The credits of this episode show that
it's based on a Paul Kane story, Dead Time.
I've never read that story, however I do see a clear inspiration in
H.P. Lovecraft's 1926 story The Outsider.
It's quite likely that Kane drew from Lovecraft himself, so this is
probably an adaptation of a reimagining (I'm reluctant to say
“rip-off,” since the story is public domain).
The
basic story is there: a journey to seek out people, ending with the
revelation that the main character is a ghoul/zombie (terminology has
changed since Lovecraft's day), and is thus rejected by humans. In
fact, while the set-up of this episode is quite different, it's
actually much more faithful than many official Lovecraft adaptations,
including the “film adaptation” of The Outsider,
Castle Freak.
The apparent
connection to Lovecraft, however, does not save it. This episode is
just ill-conceived. The acting is decent, and Darren Lynn Bousman is
a talented enough directed, but the twist simply doesn't work on the
screen. In Lovecraft's story the narrator had never encountered a
human before, so not realizing that he was different made a degree of
sense. In this version, Helen (Briana Evigan), makes multiple phone
calls to her friends over the course of the night, and somehow
believes that she's speaking English when she's merely groaning.
We the audience, of
course, see her as a human until the end of the episode. That feels
like a cheat to me. I know there are plenty of movies, such as Fight
Club and Silent House that show us the character's
hallucinations from a third-person perspective, but pointing the
camera directly at the narrator, and not showing us she's a zombie,
is just cheap.
Another major
problem concerns how intelligent Helen is. She doesn't behave
aggressively or attack people, but the other zombies do, and she has
constant flashbacks to her human life. However, there's no
suggestion that she's a special zombie. So, do all the other zombies
think they're human? Is eating human flesh something you just decide
to do when you realizing you're a zombie? Helen does when she
finally figures it out, so maybe it's just what's expected.
It's amazing how
much of this review is devoted simply to the problems with the twist.
That said, however, the episode does make a somewhat interesting
love-triangle. Helen spends the entire night trying to get to James
(Cory Monteith), a man she feels unrequited love for, while being
followed by her zombified roommate Eddie (Niall Matter), who was in
love with her in life. She calls James a number of times, and they
believe that his inability to understand her is due to connection
issues.
We eventually find
out that Helen became a zombie because she committed suicide when she
saw James with a girl named Chrissie (Zulay Henao). Eddie tried and
failed to revive her, before being zombified himself by a child
zombie. It's a depressing scene to be sure.
The episode ends
with James shooting but failing to kill Helen, Eddie killing James,
and the two holding hands before they eat Chrissie together. It is
twistedly romantic, like a darker version of Warm Bodies.
However, it still leaves me with the obvious question of just how
intelligent Helen, or any other zombie in this episode are. She
still apparently has her memories and identity, but just chooses to
eat humans because...zombie?
That said, I don't
hate this episode. If you want to watch it, go ahead, but expect to
facepalm a lot. It's as exciting as it is dumb, and as sweet as it
is cheap.
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