Episode Title: Tomorrow Never Knows
Season 06, Episode 08
Episode 108 of 344
Written by Joel J. Feigenbaum
Directed by Nick Havigna
Original Airdate: Thursday,
November 29th, 1984
The Plot (Courtesy of TV.Com): Karen and Mack
talk, but she doesn't tell him she's dying. Scott Easton calls Abby and says he
has negotiated Lotus Point's water rights with Paul Galveston, and to expect a
bonus within the next few days as a "thank you."
Ben is away on a story. Val has pains all day, and Dr. Ackerman tells her to
take more pills. Home alone, she goes into labor. Michael and Eric take her to
the hospital. They call Gary, who immediately leaves, angering Abby. Ackerman
tells Val he's going to put her under anesthesia. She protests but he says
there are complications. Everything goes fuzzy for Val. She gives birth, sees
the babies, and hears them cry. She hears the nurse say that the babies are
healthy. Val wakes up, and Ackerman tells her that the babies were stillborn.
Val insists that she saw and heard them, but Ackerman says her mind was playing
tricks on her because she was under sedation. Gary calls Abby to tell her that
the babies are dead. Abby is genuinely concerned. Then Abby receives a call
from a man who tells her he will need the blood type of the babies' father, and
he'll be in touch with her later.
I
hope my dear readers don’t mind when I continually blow my wad right away by
starting my little essays with, “My God, what a work of profound genius this ep
is!” I only say that because I’m about
to do it right now, so deal with it.
What a work of profound genius this ep is, continuing the glory run of
monumental television artistry that is season six of KL. With Tomorrow Never Knows, we pick up pretty
much where we left off with the continuing saga of Val’s pregnancy and the
wicked Scott Easton and Dr. Ackerman, and we wind up getting an episode that is
actually extremely frightening and winds up being the most “horror movie” episode
of the entire series, I would say, unless there’s one or two down the line that
I’m completely forgetting. Seriously,
this episode is scary, much scarier
than the last distinctly horror ep I can remember, The Constant Companion from way back in season one.
God,
where to even start with this one? I
think I’ll actually start with Karen and Mack, since I’m afraid if I start with
Val’s babies I’ll get too excited and neglect to mention everyone else in the
cast, and that would be unfair since everyone is firing on all cylinders right
now. Karen and Mack finally start to
make some progress during this ep, and it’s all thanks to a little
confrontation Mack witnesses between Val and Ben at Pacific World Whatever. See, Val comes in and is talking to Ben about
how she doesn’t want anyone to know Gary is the father of the babies, and Ben
makes the point of how everyone thinks he’s a weirdo for abandoning Val while
she’s pregnant with his babies, and so on and so forth, until Mack finally
loses his temper and is all like, “I’m sick of listening to you guys and Bob Loblaw,” and then he storms out of the room and slams the door. I like the fact that even though he’s mad,
he’s still funny and, I would argue, cute.
He’s not scary-mad, but more frustrated and finally letting it out for
the first time, and I’m starting to really appreciate the comedy and warmth
that The Dobsonator brings to this role.
That
humor continues the next time we see Mack, when he’s angrily speeding his jeep
along and talking out loud to himself.
This could come off as far fetched to some, perhaps, but I drive around
all the time and talk to myself, often in a way similar to Mack here. Your car tends to feel like something of a
private, safe place (even though it’s clearly not), so I understand, and I also
like how Mack’s angry speech to himself does the job of providing both some
humor while also kinda giving us an update on what’s been going down the last
year or so. He actually goes pretty far
back and even mentions Diana and Chip, which already feels like it was a
million years ago, and he also has one of my all-time favorite lines from the
whole series, “I should have taken French, then I would have known: Cul-de-sac
, dead end.” I’ve always loved this line
even though I’m not entirely sure why, but whenever I see a cul-de-sac in my
real daily life, I usually say this out loud (because every time I see a
cul-de-sac I think of KL). The only bad thing about this scene is a
rather obvious dub-job that I’m assuming was some sort of network mandate or
perhaps a censor rule. It comes when
Mack says, “Why do I have to be Val’s
Lamaze coach? Why couldn’t she get one
of the other guys who mixed her up?” His
lips very clearly say “knocked her up” and his voice suddenly changes sound and
is clearly some bad A.D.R. Were you not
allowed to say “knocked up” on television in 1984-1985? I know I’ve heard the term used on regular
network shows later on in television history, but perhaps it was still
forbidden at this time (sorta like how “shit” slowly started to become
kinda-sorta acceptable to put into network shows aftera while; I vividly
remember Dr. Greene yelling “Shit!” on E.R.
while he was dying and I was violently sobbing). Anyway, aside from that bad dub, this is a
terrific scene, and I think it’s important to note the humor because of how
scary and upsetting the ep is going to get; everyone knows that when you’re
doing horror, you need to have some comedy in there to keep things kinda
balanced out.
Mack
and Karen have agreed to go up the coast together and have some alone
time. I can’t entirely remember how this
ends up happening, but I think it’s because of Karen’s little argument with
Eric last week. In fact, that brings up
a subject worth discussing, which is what Karen thinks will happen to her kids
and to Mack after she dies. Mack has
spent the last two years being a really awesome father figure for the boys
(Diana never liked him, but nobody ever liked Diana, so it all evens out) and
really skillfully filling the hole in the series that was left by Sid (and
winding up being a far more interesting and dynamic character, to boot), so
wouldn’t you think that, if Karen died, he would be responsible and, most
importantly, willing to continue
acting as a father figure to the boys? I
do know that the boys are pretty much all grown up (Steve Shaw would be 19
here, and I think his character of Eric is 19, while Pat Petersen is 18, but I
think Sexy Michael is supposed to be 16), so maybe she just figures that she’ll
die and leave them with an inheritance and the business of Knots Landing Motors
and all will be cool, but I dunno. I
have a hard time believing that the boys wouldn’t want to keep Mack around as a
part of their lives after their mother died.
I’m
actually starting to think I might be being a little too gentle with Karen
because of how much I love the character.
When I’m really sitting to think about it, maybe she is being really
unfair and unreasonable, and maybe I’m not entirely sure I understand her
reasons. She’s essentially just waiting
a year until she dies and then she’s just gonna, you know, be dead. The fact that she has only told Gary about
her illness is also interesting; why hasn’t she spoken frankly with the boys? Or why didn’t she talk to them about it when
she was in the hospital and was first presented with the option of the risky
surgery? It’s one of those things that,
sitting to write about it and really analyze it, I find myself able to poke
some holes in it, but somehow it plays very well onscreen and I don’t really
find myself asking these questions while I’m staring in awe at the television
screen and drooling.
I
thought Karen and Mack were driving up the coast so that she could finally tell
him the truth, but it doesn’t work out that way. They do have a lovely weekend together and
they do make love for the first time in some time, which is definitely good,
but she continues to avoid the truth, instead preferring to tell him that she
believes his work is very important to him and she doesn’t want to be preventing
him from doing what he believes he needs to do.
Ugh, this is maybe maybe maybe the
only story at this point that is stretching on a little too long, and My
Beloved Grammy does tend to keep shouting at the screen, “Just tell him, Karen!” I guess it’s been about eight episodes of
secret keeping, so maybe it is time for Karen to open up and finally tell the
truth to Mack, although it doesn’t happen within this ep.
One
last thing on the driving-up-the-coast story this week, probably the very most
important thing we need to discuss: When Karen and Mack are getting ready to
leave, Sexy Michael wishes them goodbye and he is wearing a pink shirt and an orgasmically fantastic
pair of super short shorts that highly emphasize his monumental bubble butt, a
bubble butt that I could easily write volumes of poetry about. While I haven’t masturbated in front of My
Beloved Grammy since the ep where Michael wore that cut-off ‘80s shirt that
showed off his belly button while he was playing basketball, I came pretty damn
close here. Jesus Christ, is he not just
the most perfect slice of twinkish
all-American white boy ever committed to celluloid? How could the actors even be on the same set as him without desperately trying to
violate him? This is maybe the first
episode where I really noticed his butt, too, which is probably the most
perfect butt that God has ever sculpted, and I found myself achingly wishing
that this was some sort of cutting edge HBO series in which we could have
Michael disrobe and bare all for the television viewers (it would probably wind
up being the most watched episode in television history and it would certainly
result in everyone in America subscribing to HBO, if not indeed everyone in the
entire world).
This
ep is actually doing a clever thing by making sure to keep all the characters
besides Val occupied with some sort of business so that nobody can be around
for Val when she really needs them. It’s
like when I’m reading Cujo for the
seven thousandth time and I note the skill with which Stephen King makes sure
to establish that all the characters are going somewhere and are busy and
occupied, setting the stage for Donna and Tad Trenton to be trapped in the
boiling hot car with the rabid Saint Bernard outside. I mention this because we already have Mack
and Karen going up the coast, along with Greg and Laura presumably doing
something or other in Washington (I honestly can’t remember them doing much of
anything in this ep, even though I’m fairly certain that they both put in an
appearance), Cathy and Joshua and Lilimae occupied by watching Cathy sing at
Isadora’s, and finally Ben busy with a news story that requires him to be out
and about for some time.
The
Desperate Horny Chick that I’m now fairly certain is named Cherie continues to
annoy both My Beloved Grammy and myself this week, because it seems like she’s
intentionally trying to sabotage a possible reunion between Val and Ben. See, early in the ep a fucking clown delivers some flowers to Val,
effectively scaring the crap out of me (I really wanted to know who played this
clown but had trouble figuring it out via IMDb’s episode page, so I gave
up). Anyway, the clown is scary, but the
flowers are lovely and they come attached to a note from Ben saying maybe he
and Val could, you know, give it a shot.
Excited and happy, Val calls the news station only for The Desperate
Horny Chick to answer the phone, get a real stoical look on her face when she
hears Val ask her to “Thank Ben for the flowers,” and then she assures Val she
will deliver the message but I think it’s pretty obvious that she’s not going
to do any such thing. Oh bleh, just go away, Desperate Horny Chick.
Things
start to feel really scary whenever we see Val having her pains and looking
upset. Remember that, for a first time
viewer with no idea of where this is leading, we could easily think that these
babies are about to die, that these pains mean she is going to miscarry or
deliver stillborn or something like that, which just makes the whole episode
feel deeply unsettling. Also, anytime
Dr. Ackerman is onscreen, my skin crawls.
We have an early scene where Val is walking along the boardwalk and is
struck by pains that are so bad that a nice blonde mother/son pair (who look so
identical that I’m convinced they were, in fact, related) stop to make sure
she’s alright. She tells them she’s okay
and asks where the nearest pay phone is (remember those?) and calls Ackerman,
who evilly answers the phone and looks creepy while assuring her that the pills
he gave her are very mild and she should probably take some more whenever she’s
feeling pain. Oh ick, all this stuff is
so creepy and horrifying, that a man who took the Hippocratic oath and promised
to do no harm to his patients is deliberating lying to this pregnant woman in
some attempt to either fuck with her pregnancy or do something else evil. This remains the scariest thing I can imagine
and probably the most reprehensible thing a person can do (this might explain
why the movie Beethoven is so
upsetting to me). Also, just like
clockwork, as soon as he hangs up with Val, he immediately picks up the phone
to call Easton and say something cryptic like, “She’s starting to suspect,” or
something equally evil.
Before
I get too sucked into talking about Val and her pregnancy, let’s shine the
spotlight on Cathy and her fabulous cover song of the week. This time it’s really a case of two things I
love combining forces in a new and fantastically exciting way, because when
Lilimae and Joshua enter Isadora’s, Cathy is in the middle of a cover of Cyndi Lauper's Time After Time. Ah, yes, what bliss, for Cyndi Lauper’s
stunning debut album She’s So Unusual
became the first album I got really obsessed with when I was a wee lad back in
high school. I remember I would go
running and just listen to that album on a loop and absolutely nothing else,
which seems rather narrow upon reflection considering there are only nine songs
on there, but oh God I loved it, and Time After Time remains one of her most excellent and iconic songs. I’ve generally declared that Lisa’s covers of
songs are always better than the originals, but in this case I must admit that
I prefer Cyndi. Lisa’s version is cool,
too, and has a rather different sound to it, like the background instruments
are either slightly different or being played in a different way or something
like that, and of course I loved listening to it and wish it was available on
an album somewhere (shamefully, I don’t think any of Lisa’s songs post season
four are available in any sort of physical media), but I’m still giving the
edge to Cyndi just for being such an amazing and memorable song. But this is kinda like having to choose
between blowing Sexy Michael or fucking Sexy Michael; in the end, both options are going
to be quite excellent and unbelievably satisfying.
Oh
yeah, and on the subject of Cathy’s songs, we do have one little detail that I
found rather amusing, and that is the fact that Cathy is now doing the same
songs that Ciji did. See, when Val
starts having pains in the middle of the night and calls Isadora’s to try and
reach somebody, the waitress who answers can’t hear a word she’s saying because
Cathy is singing Hole In My Heart so
loudly. Any KL fan will remember that this was one of Ciji’s first songs ever
(I think it was her second one right after that cover of Open Arms), and I find it very funny that Cathy appears to have
just sorta, you know, turned into Ciji.
We have now reached a juncture in the series where nobody really cares
that this doppelganger is running around, to the point that they don’t even
notice she’s singing the same songs that poor dead Ciji used to sing two years
back.
The
ep cranks into horror film mode with a ferocious intensity as Val wanders
around her house all alone, crying out in pain, trying to reach anyone on the
phone who can help her before finally managing to reach Eric and Sexy Michael, who
are having a little party over at their house with a public domain record
blasting (wouldn’t it be much cooler if they were playing the record that Ciji
recorded back in season four?). I want
to note that this episode, and indeed this whole period of eps that we are
currently in, are actually literally darker
than the show has tended to be in the past.
There’s so many dark scenes with no lights on and shadows cast on the walls
to look extra creepy, and I have to think that this literal darkness is here to
emphasize the metaphorical darkness of what is going on in the storyline at
this point. In any case, it really helps
to keep the episode feeling horrific.
Eric
and Sexy Michael come to Val’s rescue (one of the reasons Sexy Michael is such
a dreamy boy is because he’s not only so unbelievably and stunningly beautiful
to look at, but he’s also super sweet and nice and caring and always willing to
help, although obviously none of those qualities are as important as his
amazing bubble butt) and manage to get her to the hospital, which leads us into
the scariest scene of the entire ep.
See, Dr. Ackerman has Val all prepped and ready to deliver, legs up in
the stirrups and all that, a couple of nurses to either side of him (including
a black nurse; pay attention to her because, if I remember correctly, she’s gonna
come back to be an important part of the plot later), when he announces that
Val is bleeding violently or something or other and he’s going to need to give
her a sedation, which he does. As soon
as he’s got her sedated, things get trippy.
The camera starts to go into this weirdo wide angle lens and everything
is distorted and the sounds of voices sound scary and tinny and far away and I
don’t even know how to describe the fucking music,
which is just horrifying and which I could never possibly listen to as a
standalone piece of music, especially if I was all by myself in the dark. After a little while of this trippy and terrifying
insanity, Ackerman says the babies are coming, we hear the sound of babies
crying (this is important) and then Val passes out. When
she comes to, she’s all alone with Ackerman, who's looking sleazy and awful. She asks to see the babies, at which point he
announces that they were stillborn, dead on arrival, and that there was nothing
he could do to save them. At this point,
My Beloved Grammy said, “But they were crying!” and then two seconds later Val
said the same thing, “I heard them crying.”
Ackerman tells her that she was under a heavy sedation and it would be
very easy to get confused and think she heard crying at that point, but Val
insists that she also saw the babies
while she heard them crying, which Ackerman dismisses in similar fashion.
I
thought it was very interesting that, immediately following this scene, we cut
to a scene of Abs alone in bed (Gary takes off after he receives the call that
Val is in labor), being paid a visit from Olivia who has suffered some sort of
horrible nightmare. Abs lets Olivia
sleep in the bed with her and we get a nice little scene of her being a good
mother to her daughter, which I found important. The cut from Val being told her babies are
dead to Abs comforting Olivia feels very deliberate to me, and I think it’s
important to note that, for all of her faults, Abs has never been a subpar
mother. She loves her kids (Olivia more
than Brian, probably, but that might just have something to do with the fact
that Brian is a non-character) and she is good with them. I’m gonna further explore this notion of Abs
as a woman who does have a strong maternal instinct when we move into our next
episode.
Tomorrow Never Knows ends with Abs receiving a
mysterious and creepy phone call in bed.
Olivia is asleep by this point, so she doesn’t hear Abs having this
little conversation with a creepy, authoritative male voice on the other end
that asks her for “the blood type of the father” and says, “It’s essential for
our paperwork.” We can see that Abs is
legit confused as she asks, “What are you talking about?” The voice remains vague by saying, “The
babies in question, Mrs. Ewing,” and then asking that she “obtain the necessary
information” as soon as possible. Then
the line goes dead and we end on Abs face and, again, if I was watching this in
1984, I would just be sitting there thinking, “How am I going to wait seven days for another episode?” Fortunately My Beloved Grammy and I didn’t
have to wait seven days and were able to proceed right away to the next ep, but
imagine watching this upon original airdate and just having to wait to see what
happens. How could one even function in
their daily life? I would spend all of
my time thinking about this, unable to exert any mental energy towards anything
else going on in my life. Indeed, what
in 1984 could have possibly been more important than this?!
So
it goes without saying that this episode was brilliant and an absolutely
incredible experience from start to finish.
I’m gonna go ahead and predict that there’s no way there will ever be a
more frightening episode than this one, which was just horrifying in so many
regards, but most especially in that delivery scene with the creepy music and
the wide angle lens. Kudos to director
Nick Havinga, who has impressed me so much with this effort that I’m going to
really keep my eyes open for his future eps (this is only his second after,
interestingly, my least favorite
episode of season four, The Block Party,
but he’ll be back for another fifteen eps starting with Message in a Bottle).
Overall, this ep was nearly perfect for me from start to finish; I can
think of almost nothing that would have made it better. It was scary and intense and beautifully
filmed and acted and it was just fucking great.
I
predict that this gushing and adoration will only continue as we continue
onward to another Larry Elikann helmed and absolutely unforgettable episode, We Gather Together.
Absolutely epic episode on which so much of what follows pivots for seasons to come...brilliant! I re-lived it all again through you, thanks Brett. If I could gift you Michael, I would tie a big satin ribbon around him and leave him on your doorstep in gratitude for this brilliant blog! x
ReplyDeleteDesperate horny chick is P.K Kelly, who wants Ben badly.
ReplyDeleteWhen I watch this episode, I actually always advance past the delivery scene, because I can't watch that part.
ReplyDeleteThank heavens for this episode. Often they only film Michael from the front or from the waist up when he's clearly wearing the most butt hugging pants imaginable and it's super frustrating.
ReplyDeleteThe delivery scene is very hard to watch, but it is fantastic in its ability for the audience to experience what Valene was experiencing. At the time, we weren't sure if Val was hallucinating this or if it was real. Great start to a great storyline!
ReplyDeleteAnd...I have a theory on why both Ciji and Cathy sang "Hole in My Heart. They were both just covering a Lisa Hartman song ;)
Haha, that's funny. I was sorta bummed they didn't include a line from Lilimae: "Oh, Joshua! She's singing one of Ciji's songs. You would have liked her. And you would have made such a better boyfriend for her than Chip."
DeleteDr. Ackerman looked like Freddy Kruger in that hospital garb. Ugh, such a scary scene.
ReplyDeleteJust watched this episode... Michael is wearing a turquoise shirt with those short shorts, but yes, his butt is !!!! I love the way he puts his hands on his hips.
ReplyDeleteThis episodw is amazing, though there was one scene I sorta would have liked to see - and that is Gary being told that Val's babies were stillborn.
Also, Laura and Greg were definitely in the episode... she agreed to take his job offer in Washington.