‘Tales from the Darkside’ Retro Recap: ‘Bigalow’s Last Smoke’

Written by John Edward Betancourt

There was a time, when horror stories utterly refused to explore the more intimate horrors we deal with in everyday life. Not out of some close-minded stance or out of the belief that the genre couldn’t handle such matters. No instead, this was more motivated by the fact that the genre wasn’t mainstream enough and people weren’t quite willing to embrace what the genre could offer. Which is why the monsters that popped up on the screen, were allegories of sorts, so meaning could be snuck into a particular tale and no one would be the wiser. Unless of course they wanted to recognize the meaning of the monster and what it had to say about modern mankind and our problems.
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But eventually, that which held the genre back disappeared and now… intimate horror is everywhere. Since films such as Doctor Sleep now explore the lasting impact of trauma, or the damage that domestic violence can cause to the human mind, as evidenced by the motion picture, Lucky. But while horror is now enjoying its boldest phase to date, where no topic is off limits anymore, what’s amazing… is that there were a few horror stories that breached the barrier and tested the waters, well before the mainstream revolution we’re enjoying now became commonplace. For the next episode of Tales from the Darkside digs into a topic that no story was looking at back in that day, since it put addiction and all of its horrors on full display.

A feat that ‘Bigalow’s Last Smoke’ accomplishes, by plunging us into the strange situation that a man named Frank Bigalow is dealing with. For he wakes up one fine morning and realizes that something is amiss. After all, the multiple packs of cigarettes he keeps around his house are missing and oh yeah… he’s trapped in a replica of his own apartment. Because somehow, someway, in the middle of the night… he was transported to this exact replica and robbed of freedom and his smokes, so that his addiction to cigarettes can finally be addressed by way of the strange and intense treatments that a Doctor Synapsis has designed. In fact, Frank is in contact often with the good doctor through a special television screen and he is not happy. Because this goes above and beyond from a therapy standpoint and he won’t be treated in this manner, and he will have his smokes. A pushback that traps Frank within a difficult battle of wills with the doctor, one where Mister Bigalow will be punished dearly for non-compliance… or given his freedom… if he finally decides to give up his nasty habit.

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Which is… a brilliant plot that explores so much regarding addiction. For starters, it dives deep into how we have poor mental health care and addiction care in America. Because the only way to truly root out addiction and free a person of its trappings, is to address the root cause of the matter in the first place. But instead, we work with shock treatments in modern America, and rehab centers where people come and go in a revolving door manner because of what isn’t addressed. Which is precisely what Frank goes through here to the Nth Degree. Since Doctor Synapsis really puts Frank through the wringer to get him to just hand over his smokes, rather than fix why he needs them, and that in turn leads to stunning and painful conflict. The kind that puts Frank in a dark and painful place often because he hasn’t learned in the slightest the nature of his addiction, he only knows compliance or pain. 
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As for the horror elements present here… well that is handled by story’s the intimate look at addiction. Granted, cigarettes might be considered a substance so mild, that it cannot teach us a proper lesson on such matters, but people get addicted to nicotine, and it does serve as an allegory for the power of addiction. Since we see Frank go through withdrawal and the mood swings that accompany that, and we cannot help but feel a tinge of pity for him when we realize the power his addiction has over him. Since it transforms him as it sees fit to get what it wants and that’s a powerful allegory for certain. One that can easily be applied to alcoholism or harder substance addiction, and kudos to the show for putting addiction on display in such a raw and visceral manner and for giving us some idea of how hard it actually can be to shake.

If anything, all of these elements make this… another forward-thinking episode. Because this really is the kind of stuff that modern horror is diving into on a regular basis now, and it’s wonderful to know this show was so ahead of its time and that it was fearless in putting this on the air. Because this is the kind of story that would have received pushback from someone along the way, but clearly… no one listened to that noise and the end result is a poignant and brilliant horror story. One that truly reminds us that monsters are real and that sometimes they reside within us, and well… now that we’ve come to the end of this particularly intelligent journey, we can now turn our attention to a tale of terror that is going to explore a fear that we all share in. Specifically… the fear of growing old. Until next time, try to enjoy the daylight.   

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