I imagine some will consider "The Trouble with Mary Jane" to be an absolute hoot. It has Lawrence Tierney and Phyllis Diller (what a team this is!) as charlatans operating a store where they perform tarot readings and such, deciding (well, Tierney is the one who wants to do it while Diller grumbles and complains—and rightfully so—about the dangers of fooling around with the *real* supernatural) to take on the exorcism of a little girl under siege by a demon that gives her goat's feet (?!?!), with her condition growing steadily worse. Tierney first tries to command the demon out of the possessed girl (Tanya Fenmore) while her mother (Anita Dangler, who plays the mother as an oblivious ditz) looks worriedly on. To say it fails is the understatement of the week. Sent to the emergency room, both Tierney and Diller, after the demon turns the little girl's room upside down and inside out, you'd think that'd be the end of it. $50,000.00 is what motivates Tierney to continue on while Diller wants him to forget the whole thing. Tierney then decides to call a second demon to eradicate the one inside Fenmore but instead the conjured GAD also possesses her! So now Tierney, still undeterred despite all the failures before him, learns how to cleanse Fenmore of her possession, with the two demons finding "different habitats" to possess! A poke at The Exorcist, Tierney appears to be having a lot of fun, with more personality than usual while Diller is..well, Diller. She thinks Tierney is just impossible, and Diller stays at him for insisting on pursuing the exorcism and payday. I imagine the final moments will be what most take from this episode because the rest is just a spoof of The Exorcist. It is all a harmless, silly time-waster. Tales from the Darkside is often featured as a spookshow, a creepshow, a chiller, but oftentimes the show resorted to horror-comedy, high-brow and a bit over-the-top. This episode is one of those cases. Tierney and Diller take what the material gives them and perform accordingly. Their final scene, made-up precisely as only the episode could dictate, encompasses the humor of the entire episode.
Review of The Trouble with Mary Jane
