Elliot is a transgender "boy", who is picked on by the students and principal at the rural school that he attends. Everyone is mean and unpleasant because they're raging jerks, and a mysterious Janitor gives Elliot the means to exact revenge on his tormentors.
Janet Kidder as the Janitor is good, but other than being "woke", the episode really doesn't do anything. Elliot "wins" in the end, but the episode doesn't really end. Instead the writer throws in a coda with a now-elderly Elliot remembering what happened to him as a boy, and the Janitor (who is a witch, clarified thanks to some helpful voiceover narration) watching him. Why, who knows? Why is she still interested in Elliot 50+ years later.
Does making the episode Elliot's reminiscence add anything to the episode? No. It's pretty much a "by-the-numbers", young boy sells his soul for the power to get revenge and then has second thoughts. Writer Stephanie Adams-Santos just takes that basic outline and slaps some transgender labels on it. And that's probably what she got paid for, because that's how "Two Sentence Horror Stories" rolls most of the time. So I can't fault Adams-Santos for doing the best she could, given what she was probably told to write and the 20-minute runtime. And the episode is effective enough for what there is, better than the preceding "Bag Man".
There just isn't much "there" there. Elliot is endlessly sympathetic, the bad guys are endlessly bad.
Also, the concept doesn't make sentence. Presumably the two sentences refer to a main character. Even if it's a villainous main character, like "Bag Man". But... they don't. If anyone is doing the "talking", it's the Janitor. So who is doing the "speaking"? I don't get how they went from the sentence concept, to the actual episode.
But that's just my opinion, I could be wrong. What do you think?
Janet Kidder as the Janitor is good, but other than being "woke", the episode really doesn't do anything. Elliot "wins" in the end, but the episode doesn't really end. Instead the writer throws in a coda with a now-elderly Elliot remembering what happened to him as a boy, and the Janitor (who is a witch, clarified thanks to some helpful voiceover narration) watching him. Why, who knows? Why is she still interested in Elliot 50+ years later.
Does making the episode Elliot's reminiscence add anything to the episode? No. It's pretty much a "by-the-numbers", young boy sells his soul for the power to get revenge and then has second thoughts. Writer Stephanie Adams-Santos just takes that basic outline and slaps some transgender labels on it. And that's probably what she got paid for, because that's how "Two Sentence Horror Stories" rolls most of the time. So I can't fault Adams-Santos for doing the best she could, given what she was probably told to write and the 20-minute runtime. And the episode is effective enough for what there is, better than the preceding "Bag Man".
There just isn't much "there" there. Elliot is endlessly sympathetic, the bad guys are endlessly bad.
Also, the concept doesn't make sentence. Presumably the two sentences refer to a main character. Even if it's a villainous main character, like "Bag Man". But... they don't. If anyone is doing the "talking", it's the Janitor. So who is doing the "speaking"? I don't get how they went from the sentence concept, to the actual episode.
But that's just my opinion, I could be wrong. What do you think?
