Main cast: Jesse Borrego (Jess), Doris Milmore (Sophie), and Terence Stamp (The Host)
Director: Michel David

Sophie is looking for a new life, new scenery, and new direction.

Her ex-boyfriend wanted an open relationship, and because this is 1998, not 2023, she hasn’t read enough Buzzfeed and Salon articles to be convinced that open relationships are the best thing ever, so she dumped him.

Oh, and her boss wanted her to do an article on something new, so she decides to hit the road toward some isolated place that she’d picked at random for that purpose.

She manages to get a ride from Jess, who’s driving this big truck. Inside the truck are sex toys and ooh. 

Soon, it gets cold, so naturally they need to climb into the back to stay warm…

Plain Brown Envelope sounds like it is based off something that would indeed be wrapped in a plain brown envelope when sold in the bookstores back in those days, and all that is missing in Sophie’s opening voice-over is “Dear Penthouse…”

Okay, I’ll give it straight: this is an absurd episode, but it is an entertaining kind of absurd. The poor actors have to dress up in some of the tackiest costumes I’ve seen to enact “erotic fantasies” that are anything but erotic, unless cheesy counts as such these days, and then, as the episode progresses, out comes the really bad fluorescent light effects and some of the worst special effects I’ve seen.

By the time the tentacles come out, I’m howling in laughter. That crap is the unintentionally funniest thing ever, and the final scene of this episode has me doubling so hard in laughter that my sides actually ache for about five minutes after the credits finish rolling. 

Could this be one of the worst episodes ever in this season? Sure, but it’s a fabulously entertaining kind of worst to the degree that it sort of flips its worst qualities into an acid dream kind of awesomeness. If only the other awful episodes of this show had been as fun as this one!