Main cast: Barry Watson (Henry Cameron), Marvin Jones III (The Orderly), Sonita Henry (Dr Larson), Lilli Birdsell (Helen), Kate Cobb (Eliza), Ezra Buzzington (“The Administrator”), and Joshua Burge (“The Emperor”)
Director: Julius Ramsay

Psychiatric hospital inmate Henry Cameron has no recollection of his past, and he is frustrated that he is not allowed any opportunity to make any progress in his recovery of his memories. When he agrees to take part in Dr Larson’s more… interesting tests, let’s just say, he’s convinced that he’s actually the current POTUS, and they have him holed up here and tortured because of a conspiracy to seize power from him.

For an episode made during the days of Orange Mad Bad, The Current Occupant doesn’t get too hate-the-orange-oompa-loompa preachy despite it being product of the woke horror factory.

Well, the opening scenes that seem to be rented from Julius Ramsay’s The Purge movies seem to be deliberate efforts to remind people of those peaceful protests out there on the streets, as CNN and MSNBC would say, but the episode soon settles down into being impersonations of One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest and A Clockwork Orange. It’s all very superficial: stroboscope flashes, scenes that turn out to be gotcha moments, dreams within a dreams thing, and so forth.

The thing is, what kind of story is it trying to tell anyway? A story of this nature require a twist revelation to make it worth sitting through all the fake-outs and shake-outs that are the equivalent of a pretentious horror huckster’s idea of a jump scare fart-a-thon. Well, there is where I think this episode will make or break with folks. Some may find the twist great, and hence like this episode better than those that think the twist is just an eye-rolling effort of pretending that it is subverting expectations. You think there is a twist? Hah, this movie fooled you. The twist is what you correctly deduced early on, so isn’t that genius?

I feel like I’ve sort of wasted my time watching this thing, although I get some amusement from treating this episode as a marvelous allegory of what is happening inside President Brandon’s head once he is locked up by his Vice President in a brazen power grab.

At any rate, three oogies, because it doesn’t annoy me with too many scenes that feel like filler. The bar is set low by the other episodes of Into the Dark, I know, but hey, we all make do with what we get. Plus, Barry Watson is always easy on the eyes, so there’s that.