Step inside.
Room 104 is an Anthology series created by the Duplass Brothers, broadcast on HBO from 2017 to 2020.
Set in the eponymous motel room, every episode is a self-contained story following a different Minimalist Cast of characters. The show is a true Genre Roulette, with stories switching from Black Comedy to Romance to Surreal Horror... sometimes in the same episode. The only constant is the room itself, which eventually is revealed to be far more sinister than it appears.
Room 104 contains examples of:
- And I Must Scream: Catherine's apparent fate in "The Woman in the Wall", as the titular being absorbs her into the room itself.
- Bait-and-Switch: In "Pizza Boy", a man delivering pizza gets caught up in a weird psychosexual game between a married couple... Except it's actually the couple auditioning for a roleplaying service run by the guy acting as a pizza boy.
- Bizarchitecture: The room just doesn't make sense sometimes, and seems to change based on the current story's needs. The tiny bathroom is once big enough to fit a five-man marching band (plus their instruments); a connecting door to the next room appears in some episodes but not in others; the room has a 70s-themed style in a modern day episode, despite others having its usual decor in the same period. This could either be logistical needs from the show's creators, or a facet of 104's status as an Eldritch Location (see below).
- Body Horror: "Itchy" deals with a young man with a chronic skin condition filming himself for his doctor, and he shows detailed closeups of the various rashes, boils, and lesions breaking out all over his body. And that's before alien creatures burst out of his abdomen.
- Bottle Episode: Every episode takes place within the titular room, which consists of two beds, two sinks, a small bathroom, and a tiny closet. The only exception is an episode set before the motel is built, and even that takes place only between the rope markers showing where the room will eventually stand. Additionally, every episode features a Minimalist Cast (sometimes only one actor will appear onscreen).
- Broken Pedestal: A small group of friends gather to hear a mini concert from a legendary musician who dropped off the radar decades earlier. When the guy shows up he's a drunken, disheveled mess, and his songs strongly imply that he's guilty of murdering his mother. The friends proceed to beat the shit out of him and leave.
- Church of Happyology: The Cult Samuel represents in "Knockandoo" seems to be one. Their leader uses a few Scientology terms like "operators" and they have a very extradimensional view of things. Of course it's implied to be a big scam.
- Comically Missing the Point: When Jean meets a demon in the room to sell her soul, he asks her why she's so eager to sign the contract without considering the consequences. She blithely talks about not believing in souls, thinking this will keep her from having to pay the price later. The actual demon bargaining for her actual soul doesn't debate the issue, instead making an easy deal.
- Condescending Compassion: In the episode "The Hikers", the episode centers on two Fat and Skinny friends rooming at an inn during a big hiking trip after they graduated from college; the episode shows the skinny girl trying to sabotage her fat friend's hiking trip, to motivate her to "get her life on track" i.e. lose weight, which surprises the fat friend (who so far has a job lined up after graduation and doesn't care about whether she is thin enough for other people). Then the skinny friend reveals she finds her friend disgusting-looking and pities her, claiming that if it weren't for her, the fat girl would have no friends, leading to the thin friend having a narcissistic breakdown that reveals her own insecurities.
- Continuity Nod: In "The Plot," which takes place between the roped space where Room 104 will stand, Roma sets up her picnic dinner on the spot where the table and chairs will stand. A few minutes later, the hobo relieves himself on a stump where the bathroom will be.
- Deal with the Devil: In "Crossroads", a young woman sells her soul to Hell in exchange for a lifestyle of sex, drugs, rock 'n roll and wealth. Many years later she returns to Room 104 as an elderly woman to try to weasel out of the bargain, and succeeds by taking over the deal-brokering demon's job, since he hates doing it and she's come to enjoy being evil.
- Does This Remind You of Anything?: A nervous man arranges to meet his favorite childhood teacher in the room; although at first the meeting is cordial, it grows more and more intense as the man takes the teacher hostage with a baseball bat, insisting that a dark secret between then has haunted his life (naturally seeming like the teacher molested him). He actually believes he once saw the teacher teleport across a classroom. He did.
- Dream Episode: "A Nightmare". A woman experiences a series of nested nightmares about being murdered.
- Eldritch Location: The motel room itself appears to be one, attracting all manner of bizarre and downright supernatural events; the motel's first owner murdered her brother on the site that would become the room, resulting in her (and the ground) being cursed by a frightening, demonic transient.
- Enfant Terrible: "Ralphie" features a babysitter terrified by a little boy who shifts from quiet and calm to maniacal and violent without warning. Or does he?
- Face Death with Dignity: When Roma shoots Remus so she can keep the hotel for herself, he refrains from getting shocked or angry and just sadly tells her he would have given her everything if she'd asked, before he quietly passes away.
- Formula-Breaking Episode:
- Even for a show where every story is unique, the creators manage to shake up the format. One episode is a maid's life story told entirely through interpretive dance. Another is a documentary about a Real Life father and son artist duo, who are invited to use the Room 104 set as a canvas.
- Then comes "The Last Man," a medieval fantasy musical that largely takes place in a barren desert, with the room only being used in the second half.
- Funny Conception Story: Deconstructed in "The Man and the Baby and the Man." A couple attempts to film themselves conceiving their first child and stay lighthearted and flippant, hoping they can make a funny tape to show the kid years later. It eventually breaks down as both of them get real about their fears over parenthood and problems in their relationship.
- Genre Shift: The show loves pulling these:
- "FOMO" starts as an awkward comedy-drama, as a young woman celebrates her 30th birthday with her friends and deals with the unexpected arrival of her annoying sister. Then it becomes a horror story when the sister murders them all one by one.
- Jim invites "Mr. Mulvahill" to the room to discuss an event that has haunted his life since Mr. Mulvahill taught him music in the 3rd grade. The drama turns surreal when Jim claims the man teleported in front of him.
- "The Plot", which shows the hotel's origin: starts as a crime story in which the hotel's founder murders her brother to keep the business for herself. It devolves into pure horror when she confronts a shapeshifting hobo who literally frightens her to death before taking over the hotel using her form.
- Groin Attack: In "Knockandoo", Deborah discusses a traumatic event as a child when a boy exposed himself to her and she responded by following her mother's advice: smashing his erection with a rock. When Samuel tries lobotomizing her in the end, Deborah grabs him by the crotch and screams that she'll do the same to him.
- Heel–Face Turn: the demon in "Crossroads" finds himself dissatisfied with claiming souls for Hell, and passes his job on to Jean while he decides to try saving souls instead.
- Important Haircut: Explored in "Bangs"; a woman having a divorce party decides to cut her hair into the bangs she always wanted, which leads to a long self-examination as she tries to separate her own identity from her past. After mangling the bangs herself, she decides to symbolically restart her life and asks her best friend to shave her head.
- Intimate Healing: Recommended by the woman in the wall, who suggests Catherine's illness is a case of Your Mind Makes It Real and suggests masturbation as a remedy, which Catherine enthusiastically tries. It doesn't work, because she turns out to have Lyme disease.
- I Hate Past Me: Josie is often irritated during a conversation with her younger self, criticizing her immature decisions while they discuss the events which led to her rape.Josie: I forgot what an asshole I was.
- Kinky Role-Playing: One episode has a pizza boy caught up in a strange psychosexual game between an apparently unstable man and his wife... except it turns out to be their audition for a role-playing escort service run by the "pizza boy", who is impressed by their performance.
- Magic Realism:
- Among the mundane stories about life, love, marriage and other human issues, the room hosts androids, vampires, a jungle that overgrows the entire room, and a sentient cloud of party foam.
- A literal example is the episode "No Hospital". A dying man summons his daughter to the room to make changes to his will and encourage her to take over the family business; said business involves genuine magic. As a nod to the genre's South American roots, the episode's characters are all of Hispanic descent.
- No-Dialogue Episode : Voyeurs. In fact, there only is the message left on the vocal's box and the cleaning woman who introduces herself in the beginning, offscreen.
- No Ending: Since most of the stories are just a glimpse of people's lives as they use the room, many of them just come to a stop rather than tying up loose ends, fitting with the theme of hotel rooms being a temporary arrangement.
- Surreal Horror: "A Nightmare" involves a woman trying to escape a series of nightmares where she's murdered by a man with no face. At one point she attacks an apparition of her mother, which starts glitching like a malfunctioning automaton.
- "The Woman In The Wall" shows several encounters between a sick woman and a disembodied female voice in the room's walls. In the end, the voice tricks her into coming close before absorbing her into the room, screaming.
- Throwing the Fight: Greta and Rayna use the room to plan their upcoming championship MMA match, reasoning they can get a better payday by placing appropriate bets and then fixing the outcome. It goes off the rails when neither ends up willing to lose, even in their sparring match.
- Title Drop: Pointedly averted in "The Plot." When Remus meets Roma at the hotel's building site, he points out Rooms 101, 102, and 103 but she cuts him off before he can number the space they're standing in.
- Tomato in the Mirror: In "Artificial" a journalist interviews a woman claiming to be an android in Room 104, while also answering questions from her about his own humanity. She turns out to be a genuine android... and so is he, and malfunctions when he learns the truth.
- Trash the Set: Two female MMA fighters meet in the room to choreograph their upcoming fight after arranging to fix the outcome. As their sparring turns more personal and intense, they end up brawling and smashing the walls and furniture to pieces. A hotel employee is shown grimly assessing the damage the next morning.
