Main cast: Hector Elizondo (Leo Burns), Patsy Kensit (Bridget Burns), John Shea (Father John Sejac), Adam West (Chapman), Sam Waterston (GG Devoe), and John Kassir (The Crypt Keeper)
Director: Kyle MacLachlan
Kyle MacLachlan must really enjoyed his time in Carrion Death to return, this time as the director of this episode. Then again, directing this episode must be a painful experience as Mr MacLachlan has never plonked his rear end on the director’s seat ever since. Not that As Ye Sow is a terrible episode – it just has the misfortune of following a hilarious, quirky, and entertaining episode.
The jealous older man and his much younger wife are both standard Tales from the Crypt tropes by now, and now we have another such couple. Leo Burns suspects that his wife Bridget is cheating on him. The PI he previously hired – played by Adam West, of all people – couldn’t find any evidence of her wrongdoing, and in fact advises him to go for therapy. Leo, however, is convinced that she’s cheating on him. He can feel it in her touch! To be fair to him, she stopped sleeping with him since six months ago, so he may have a reason to suspect that something is amiss.
So convinced that he’s being cheated upon, Leo hires the sleazy PI GG Devoe to keep tabs on her and find evidence that she’s inspecting other blokes’ privates up close and personal. And this time, he may just find the evidence he believes to exist, as Devoe is immoral enough to inflame his paranoia and encourage him to go … all the way to a tragic denouement.
In a way, this is like an apology for Three’s a Crowd – we have another wildly suspicious husband driven to extremes due to his paranoia, but unlike that other episode which contrived to have everyone behaving like an idiot to keep the plot going, this one offers a more tragic and even heartbreaking take on that trope. Bridget’s behavior is far more realistic, and her reasons for withdrawing from her husband are far more believable. Leo is a far more believably flawed person, and in the end, he doesn’t deserve his fate. None of them do.
Well, except GG Devoe. There are no spooks in this episode, only flawed humans putting into action a tragic tale… or are there? From some camera angles, Devoe resembles the Devil in a The Devil’s Advocate manner, so I guess one can argue that this could be interpreted as a man tempted by the Devil into doing things that lead to self-damnation.
At any rate, As Ye Sow is a pleasant enough watch with an ending that hurt far more than I expected, but it’s also an episode with a predictable “twist” and an overall rather forgettable premise.
