User Reviews

The title of "Epitaph for a Lonely Soul" is almost poetic. Granted, it's a somber episode. But titles that are either puns, or word plays, or factual statements, just wouldn't cut it as they have in the past.

Unfortunately, the title is false advertising. Neil Munro plays a schlep who is, I guess, supposed to be a nebbish loser. Worse than what he played in last season's "Better Off Dead". His character, Eli, is a mortician who is obsessed with his female clientele and likes playing classical work as he works. And Munro is good at this kind of part, so there's that. There's no faulting Munro.

It's his character as written this is at fault. Eli is a creep and stalker, who "resurrects" young women using a cursed mortician's aspirator, and then imprisons them and Stockholm Syndromes them into falling in love with him. Which looks a whole lot like rape.

That's why the title is false advertising. It romanticizes Eli's obsession and anti-social tendencies, by making him a "lonely soul". Then again, maybe the title is meant to refer to the woman of Eli's obsession, Lisa (Monika Schnarre, previously in last season's "Face of Evil"). Schnarre isn't much better here as a hapless pseudo-rape victim, then she was as a ruthless model in that episode. She ain't lonely, and her sacrifice is undercut at the end by having Micki doing all the talking. It robs Lisa of what little agency she might have.

Eli talks about how he's been alone all his life, and it's no wonder if he's obsessed with a dead woman. If nothing else... ick, she's been embalmed. There's a tinge of necrophilia around the whole thing. But the title mentions "epitaphs" and all, and I'm not sure if the production staff and writer Carl Binder are going for ickiness or pathos. Eli says that his solitude will end when Lisa come back to life, but it's not surprising that he's been alone.

It doesn't help that when Lisa discovers Eli burning Steve's body, she turns on Eli. And Eli turns into an ungrateful brat. That ain't love, that's creepiness. At that point, Eli breaking into tears and sobbing that no one understand him engenders disgust, not sympathy. It doesn't help that when Lisa turns on Eli, he locks her in a coffin and "turns" to another corpse to resurrect as his new wife.

The script gaslights that, when Steve wonders what else Eli is doing in the mortuary besides corpse-robbing. Steve has no knowledge of the aspirator, so what else could he think Eli was doing. Plus there are several loving shots by director Allan Kroeker of Eli kissing Lisa and undressing her. Because necrophilia is fun!

Any sympathy for Eli goes totally out the window when he goes nutso, resurrects Linda, and laughs gleefully as he works. Munro is good at playing Eli as both lovelorn, heartbroken, and then demented. But it's a weird spectrum of emotions to play for someone we're apparently supposed to consider a "lonely soul".

I also like the ending, where Micki waxes poetic over Lisa's grave and says that loneliness killed Eli and Steve. No. It was the fact that Eli was a necrophiliac psycho that got Steve killed, and ultimately got Eli killed, too. Micki and the writer can paint it as "loneliness" all they want, but that ain't it. And having Mick gives a sympathetic "epitaph" for Eli, after he knocked her out, tied her up, and threatened to kill her and then bring her back with the aspirator in a year or two, is icing on the cake!

The sad part is, the production staff could have gone with pathos. Instead, they go with a "typical" series ending. Eli goes nutso, attacks Jack and Micki, and manages to eventually set himself and the mortuary on fire. It's a convenient ending, as "our heroes" don't have to deal with Eli or dispose of Lisa and the other woman he's resurrected since they conveniently let themselves die. But it's pretty trite.

Barclay Hope as Steve is a lot better than he was as Micki's first-season fiancée, Lloyd. Lloyd was a bit of a stalker with Micki, so it's amusing seeing him play a character on the other end of stalkerdom, so to speak. He also portrays a character like the type the show should have done more with: someone else being caught in the horror, and Jack and Micki (Johnny is out of town) investigating. Rather than another cursed antique dropping into their laps through coincidence.

The rest of the cast is forgettable. I do like the Antique Dealers' meeting at the shop, and Jack disgust at having to host it and deal with the members. Even if Micki plays cabbage head to him: she's helping Jack host a party, but doesn't know who the party is for until Jack explains it? It's like the characters have a back story all of a sudden. I would have liked to see more of Jack dealing with his peers, who look down on him for obsessing about the occult. Sadly, that never happened.

The entire episode is about obsession: Eli's obsession with Lisa, and Steve's obsession with finding out what happened to Lisa to the point of personally exhuming her coffin. We don't see Lisa and Steve together before Lisa's death, so Steve comes across more as a loony than romantically obsessed.

But that's just my opinion, I could be wrong. What do you think?