Becka Paulson accidentally shoots herself in the head while searching her closet for Christmas decorations. The bullet lodges in her brain, and begins to have some strange effects.
Opening narration[]
| “ | Even in the most innocent of minds, there are still secrets best left unrevealed. | ” |
Plot[]
In a stroke of luck, the bullet does not kill Becka, but her severe brain damage causes her to begin to hallucinate that the picture of a tuxedoed stranger on top of the TV, who calls himself the "8-by-10 Man" (in the original story, it was a picture of Jesus), is talking to her.
Becka is a simple woman, a homemaker, who spends her days watching soap operas. Her husband, Joe, is neglectful and disrespectful, and the passion has gone out of their relationship. Becca comes to suspect he is having an affair with a coworker at the post office. Becka manages to conceal her gunshot wound. Surprisingly her life begins to improve in several ways. She displays increased intelligence, sexual drive, creativity and inventiveness.
Under the advice of the 8-by-10 Man, Becka eventually decides to kill her worthless husband, and in a bit of "damaged savantry", rigs the television (using instructions from the 8-by-10 Man) to deliver a fatal electrical pulse to whoever touches the knob. Becka, in the end, tricks her husband into touching it, but as he begins to be fatally electrocuted, she finally realizes just what she's done and tries to save him. All she does is alter the circuit by touching him, and the two fall dead, the victims of a tragic quirk of fate.
Closing narration[]
| “ | Perhaps the descent into madness... is not a solitary journey after all. | ” |
Notes[]
- The episode is based on the short story The Revelations of Becka Paulson by Stephen King, first published in 1984.
- The character Becka Paulson is also in the Stephen King novel The Tommyknockers (1987), in which she kills her husband in much the same way. However, in The Tommyknockers Becka Paulson's powers come from a strange alien craft lodged in the ground in the Maine wilderness.
- This is another of the tiny handful of revival series episodes in which there is no monster and technically no genuinely paranormal or science fiction element at all. Just madness and medical accident. It is a story more fitting for other genre anthology TV series such as The Twilight Zone or Tales from the Crypt.
- The 2022 horror anthology series Guillermo del Toro's Cabinet of Curiosities features an episode titled "The Outside" with a similar premise of a neglected housewife growing tired of her mediocre husband and hallucinating about how she will get rid of him.
Cast[]
- Catherine O'Hara as Becka Paulson
- John Diehl as Joe
- Bill Dow as Doc Fink
- Marilyn Norry as Flo
- Steven Weber as 8x10 Man
- Barry Mickelson as Doctor
- Jon Chardiet as Moss
- Preston Maybank as Hank
- Russell Porter as Actor (as Russell B. Porter)
- Carla Boudreau as Actress (as Carla White)
- Johanna Osborne as Cashier (as Jo-Ann MacDonald)
- David Glyn-Jones as Poker Pal