Friday the 13th on Thursday the 13th - Episode 3 - Cupid's Quiver *UPDATED*

Wait, when is Friday the 13th this month? Well, let's check with the always brilliant smart phone.

...It says that Friday, February 13, 2014 is a value outside the range...

I'll take this as a no.

Well, when is the next Friday the 13th then, phone?! ...

...Thursday, February 13, 2014...

Good enough!


So it's time to look again at that 80's TV wonder....Friday the 13th: The Series.

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...Oh, wait...I think I am about to get hit by a mild "flu"...

And now I'm way behind schedule. Balance is restored!

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This time we go back to the third episode of the first season, and a bit of something for the romantic in you...if you are looking to be a sex offender.

"Cupid's Quiver"

I should give a warning first. This episode does deal with guys getting a way rob women of their free will for sex. Rape.

Expect utter losers taking out their internal problems on women.

Source

It's weird how when you have a story where persons mind gets bent so they love someone they wouldn't otherwise, and explain it's by magical means, it's less troubling to people. How many times is Cupid or his bow used to make people fall in love, and it's treated as a good thing? Aphrodite, in some versions of the Trojan War myths, turns Helen of Troy from her family to run off, and starts a war.

Now that isn't to say the guys using this cursed item in the episode come off well. They all look like they'd be on Reddit MRA threads today. Thankfully, it's all clearly evil. ...And maybe it'll lead you to take that consideration into other stories...

• Like the ever so many times Hercules is given a amnesia/love potion in his various movies.
• When Owen, on Torchwood, drugs a couple to have sex with. (And, really, Davies? You chuckle through the scene in the commentary?)
• When Xander, on Buffy the Vampire Slayer, tries to use a love spell to screw over Cordelia.
• And, Oberon, in A Midsummer's Night Dream, is an ass.

At least in Aladdin Genie knew how screwed up the idea is.


So this episode opens on a bar which seems to be part of a hotel. Honestly if I went to a hotel and saw this bar, I'd be checking right out. It's your standard TV bar. It has a group of frat boys, and people dressed for vacation dancing badly...Ah. This is why I never visit bars at hotels.

There's also a creepy loner. Yeah!

He's eyeing a woman flirting with another guy. Then he walks over and leans into her personal space and asks her to dance. She refuses. And he asks again. And she refuses. The guy she's talking to ask him to go. He ignores him. And he keeps asking until the woman flatly tells him to get lost, and that she doesn't care for him. Then she goes to dance with the less creepy option.

I know what everyone must be thinking. Geez. He was probably a nice guy and the lady should have given him a chance...Wait. No, that's what I'd read on Reddit.

No. This guy is a creep. He goes back over to the bar and opens a bag he left there, with an ugly cupid statue in it. (I know we're all disappointed. I was sure it would be a ventriloquist dummy to...Okay. Unfair slam on ventriloquist.) He points the statue at the woman and waits. He eagerly waits.

As the cupid's head turns, it fires a magic bolt. (Magic. Evil. Whatever.) It hits the woman in question, and she's disoriented. (Nope. Nothing unsettling and all too real life here.)

Our creepy guy moves in again and asks her to dance, and the guy she's with has about had it. But she says she would like to go with him.

(And if this were Torchwood, and an "adult" show, the other guy would also be affected, and taken away to. Because that is how shows for grown ups work...I guess?)

It is clear that part of the deal for this guy is to see a woman refuse him and rebuff him. Then he takes away her free will and makes her take it all back. It's a sick game.

"Well this is a nasty scene...Is the mini bar open?"

So, yeah. He takes her off to the hotel's honeymoon suite, and get to a few minutes of a genuinely uncomfortable scene. And then later, looking at the statue, he knows what he has to do now.

He kills her.


To be fair almost every curses item in this show expects blood. But the first episode has a standard creepy doll that liked killing. The second episode had a pen that foretold deaths. And the last review was a cup that gave youth through the death of another. And then that cup trapped you in a cycle where if you stop killing, you die.

So, I try to sum up in my head what makes this stand out..The best overarching explanation is the misogyny of the curse. (And it does seem to be meant for use against women, and women alone.) When I think of the shows cursed items, they are diverse, and have odd uses. But they never seem bent on a focused effort to dehumanization, humiliation, and betrayal. (If it weren't for the subject matter, I'd be more impressed that the writers did come up with a genuinely evil item this time around.)


So as he strangles this innocent woman, surprising to me at least, people outside break the door down and tackle him. (Honestly, I guess I have a low opinion of the type of hotel this is or clientele, or too high opinion of the quality of room sound proofing.) But it's too late for his victim.

Man, this is going to go great
with my fedora collection.

Among the people who raced in are the frat guys from the bar. And...for some reason, one guy in a stupid hat...is that a fedora...man...Well, he sees our ugly looking cupid statue, walks up to it, and steals it.

Oh, yeah. Everyone else is trying to stop a guy murdering a woman, and he sees a chance to snatch a nick nack. He seems like a real catch.


Meanwhile, at Antiques shop, Micki seems to be the only one at work trying to finding cursed items to recover. Ryan is focused on the funny pages on the back of the paper. And Jack is focused on...I don't know, reconstructing a Necronomicon or something.

She sees the story of the murder, and catches a reference to the cupid statue. She asks Jack for information on a cupid statue in the records. (Someone's been memorizing items.)

It was made during the Renaissance, in Italy. The Cupid of Malek. Malek had a chip on his shoulder due to the fact that "according to stories" his looks were so bad no woman would look at him. So he wanted vengeance against those that denied him love...Or, he wanted to hurt people that didn't accept his advances. Anyone want to double check that the M in MRA doesn't stand for Malek?

Well, Micki and Ryan go and check it out. Heading to the hotel, they pretend to be cops (and no one questions these covers). The owner is fixing the murder room. He recalls that the statue had been in the room. But then it disappeared. He ties it to the frat boys who helped him get the door open.

So, it's time to go to college. And time to meet our new creepy guy.

Meet Eddie, he's a social maladjusted, and obsessed with a girl. ...I'd joke, but I have friends who've had to deal with guys like this.


He's played by Denis Forest. He had a varied career, but I always remember his baddies. Like the main alien bad guy in the second season of War of the Worlds (working side by side with Catherine Disher). But his career goes all the way back to Strange Brew.


Our Eddie is perched up in a tree taking "nature" shots for class. Or, he's taking secret photos of a woman that he's obsessively following around. Laurie.

Luckily, campus security catch him and...Ah, I'm kidding. Security shrugs at it, and remember being young...I remember campus cops like this to.

Watching her walk by, Eddie hops down and decides to talk to her...Or, scare and harass her. But are we worried about her reaction to the experience, or something?

"What about me grabbing you isn't enticing you to go out
with me?"

He starts "calmly", nervously asking for another date. Laurie explains that they haven't dated, they studied together once. And he amps up his creepiness, begging and blocking her way. Then he actually grabs her, and gets angry. He complains that he isn't successful or rich enough for her...That she thinks she's above him.

Boy, wouldn't you just want to meet him in an elevator late at night. He obviously deserves extra consideration...

She warns that she will call for help...Cause that's the point he's pushed it to at this point. But she's trying to be considerate, trying to get him leave her quietly, as that is what society tries to instill.



Naturally her fully justified response to him should be more like this...

Source

..but that's seen as rude by some people. There should be a simple rule: "No! No touch! And, let me leave you a reminder."

Shh. Ryan thinks he's breaking into a John Hughes set.

Then Micki and Ryan show up, in new disguises. They're in college now! ...Ah, I never fit in college either.

Eddie heads over to a frat house, which he's allowed to hang around and do chores at. And, yes, it is the one who's member snatched the cupid statue.

They are getting ready for a big party, so need him to clean the rooms up. And as he goes around he spots the statue in hat guys room. And he's intrigued by it.

Hat guy pops in, and mentions that he's interested in the statue himself as it helped the last guy pick up women...

...Is it that he thinks that the statue helped him attract the woman at the bar?

I mean, I have wondered how the show's cursed objects operate. Do people intuitive know how they work? Is it research done? Dumb luck? Or, do the items call out?

Does this ugly statue call to guys and say, it can get women?

Or, did this guy make a huge leap? Because he clearly doesn't know what it does, or how.

Or, maybe it's not meant for him. It needs a bitter guy.


...And when he has a chance Eddie steals the statue...I think we all saw that coming.

Back in his...lair? I don't know, he seems to live or hang out in a boiler room...Anyway, we get a better look at Eddie's psyche. It isn't pretty.

He has secret photos of Laurie all over the walls. And he's sitting creepily cutting up a picture of Laurie, to place her head in his hands.

He just sits there. He looks at the statue. He looks at Laurie's pictures. ...Have you thought about a hobby, Eddie? ...Other than photography.


Micki and Ryan are having no luck finding the statue, and the frat house members are tight lipped about everything. The duo are stumped.

Luckily they have Jack. He's got a cunning plan. He'll offer bartending services to the frat house for the night.

...Jack? You do know most of these people will be underage, right? ...You cunning evil bastard.

And it works, Jack makes a powerful drink that is quite potent. And hat guy starts opening up and says he has the statue...But when he goes to show it, it's gone.



Meanwhile, Eddie is trying out the statue.

He goes to a bar, and scopes out a woman.


He then hits on her, and is annoying.

He then turns pulls out the statue, and puts it on the bar. While she is turned away, the statue shoots her. And, her will is gone.

"Bee Mine. Get it, honey?"

They then head out to the woods. And, after everything, he heads out of his truck for a minute. When he gets back, he throws a bee hive into the truck, and traps her inside.

He then watches as she's stung to death. He actually mocks her as he watches, sarcastically telling her that he loves her.

He's enjoying this.


Thanks to hat guy, Micki and Ryan figure out that Eddie is the likely thief of the statue, and go to his room...off the boiler room.

And they get to see what Eddie is like.

"Ryan? If I ever find your room decorated like this..."

While they start looking around for him, Eddie starts hunting for Laurie. He spots her with a maybe boyfriend out relaxing in a wooded area.  When the guy heads off to get them some drinks, Eddie sneaks up behind her.

And he lets the statue do it's thing.

"So you actually know Catherine Disher?"

He begins walking Laurie away, when Micki and Ryan spot them. He tries walking faster, but when he sees them getting close he runs, leaving Laurie.

Ryan gives chase, and catches up to Eddie. In a struggle he gets the statue away.

Huh.

"Excuse me folks, but this episode looks like it might
accidentally end 10 minutes early."

Well, that's a shorter episode then...Oh, right..Wait for it...

Campus security finally shows up. And seeing the statue, which has been reported as stolen, he takes it away.

Well, Laurie is safe.

"You can trust me, sir."

...Oh, and then campus security come across Eddie...And give him the statue.

Cracker jack work, campus security.

Back at the antique show, the trio take a breath, as Laurie rests. They are trying to figure the safest way to get pack the statue.

And, unbeknownst to them, Laurie is calling Eddie...as she is in his thrall.


We see Eddie eagerly await his obsession...But it's not Laurie.

In yet another disguise, Micki slipped in.

"What do you mean, 'I've been punked'?"

And Ryan is there to help...in a minute. First Eddie and Micki tussles and , unsurprisingly, he uses the statue on her.

But then Ryan gets into the fight...And then Eddie actually spazzes out. He threatens Ryan with an ax...and then uses the ax on a steam pipe right beside himself. He temporarily blinds himself, and looses his hostage.

Even in death he's leering.

A chase is on from there, and it ends with Eddie falling to his death.

Great, Jack. Point the evil statue's weapon at your
head.

Back at the antique show, they finally get to lock up the statue.

And Ryan manages to hit on Laurie...hasn't she been through enough? But her boyfriend, or guy she dated the previous night, shows up to take her home. Is he her boyfriend? Who cares. It's her life. It's her business.


But we get a mandatory quip to end the episode, as Ryan jokes about how, maybe, he could use the statue...to give him an edge.

Ryan? Shut up.

And I'm disappointed that neither Micki or Jack hit him.

Maybe next episode






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As I noted above, I appreciate how, as troubling as the topic is, that the curse is genuinely a vile one. This is a horror series about cursed items destroying people. So on the one hand, I wish the show had worked more in the darker areas...but then I think of how that would have gone with 80's syndicated TV writing...It probably would not have been pretty.

What is going to continue to bug me how easily people will blow passed the issues of this episode. Heck, look at the episode description from IMDB:

Micki, Ryan and Jack must track down an evil statue that causes men to kill the women they love.

Causes them to kill the women they love? So much wrong there. And love have nothing to do with what these guys are doing.



The next episode in line is a Halloween one! So...I think I'll sit on it until October. Let's move on next month to see a magic show.

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UPDATE:

Forgot the link to see the episode.