Season 1, Episode 3
Season one, episode three starts with a spine-tingling story of revenge and ends with a shocking twist of greed. The man in the Suitcase begins in an airport where we meet Justin (Will Kindrachuk). Justin is having a hard time. His girlfriend just left him, and thanks to some troubles in school, his dad is upset with him. While he is venting to a friend via text, the baggage claim area clears out. His bag is the last one left, so he grabs it and leaves the airport. As he walks out, the conveyor belt starts up again, and some clothes along with a bag that looks just like his rolls around the corner.
To mask his pain, Justin smokes some pot while driving down the road and texting. Luckily instead of killing himself or anyone else, he accidentally facetime his ex-girlfriend, who belittles him more for going home and begging for money from his father. When he gets back to his house, he lights up some more weed and watches a possibly prophetic cartoon of a genie. Suddenly, his Suitcase begins to move and make noises. He makes his way over to the bag and slowly unzips it to discover a man (Ravi Naidu) folded like a pretzel in the bag.
The man in the bag says that he offended someone he should not have offended, and they are the ones who put him in the Suitcase. Justin wants to take the man to the hospital; however, the bagman is adamant that he just wants help getting out of the bag so that the guys who put him in the bag do not find him. Justin starts to help him get out of the Suitcase by pulling on his feet. The man screams in agony, and while he is crying, he shoots a gold coin out of his mouth. He explains to Justin that it is an unfortunate condition where he produces gold coins when he is in pain. He lets Justin know that if he helps him out of the bag, whatever money is created is Justin’s to keep for his help. However, Justin zips the man back up and hides him away in his bedroom until he can think of what he should do.
The next day Justin takes the gold coin into a pawn shop to see if it is real. The dealer (Big Boi) explains where the currency came from and offers him $275 for it. He takes the offer and goes to lunch with his roommate Alex (Ian Gregg) and explains the situation in the Suitcase to him. When the two of them head back home, his ex-girlfriend Carla (Madison Bailey) is coming out of the house with a look of horror on her face. She says that she knew Justin was a lot of things but never thought he was a murderer. The three rush upstairs to take a look at the man in the case while Justin tries to explain the situation. Carla goes to help Justin pull the man out of the case and, in doing so, forces more gold to expel out of his mouth. Roommate Alex gets the idea to keep the man in the bag and make some money off him against Justin’s wishes. Alex then zips the man back up in the case and throws him down the stairs. When he hits the bottom step, an abundance of gold coins explodes out of the case. They decide to keep the man for 48 hours to get rich, and then they will let him go.
The three of them then begin to inflict pain in several ways, including pulling teeth and stomping on the man’s body. They start buying extravagant things, and in one scene, Alex and Carla are about to make love with the gold coins all over their bodies. So, it seems there has already been some double-crossing going on with the roommate and ex-girlfriend. However, when they hear Justin come in, Alex runs out of the room to hide the affair.
To maximize their profit, they hook the man up to jumper cables and a battery to electrocute him. Justin begins to have doubts about what they are doing and stops. Carla and Alex protest, but Justin has had all he can stomach and says the 48 hours is up and they need to let him go now. But the greed has taken hold of Carla and Alex, and they will not let anyone get in the way of them buying vacation homes and boats. Justin says they have to stop because the man in the Suitcase says if they keep going, his heart will give out; however, the man seems to want them to keep going. He says it is what he deserves. However, Justin can’t do it and says he didn’t think they would end up murdering the man. Carla and Alex exchange a look, and when Justin starts to call the cops, Carla grabs his phone and bashes it with a monkey wrench. She then turns the tool on Justin and smashes him over the head with a thunderous blow. Justin stumbles out of the room and falls down the stairs, presumably, to his death.
Carla and Alex keep the torture going one last time before they go on the run. Before they kick the juice back up, the man in the bag starts laughing and calls them naughty children. When they turn the battery on, and he starts getting fried again, he laughs harder. He turns into a giant genie that produces two identical empty suitcases at their feet. They scream as his laughter intensifies.
Justin then wakes up in the hospital with a card next to his bed that reads, “Get well soon, you surprising boy! And if you ever need anything, just think of me, and I’ll be there.” The episode ends with the man (now out of the Suitcase) walking up to airport check-in with an entire row of suitcases. When he asks if they can accommodate his bags, the greeter (Nasim) says for a customer as loyal as you, anything. In contrast, the two bags containing the screaming Carla and Alex are placed on the check-in belt.
Thoughts on the episode:
So far in this first season, this has been the best story. Not only is the story itself compelling and full of depth, but the acting is surprisingly good on all accounts for an anthology show. The cameo from Big Boi as the pawn dealer was a fun surprise. The scene with Carla and Alex making out on the bed covered in the gold was a bit weird to me, however. I highly doubt they cleaned those coins off before disrobing and rolling around in them. Those coins shot out of a strange man’s mouth, and they are kissing all over them. It was gross. I really enjoyed the twist a the end where the entire thing was a test of one’s ability to turn away from greed and show kindness to a stranger.
Written exclusively for TheLastPicture.Show by Jacob Ruble
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