Main cast: Barbara Billingsley (Sheila), George D Wallace (Robert Ross), and Curt Lowens (Dr Morton)
Director: Jean Patenaude

Reaper is based off another story by the late and great Robert Bloch, but this show being what it is, pacing issues keep this one from truly slaying.

Robert Ross is a bad-tempered newcomer in a nursing home, but he’s that way because deep inside, he’s scared of kicking the bucket. Being surrounded by dying old people is the last thing he needs, heh.

When he encounters Dr Morton, clearly the Grim Reaper himself, and the good doctor tells him that it’s his time to go, the two eventually strike a bargain: Robert will kill three people in exchange for an extension of his time on Earth.

Things get complicated when Robert begins to fall for the no-nonsense but kind senior nurse Sheila. He soon realizes that he doesn’t have the heart to kill, but he also wants to stay on and start a life together with Sheila. Oh, what to do, what to do…

George D Wallace and Barbara Billingsley put on a solid performance, elevating this episode into one of the more watchable ones in this season as well as the previous one. Mr Wallace, especially, makes it way to easy to cheer for and even root for Robert, despite that fellow being pretty much an ass that is willing to commit murder just to save himself from death.

Perhaps this is because he has many reasons to be unhappy about his lot: most of the nursing home staff infantilizes the residents and the residents themselves behave like infants, which makes him understandably bitter as he still mourns his loss of agency and independence thanks to ageing and disease. He doesn’t want to sit around and be patronized upon while waiting to die, and when Sheila treats him like an adult, he immediately starts falling for her.

However, the episode itself suffers from some key issues that prevent it from being great.

For one, the twist at the end comes out in a abrupt manner that feels unsatisfying—surely the episode could have dropped some foreshadowing or hint here and there to make that one feel less like an ass-pull.

Also, this episode tends to waste time on scenes that are designed to explain, unnecessarily, a previous scene. Surely, some of these scenes could have been used to build up to that denouement at the end of the episode.

Still, these issues don’t really get in the way of my enjoyment of this episode. The pay-off could be better, yes, but the episode itself is worth a peek.