopulated hotel lounge in Dubuque, Iowa, to general apathy from the patrons. Backstage, his manager Sandra (Lisa Jane Persky) informs him that she's booked a residency in Las Vegas for him. Gary is livid, realizing that despite his genuine enthusiasm for rock and roll, his uncanny physical resemblance to the King is going to pigeonhole him for the rest of his career. He passionately argues that Vegas is what killed Elvis, having little regard for his later career and the poor decisions he made during that time. Sandra is unmoved, as she pulled a lot of strings to get him the residency and if he turns it down, he can forget about her continuing to represent him. She bluntly informs him that he is only a nostalgia act, and the music he plays isn't his music. She further claims that she would know, having once met the real Elvis toward the end of his life, where he spouted out paranoid and delusional ravings about how he wasn't really the King. Frustrated at what this means for his future, Gary storms out and drives down a lonesome country road late that night, before a drunk driver forces him to swerve off the road and into a ditch, losing consciousness.
When he awakens, Gary finds that he's uninjured. Equipped with only his guitar and the clothes on his back, Gary tries to hitchhike to get a ride. He's picked up by a truck driven by who appears to be another Elvis impersonator, claiming to be headed for Memphis. Having nowhere else to go, Gary accepts the ride, and discovers on the way that he has actually gone back in time, finding the date on a newspaper he finds on the floor to read July 3, 1954. He realizes that the man in the truck with him is the real Elvis Presley (also Yagher), who's just 48 hours away from the legendary audition for Sun Records which launches his recording career. Elvis isn't sure what to make of the stranger he's picked up, but when he gets to work at Crown Electric, his boss points out that the other man could be his brother. Elvis is convinced that Gary is actually his stillborn twin brother Jesse risen from the dead, and Gary decides to go along with this to try and steer Elvis onto the right track, to help prevent the mistakes that the soon-to-be King made in history as he remembers. He and Elvis arrange to meet on Independence Day to rehearse for the recording.
Gary tantalizes Elvis with his promises of the wealth and women that will come his way when he becomes a musical legend. Elvis is mostly pleased that he'll have the opportunity to provide for his beloved mother, Gladys. Excited to hear his idol play, Gary asks him to perform the song he'll be auditioning with the next day, but he's shell-shocked to hear a treacly ballad Elvis calls "I Love You Because". Gary is confused as to why Elvis isn't going to be singing "That's All Right", the rockabilly number history remembers him singing. When Gary plays the song for him in a loose, rip-roaring style, complete with the King's trademark hip gyrations, Elvis is mortified, calling the performance "indecent". Not expecting this, Gary immediately becomes defensive and makes the fatal mistake of calling Elvis a "son of a bitch". Always a Momma's Boy, Elvis grows livid, and comes to the conclusion that Gary is a demon disguised as his brother, playing "the Devil's music" to tempt him into a life of sin. Gary desperately pleads with Elvis to accept that the song is his music, but the enraged would-be King attacks Gary. In the ensuing fight, Elvis' guitar is broken, and in one sudden move, he's fatally impaled on the neck, dying instantly. Gary is forced to bury the would-be King of Rock & Roll in a shallow grave, wondering what to do now. He slowly begins to realize that he must take Elvis' place in order to live out Presley's life as he remembers, removing his clothes and beginning to speak in Elvis' dialect as he pledges to make the young man's momma proud.
The next day, July 5, 1954, Gary, disguised as Elvis and highly nervous, finds himself outside the studios of Sun Records. After some hesitation, Gary enters, his disguise fooling absolutely everyone. In the recording booth, Gary patiently waits for Sam Phillips to enter so he can witness him performing. He starts an "impromptu" jam performance of "That's All Right", and after Sam hears it and likes it, he starts recording it as his audition, just as history remembers.
20 years later, in a Las Vegas hotel, the now middle-aged Gary, in full costume and still acting as Elvis, discusses how his life unfolded since that fateful day. In honor of the man he killed and whose identity he assumed, he lived out Elvis' life exactly as he remembered it. He even made made all the same mistakes the King did, not because he wanted to, but because he felt Elvis would have wanted to, and he owes him for his accidental murder. Bitter and plagued by guilt, Gary admits that he has, over the years, wondered if the actual Elvis would have even become the King in the first place, a question which gives him headaches every time he thinks about it. It's revealed that his captive audience is a young woman recognized as Sandra, his future manager, experiencing the encounter she mentioned in the beginning of the episode. Ironically, Sandra insists that the imposter before her is the King, the only King. Gary smiles ruefully, tells her to be true to herself, and gives her his scarf before she leaves. He sits in his chair, staring out the window of his glitzy Vegas hotel suite in silence.
- Artistic License – History: The front page of The Commercial Appeal Gary discovers gives the date as Monday July 3, 1954. In reality, July 3, 1954 was a Saturday.
- Back from the Dead: Elvis believes that Gary is Jesse, his stillborn identical twin brother. Wanting to keep Elvis from making his historical mistakes, Gary does nothing to dissuade him from believing this. Weirdly, Elvis himself doesn't seem to notice the strong resemblance between them at first.
- Berserk Button: Elvis is a gentle, kindly, wholesome country boy who's interested in whatever Gary has to say, but as the impersonator himself finds out, the one sure-fire way to get on his bad side is to insult his mother.
- Bittersweet Ending: Gary accidentally kills Elvis before he achieves stardom, but he disguises himself as Elvis and manages to preserve his career as history remembers it. The bitter part comes from the fact that Gary sacrifices his identity and his promises of an independent career to do this.
- Bookends: The episode begins and ends with a conversation between Sandra and Gary, the latter dressed as Elvis.
- Born in the Wrong Century: Gary, who is even noted by the opening narration to have been born 25 years too late. He is passionate about '50s rock and roll, but as Sandra says, this only makes him a nostalgia act.
- Sandra herself is a lesser example. In 1977, at a time when Gary notes that most of Elvis' fans were middle-aged ladies, she is only 18 years old, and is swooning over the bloated, drunken, middle-aged King like it's 1956. Her adoration of Elvis is even presumably how she came to encounter Gary in the first place.
- Cassandra Truth: Gary is an Elvis impersonator from 1986 who assumes the identity of the actual Elvis after he's sent to the 1950s and accidentally kills him. In the 1970s, he tries to convince Sandra, his future manager, that he is simply pretending to be the real King. Sandra doesn't believe him, ultimately coming to think that it was merely an example of Elvis' strange and eccentric behavior towards the end of his life.
- Celebrity Resemblance: Gary bears an uncanny resemblance to the King of Rock & Roll. After he is sent back in time to 1954, the real Elvis mistakes him for his identical twin brother Jesse, who died at birth and has seemingly been brought back to life. After Elvis is killed, Gary assumes his identity and manages to fool everyone in Elvis' life, except his mother Gladys, who he believes died from a broken heart.
- Dead Person Impersonation: Gary gets into a fight with Elvis when the would-be King believes that he's a demon who has been sent to tarnish his soul with evil music. In the struggle, Elvis is killed when he is accidentally impaled on the neck of his broken guitar. After burying his body in a shallow grave, Gary tries to make it up to Elvis by assuming his identity and becoming the King of Rock & Roll, living Elvis' life exactly as he and everyone else remembered him.
- Deliberate Values Dissonance: Mr. Harris, Elvis' boss at the Crown Electric Company, notes the Chuck Berry undershirt that Gary is wearing when he accompanies Elvis to work, growing disgusted at the "negro" being displayed.
- Drunk Driver: Gary is driven off the road by one, crashing into a ditch as a result. When he wakes up, he finds that he has been transported back in time to Memphis, Tennessee on July 3, 1954.
- Elvis Impersonator: Gary makes his living as one, performing mostly in run-down hotels to apathetic crowds. He's sent back in time to 1954 and ends up meeting the real Elvis, who believes him to be his stillborn twin Jesse. Come the end of the episode, Gary becomes far more than just an impersonator.
- The Faceless: The drunk driver who runs Gary off the road is never seen.
- Foreshadowing: Gary tells Sandra that he may look like Elvis, but that doesn't mean that he has to make all of the same mistakes Elvis did. Sandra tells him that Elvis once pulled her up on stage and invited her to his hotel room, where he told her that he wasn't the King. Gary is later sent back in time and is forced to assume Elvis' identity after accidentally killing him, proceeding to live out Elvis' life the same way as he remembers. Gary reveals that he isn't the real Elvis to a younger Sandra in the 1970s, but she doesn't believe him.
- Historical Domain Character: As well as Elvis Presley being a major character, Sam Phillips, Marion Keisker, Scotty Moore, and Bill Black all appear in the scene where the disguised Gary auditions at Sun Records, even being identified by name.
- Identical Stranger: Gary is noted to be uncannily identical in appearance to Elvis (as they're both played by Jeff Yagher), albeit with different grooming habits. Sandra even comments that he could've been his twin, to which Gary wryly comments that his twin was born dead.
- Gary also uses the similarities to his benefit throughout the episode, convincing the real Elvis to believe that he's the reincarnation of his deceased brother Jesse in an attempt to keep Elvis from making his mistakes.
- After Elvis is accidentally killed by him in a fight, Gary later uses his appearance to fool Sam Phillips, as well as everyone else in the studio (and later the world) that he's indeed Elvis Aaron Presley, all the way up to the last years of the King's career.
- Inertial Impalement: Gary gets transported to 1954, where he meets the real Elvis Presley. At first, Elvis thinks that Gary is his stillborn brother Jesse, returned from the dead. However, when Gary begins coaching Elvis about his music, Elvis is reviled at his performance of his own hit "That's All Right". The two men begin to fight, breaking a Elvis' guitar at the neck. As Elvis lunges at Gary, he dodges, leaving Elvis to be fatally impaled on the jagged guitar neck.
- Irony: It appears quite frequently throughout the episode:
- Gary and Sandra discuss how the former looks just like Elvis, but that doesn't mean he has to make the same mistakes he did. Come the end of the episode, he does, every last one of them.
- Gary also pledges to take on Elvis' life and identity, essentially becoming a prisoner of history, on the fourth of July - Independence Day.
- Gary informs Sandra that he'd never be caught wearing a white-sequined suit and singing "My Way" in Vegas. In the final scene, he ends up doing just that.
- Gary learns that the real Elvis Presley not only prefers to sing soulful ballads, but he hates rock and roll, saying that it isn't "decent" and even describing it as "the Devil's music". This later turns out to be ironic itself, because he isn't the one who sings rock and roll.
- When the disguised Gary sings "My Way" in the end, there's definitely bitter irony to it, because he didn't do anything his own way.
- In the opening scene, Sandra flatly tells Gary that Elvis' music is not his music. In the end, she also gushes to the exact same person that he's the only King, and that nobody can ever replace him. She couldn't be more wrong about both of these assumptions.
- Literary Allusion Title: The episode's title is a reference to the Arthurian novel of the same name.
- Lost in Character: When Gary ultimately becomes Elvis, he never drops the identity for the rest of his life. Even when he confesses the truth to Sandra, he can't bring himself to drop his Elvis persona, refusing to speak to her in his normal voice or reveal his real name.
- Momma's Boy: Elvis is thoroughly devoted to his mother Gladys, to the point where the first thing on his mind after hearing that he'll be a star is how he'll be able to use his fame to support her, as well as how happy she'll be to see that "Jesse" came back from the dead. A frustrated Gary calling an uncooperative Elvis a "son of a bitch" sets him on the warpath, since he takes it literally.
- Newspaper Dating: Gary is convinced that he's gone back in time when he finds a newspaper on the floor of the pickup truck he's hitchhiking in - the Memphis Commercial Appeal, dated Saturday July 3, 1954, complete with a picture of President Dwight D. Eisenhower on the front page.
- Parents Know Their Children: In 1977, as Gary tells Sandra his story, he believes that his disguise didn't fool Elvis' mother Gladys, and that her knowledge (or suspicion) of the truth was probably what killed her.
- Parody Assistance: The Elvis Presley Estate and Elvis Presley Enterprises gave the showrunners their blessing and assistance with producing the episode. The very end of the episode even has a message thanking both organizations for their support and cooperation.
- Politically Correct History: Averted, as Gary is wearing an undershirt with Chuck Berry on it, prompting Elvis' boss to menacingly question why he has a "negro" on his shirt.
- Power Copying: This might just be Gary's greatest skill. His identical appearance to the real Elvis is already uncanny, but after having known the would-be King for a few hours, and having heard him sing for mere seconds, he is able to imitate him perfectly enough that he fools everyone who ever knew him completely, with the possible exception of his mother.
- Real-Person Cameo: Elvis' boss at Crown Electric, Mr. Harris, is played by Red West, the real life Elvis Presley's bodyguard and life-long best friend.
- Shout-Out: As Gary chats with Elvis about what the future holds for him, he mentions the soon-to-be King's performances on The Ed Sullivan Show.
- Small Role, Big Impact: The unseen drunk driver who Gary swerves to avoid crashing into, and as a result gets him sent back in time.
- Stable Time Loop: Gary goes back in time to July 3, 1954 and accidentally kills Elvis the following day, assuming his identity and living out the rest of what history records as his life. He gives a message to the teenaged Sandra, who will someday become his younger self's manager, which she relays to him just before he goes back in time. He remembers this story, and when he sees her younger self in the audience, he invites her to his hotel room.
- Take That!: Gary absolutely despises Las Vegas and refuses to take his act there, as he thinks the town was what killed the real Elvis, calling it nothing but "showgirls, slots, and sleaze." Gary also tells Sandra that Vegas may be good enough for Wayne Newton, but not for him.
- That Was Not a Dream: Gary initially believes that he's having a dream about meeting his idol before he was famous, but he later realizes that he has been sent back in time.
- Thoroughly Mistaken Identity: Elvis mistakes Gary Pitkin, an impersonator from 1986 who looks just like him, for his stillborn identical twin brother Jesse, who has come back from the dead. Gary allows him to believe this, trying to use the opportunity to convince Elvis that he has a very bright future ahead of him, though it doesn't go according to plan.
- Time Travel Episode: Gary travels from 1986 to 1954 after swerving to avoid a drunk driver. In doing this, he meets the real Elvis Presley two days before the audition that catapults him (or Gary) to stardom.
- Vague Age: It's unclear just how old Gary is when he's sent back in time. The opening narration suggests he was born "25 years too late". Taking that literally, he was born in 1960, 25 years after Elvis, which would make him 26. But in the final scene, likely set in 1977, he says "I've been him longer than I've been me", which would indicate he's no older than 22.
- Waxing Lyrical: Although he is shown to detest rock and roll, Elvis frequently quotes the lyrics to songs he (or rather Gary) will go on to record. As a result, he tells Gary that he looks "all shook up" when he hitches a ride in his truck, and his rebuttal to Gary for his wanting to play "the Devil's music" for his audition is an angered declaration of "You ain't my brother, and you ain't no friend of mine!"
- You Will Be Beethoven: Gary is sent back in time to Memphis, Tennessee on July 3, 1954 and meets the real Elvis Presley, two days before he is due to perform "That's All Right" for Sam Phillips at Sun Records. The next day, Gary learns that Elvis intends to play a ballad he calls "I Love You Because" instead of "That's All Right", and tries to convince him that doing so will ruin his chances of a record deal. However, Elvis begins to suspect that Gary has been sent to tempt him with Devil's music and attacks him. In the ensuing fight, Elvis dies when is impaled on the broken neck of his guitar. Gary then assumes his identity and performs "That's All Right" for Sam, as history records Elvis did. By the end of the episode, the King of Rock & Roll turns out to have actually been Gary posing as Elvis rather than the real deal. Notably, this episode is one of the few works to explore the psychological ramifications of assuming someone else's identity would have on a person in the long term, let alone the identity of a world-famous celebrity.
- Your Mom: Gary inadvertently calls Elvis a "son of a bitch" when he refuses to play rock and roll, prompting Elvis to snap and fight off Gary, as his status as a proud momma's boy made him take the insult literally.
A Saucer of Loneliness
Margaret (Shelley Duvall), a lonely waitress living with her alcoholic and abusive mother, is suddenly spotted by a small, glowing, otherworldly spacecraft when she ventures onto the beach. The spaceship appears to transmit a message to her telepathically before it is captured by the authorities. Taking note of the incident, everyone around Margaret crowds around her, demanding to know what the message she was given was. Margaret refuses to tell, insisting that the message was meant exclusively for her. Though she's finally become the center of attention, Margaret knows that everyone is only interested in her for her message, and she feels more lonely than ever before.
- Abusive Parents / Alcoholic Parent: Middle-aged Margaret lives with her alcoholic, emotionally abusive mother, who constantly belittles her because she doesn't have a man in her life. She tells Margaret that she should be "respectable", but her own behavior is anything but. Eventually, she callously throws Margaret out on the street because of all the negative publicity generated by her refusal to reveal the contents of her message.
- Adaptation Deviation: The episode differs from the short story it's based on by Theodore Sturgeon, which omits any reference to the protagonist (who is given the name Margaret here) being placed on trial and receiving a prison sentence for her refusal to reveal the contents of the message that she received.
- Age Lift: Margaret is middle-aged when she receives the message from the flying saucer in the episode. In the short story, she's "perhaps seventeen" at the time.
- Catchphrase: Margaret's abusive mother keeps telling her daughter that her single way of life is "not respectable".
- Earn Your Happy Ending: After spending the whole episode swamped by people who want to know what the saucer said, Margaret has finally found someone just as lonely as herself, a man who understands her pain and loves her for who she is.
- Establishing Character Moment:
- Margaret's loneliness is established in the opening scene, where she sadly watches a fellow waitress basking in the flirtatious affection of her boyfriend when he visits her at work. Soon after, Margaret walks home with a friend and discusses how she fantasizes about finding love, but is losing hope she'll ever find her special someone.
- Margaret's mother spends her first few seconds expositing how she's not a kindly parent, as she's an alcoholic whose first reflexive action is to disparage anything her daughter does as "not respectable".
- Faint in Shock: Margaret does this after the flying saucer telepathically transmits its message to her.
- Flying Saucer: A small spaceship of such a type comes to Earth in order to deliver a message to the extremely lonely Margaret.
- Hates Being Alone: Margaret is an extremely lonely waitress who spent years dreaming about what it would be like to have a man, but has given up hope that it will ever happen. She lives with an alcoholic mother who cruelly reminds her at every opportunity that she doesn't have a husband and probably never will, and often cries herself to sleep every single night. While walking near the beach one day, a UFO appears and telepathically communicates a message to her. She is harassed by the media and the public to reveal the contents of the message, but she refuses to do so as it was private. Margaret eventually places copies of the message in bottles and throws them into the ocean. A man finds one of these bottles and, after stopping her from committing suicide, reveals that he knows that the message was from an alien being who was even lonelier than her.
- Hate Sink: Margaret's mother, who belittles her lack of a love life and/or marital status, and throws her out of the house when she attempts to back-talk her, as well as when she starts drawing all sorts of attention to both women by the public demanding the message. What's worse is that she gets no comeuppance for any of her behavior.
- Healing Hands: Margaret is approached by a devoutly religious woman who believes that the flying saucer that communicated to her was sent by God. The woman is convinced that Margaret received healing powers and begs her to heal her paralyzed son, which prompts Margaret to barely escape.
- I Have No Daughter: As she throws Margaret out, her mother claims that she's putting her maiden name on the mailbox so no one will know she and her daughter are related.
- Innocent Aliens: The unseen pilot of the flying saucer telepathically communicates an inspiring message to the ever-lonely Margaret. The man she meets at the end theorizes that it did so because it was just as lonely as her.
- Interrupted Suicide: When Margaret prepares to drown herself in the sea to escape her loneliness and the constant harassment everyone gives her about the message she was given, a man stops her and pulls her out of the water. She's distraught, thinking he only rescued her so he could learn the message just like everybody else, but as it turns out, he saved her life because he knows what the message is, having learned it through his own loneliness.
- Irony: After the flying saucer "speaks" to her, Margaret is constantly surrounded by people wanting to know the message. This makes her even more lonely than before, because they don't actually want to talk to her as a person.
- Karma Houdini: Margaret's mother suffers no karma for her abuse of the poor girl, even after throwing her out of the house.
- Little Green Men: Discussed. Margaret's mother tells her that the neighbors have been looking at them strangely ever since Margaret's contact with the spaceship, probably thinking that she's conspiring with aliens.
- Message in a Bottle: The eponymous saucer arrives on Earth and passes its message to the extremely lonely Margaret, who refuses to divulge its contents to anyone. She does, however, make several copies of the message and puts them in bottles that she throws into the sea. A man finds one of them and stops her from drowning herself, revealing that he knows what the message said:"There is, in certain living souls, a loneliness unspeakable, so great it must be shared as company is shared by lesser beings. Such a loneliness is mine, and know by this that an immensity is one lonelier than you."
- Named by the Adaptation: While her name is not given in the short story, the episode gives the protagonist's name as Margaret.
- No Name Given: The man on the beach who stops Margaret from drowning herself isn't given a name.
- No Sense of Personal Space: Everyone around Margaret keeps interviewing, prodding, begging, analyzing, and speculating about her for her message, leaving the poor girl with no breathing room.
- Rage Against the Reflection: Margaret repeatedly yells "I hate you!" at her reflection several times, before she smashes the mirror with her purse and breaks down in tears.
- Unnamed Parent: Margaret's mother has no name.
- World of Jerkass: Margaret keeps being hounded and harassed by everyone around her for the message she was given, wondering if it was a plan for an invasion or some great truth that had to be shared, and that's on top of living with her abusive mother.
