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By Demian

Truth be told? Carla frigging rocks. Thanks again for lending me your tape of this episode and, as an unexpected bonus, allowing me finally to see "Morality Bites" and "Painted World." Another couple of truths: Dan "Stinky Man" Gordon wasn't so much greasy as he was reptilian, and as far as bad character additions go, little Jenny was way worse than the Dolt. Ew.

We fade up on a short, pudgy man in a business suit wandering through the shadows of a dimly-lit parking garage to his car, where he's met by an overly obsequious undertaker. Okay, I don't know if the guy's really an undertaker, but he's wearing a black suit and tie with a white shirt, and the bluish glow from the fluorescents above is giving his flesh the sort of cadaverous tone I still associate with funeral directors despite two seasons of Peter Krause as Nate Fisher, so I'm going with "undertaker" until told otherwise. Apologies to all of you in the death-care industry who object to my unfair characterization, but since The Truth is tonight's Theme Mallet (thank you, Cate), here's my honest opinion: You guys really need to get out of your meat lockers and into the sun a little more often. "Dr. Oliver Mitchell?" the undertaker asks of the pudgy businessman. "What a pleasure," he continues. "I can't tell you how long I've waited for this." Dr. Mitchell casts a wary side-eye in the undertaker's direction and surreptitiously fingers his car keys until he clutches the longest of them in his fist as if it were a small dagger. You know, I've always been told to wield my keys as if they were tiny little knives in the event that some crackhead accosts me, but I've never heard of anyone successfully fending off an attacker that way. Feel free to flood my email inbox with tales to the contrary if you wish, but I still doubt that going all ninja on some mugger's ass with the key to my building's laundry room would really be all that effective. Anyway, Dr. Mitchell makes the obligatory "I'm sorry, have we met?" noises as the undertaker approaches with his right hand extended for an affable shake. The undertaker's light brown, receding hair is cropped close to his scalp, and his beady eyes with their puffy lids along with his prominent nose put me in mind of mole rats. Or Lance Armstrong. What? Hey, we're calling things as we see them tonight. Theme Mallet, remember?

The undertaker assures the doctor that they haven't met, but adds that he's a great fan of the doctor's published studies on "cell degeneration," which the undertaker deems "ahead of their time." Get it? You will. To his credit, Dr. Mitchell seems unnerved by the undertaker's flattery, and attempts to slide past him to his car. The undertaker, however, blocks the good doctor's escape with his cadaverous form. "I found your article on mutant retina genes to be particularly intriguing," the undertaker continues, pushing his face uncomfortably close to the doctor's own. The doctor, startled, wonders how the undertaker knew of that study when it has yet to appear in any of the appropriate journals. The undertaker smirks coldly, then goes on to congratulate the doctor for his work on some as-yet-undeveloped vaccine. "A vaccine?" the doctor asks. "Against what?" The undertaker's mouth twists into an ugly sneer. "Against this," he replies. We don't see what "this" is, exactly, because the camera shifts to an undertaker POV of Doc Mitchell's horrified face. We get a good idea of what "this" does, though, because a blue laser bores into the doctor's skull just over the bridge of his nose. The doctor screams as the irises of his eyes vanish, replaced by milky cataracts. The laser cuts off as suddenly as it appeared, and the doctor drops lifeless to the concrete