Very good and old fashioned, and old fashioned is a good word to me. A simple 1920s small southern town where the locals genuinely feel that when a body dies and comes back, it means a roaming spirit took over the body. The locals fear it was a bad spirit in this ep. Jeff Myrtlebank shocks everybody when he comes back to life, even back then, people knew once a body died, it couldn't come back. I don't mean a soul, that does not die, I mean a body. A soul cannot take over a body unless the body itself is capable of coming to life (meaning an embryo or newborn) or else souls would be able to take over deceased bodies all the time. Anyway, Ma and Pa and little sister and Jeff's girlfriend Comfort (who initially did not feel equivalent to her name when she first saw Jeff come back) were shocked. After the initail shock, they were blessed and happy about it, that is until they noticed some new changes in him. Jeff now becomes a hard laborer (Ma: "he is always fiddlin with things now, he never rests anymore") and a good fighter now (Townsmen to Comfort's brother after Jeff whoops him: "Jeff never got the better of you before!"). Pa pays attention to details about how many eggs he eats at breakfast, even little details stop looking so little next to bigger ones I reckon. Jeff's little sister blabs to a couple of other kids her age about Jeff, who then tells their family, who gets on the phone and passes it on to others. Comfort loses comfort when realizing Jeff touching roses causes them to immediately perish. I suppose that detail might've been what caused the locals to think it was a bad spirit that took over. Just think in TZ ep "Pitch for the angels" when the devil touches those flowers and they immediately died when he was trying to convince Ed Wynn he was death. I like when right after the locals gang on him to leave town, and Jeff puts them in a corner, he says if they're not nice to him, he will bring a swarm of locusts to their crops or burn their barns. Very good old time watching.
Review of The Last Rites of Jeff Myrtlebank
