Tales from the Crypt S1E3

"Dig That Cat...He's Real Gone"

This episode starts off with a carnival. A very theatrical carnival so basically your 'ol run of the mill. The ringleader of the show is amping up the crowd their main attraction which is Ulric the Undying! He continues to ramp the increasing crowd and describing today's event. Ulric is there standing there looking back at the audience menacingly and silent while the ringleader is describing that they are going to bury him alive and won't dig him back up until noon the next day. And away he goes...six feet under.

The next scene were are greeted with Ulric striking a match and breaking the 4th wall by talking to us, people at home about how he got into this predicament.

It all started as him being a homeless on the street. All of a sudden this old white guy in a trench coat finds him and recruits him to be his guinea pig. At first he's like WTF NO WAY until he offers his all his money. Which is evident why he sought out a vagrant so Ulric obviously accepts.

So they're in the lab there's a cat connected to one end and Ulric in another. So this dude wants to experiment on him to see if he can somehow transfer the cat's 9 lives to a human. Ulric is kinda like "Uh, wut?" The doctor has to explain to him that he wants to do some teeny tiny experiment to transplant a gland from a cat to him so theoretically he will get the 9 lives. If it's successful then fuck yeah but shall it be not successful? Well he won't be alive to complain.

Badda bing Bada boop

Just like that time skips a few and Ulric wakes up on the surgical table post surgery. But he still doesn't know if the surgery was even successful if he got even the 9 lives. One way to find out.

Pew! Pew!

Ulric is like "OMFG YOU TRIED TO KILL MEH!" 

Doc responds "I didn't TRY to kill you. I DID kill you. The surgery worked, dawg!"

He keeps his word and tosses him loads of cash. Which is basically enticement as Ulric is still reeling from excitement, Doc tells him that rather than him waste the rest of his lives and money away to the nearest bar, he proposes that he could pimp himself out to the carnival where he can market himself as...You guessed it: Ulric the Undying.

He happily accepts.

So the Doc pretty much acts as his manager of sorts and reaches out to said carnival in town. While initially hesitant, Doc changes his mind saying "This ain't a regular escape artist, he's a COOL escape artist. Because he actually DIES and REVIVES." He's sold and books him on the next show.

With a modest audience in attendance in this small tent, Ulric's first show is him in a water tank chained up and stuff. Ringleader gives the grand intro and all. He has an assistant who asks him out to dinner should he come back to life. Not sure if he really heard her. She tried to write it on lipstick but she literally wrote it the wrong way so all Ulric sees is a mirror image. I'm sure he still got the message though.

The show starts up without a hitch and water fills up the tank. In which he inevitable drowns. Once Doc pronounces him dead, Ringleader says to the crowd that they are going to keep Ulric under water for another hour and for them to return when Ulric comes back to life.

He doesn't.

At least not right away, of course. They didn't know that. Neither did the audience and one by one they all leave that they didn't the entertainment as promised. Right when they are about to throw in the towel and call it a night BAM Ulric pops out of the water and says he is going to take up that offer for the pretty little blonde lady. Jesus christ she has an annoying ass voice though.

And of course everyone comes pouring back in like cockroaches. 

Which is the catalyst to start his booming success and he very quickly becomes such a sensation. Doc obviously doesn't waste any time to let greed be his guide and keep pimping his death out much to the satisfaction of his bank account.

He also starts a whirlwind romance with blond assistant lady. 

Greed isn't the only peering over one shoulder. Ulric then decides that he wants to maximize his profits. How? You may ask? But cutting off some dead weight.

He sacrifices one of his lives to kill himself and Doc in a car crash. 

And he continues to live his life in debauchery and ill morals.

The carnival starts to maximize their profits and shock value even more ranging from things like choosing an audience member via raffle ticket or even straight up having them buy their way into shooting him with an arrow. Which includes a dad forcing his son to do it. It turns pretty disturbing.

In retrospect, he realizes that some resurrections tend to take much longer than others in which he has had some close calls due to it such as literally being minutes away from being embalmed and girlfriend had to bribe police another time to keep them from investigating.

Like I said, greed is not only looming over one shoulder.

Ulric's girl betrays him!! Oh noes!

Of course, that's showbusiness for ya. People just be stabbing everybody in the back. So she runs off with all of his money and with one life left, he decides to blackmail the ringleader into getting 100% of the profits. And the grade finale is Ulric being buried alive.

And here we are in the beginning of the episode coming full circle. Here he is telling his tale and reminiscing his ups and downs just waiting until his time comes up. 

UNTIL 

He realizes to account for a death. All his lives are now flashing in front of his lives and he was just living life so hard and fast that he forgot to keep count on what life he was on. HOLY SHIT he is on his last life and he is 6 feet under. He starts panicking and trying to call for help. Unfortunately, he is being buried overnight and no one is left but the groundkeepers. 

"You don't know they'd really burying someone alive down there?"

"Nah." One guy says to another. And the last people just walk away while Ulric is breathing his last breath on his last life.

The End. 

Episode 4 is next