"Tales from the Crypt" Retro Recap: "Showdown"

Written by Scotty

Dealing with your past can be a painful thing to do.  If you have done something that you have regretted, it can be even worse. Talking about it to others may take a huge wait off of your chest, but in the long run, you are the one that has to let it go.  If you wind up fighting yourself when it comes to this, you may never find peace, even when you are in your most somber state.  Losing sleep over something that might have been just a stupid mistake is one thing, but when it comes to the bigger things, you may never sleep again.

Billy Quintaine is a noted outlaw and on the run, but there is someone close on his tracks.  Texas Ranger Tom McCurdo is not giving up on his hunt for the outlaw and it seems like he never will.  Finding Billy in an out of the way town, Tom calls Billy out to a duel in the street, but one thing that Billy is not, is slow.  Billy wins the fight and heads into the saloon for his whiskey where he meets the man that will change his life.  A traveling sales man named Cornelius Bosch is offering Billy a tonic with the promise of showing the gunfighter things he has never seen before, and an extra jolt in his step, along with draw time.

Although Billy is hesitant to this, he drinks the tonic, but starts to see faces from his past.  As he looks around the crowed saloon, he starts to see everyone that he has killed.  Without knowing what is really happening, Tom McMurdo comes up and calls him out once again, but Billy is not willing to fight once more since he knows the old Texas Ranger is dead.  Even Cornelius is forthcoming, telling Billy he was killed in the cross fire, but Billy will not allow the group to take him, to where ever they are from.  Ducking away from his past, Billy finds that all of his past escapades have vanished, but he has no idea who will walk into the saloon next.

A tour guide, dressed in a red striped shirt comes into the saloon with his group as they discuss what happened in the town many years ago.  But this is not what interested Billy, the story that he, Billy Quintaine haunts this old saloon and cries out like a banshee every night if you listen hard enough.  Although Billy does not believe this, he is able to see that no one is able to see him when he is standing right in front of them.  Walking outside, Billy sees that this is not his time and he wants to be back where he came from.  Crying out to be let go, Billy hears a familiar voice once again, Tom McMurdo is outside calling him out, and this time, Billy will bear witness to what happens next.

This is one of the episodes that are not meant to scare you, but to make you think about your own story.   If you have been in the situations where something bad has happened at your hand, and you know it, you can continue on living, knowing that you have done wrong.  But if you are not willing to accept the consequences that come from your actions, you will be stuck in the spiral of denial, that does nothing for you, but keep you spinning around until you become sick of where and who you are.  Starring Neil Giuntoli as Billy Quintaine, David Morse as Tom McMurdo, Roderick Cook as Cornelius Bosch, along with the writer of the episode, Frank Darabont and the director, Richard Donner, this is an episode that makes you feel, for the lack of a better phrase, more human.  More focused on the story than the scares, this one does make you think about your own mortality, along with who you are in this life.  Until next time kiddies, Stay Scared.

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