Tales from the Darkside: Effect and Cause (1985)
Season 2, Episode 11
1/10
Zinc Oxide and You
23 July 2023
Warning: Spoilers
This episode reminds me of that segment of 'Kentucky Fried Movie'. Things start disappearing basically because some omnipotent and essentially unseen narrator says so. The beginning and end have effect following cause, but why does it all start? Who knows? And then in the middle, things just start disappearing and/or changing. Again, why? Who knows? It apparently starts when main character Kate starts painting over some paintings. And one has the face of a screaming woman, which later appears in a jump scare. Is the whole painting-over thing starting the reality-changing thing? Again, who knows?

Some people describe this as a comedy, but there's nothing funny about it. The hapless character gets in over her head, and comes to a bad end. She's a little flaky, but doesn't deserve her bad end. She learns nothing, she doesn't get a second chance to turn her life around. She just... dies, in a semi-ironic manner.

The episode reminded me of a lot of Darkside episodes, where there's no point. Someone gets a strange ability, or something strange happens to them, they tamper "in God's domain", suffer an ironic end, and that's 30 minutes over.

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