Welcome to Late Night Retro Television Reviews, a new feature where we review some of our favorite and least favorite shows of the past! On Fridays, I will be reviewing Friday the 13th: The Series, a show which ran in syndication from 1987 to 1990. The show can be found on YouTube!
This week, Micki screws up and Ryan finds love!
Episode 1.19 “The Quilt of Hathor”
(Dir by Timothy Bond, originally aired on May 2nd, 1988)
Looking to retrieve a cursed quilt that allows its owner to enter other people’s dreams and kill them, Micki and Ryan go undercover as members of the Pentite Sect.
Who are the Pentites? Basically, they’re Mennonites except for the fact that they’re called Pentites. They are a hard-worked and religious community, one that eschews modern technology. The members of the sect dress modestly, they don’t sing or dance, and they do everything that their leader, Reverend Grange (Scott Paulin), tells them to do.
Effie Stokes (Kate Trotter) is in love with the Reverend and wants to become his wife. She also happens to own the Quilt of Hathor and soon, she is entering the dreams of her romantic rivals and killing them. While Effie is trying to win the love of Reverend Grange, Ryan is falling in love with Grange’s daughter, Laura (Carolyn Dunn). Quicker than you can say Witness, Ryan is temping Laura to dance and being forced to fight Laura’s suitor, Matthew (Diego Matamoras), while balancing above an open flame pit. I don’t think Mennonites do that, which is probably why the Pentites broke off from them in the first place.
Micki does figure out that Effie is the one with the quilt and she even manages to grab it away from her. However, when she tells Ryan that it’s time to return to the antique shop, Ryan replies that he can’t go with her. Ryan has fallen in love with Laura and is planning on living the rest of his life as a Pentite.
Micki returns to the shop and, heartbroken, she tells Jack that she lost Ryan. Jack then reveals that she also managed to grab the wrong quilt. So, basically, Micki really screwed up.
This is a two-part episode so I imagine that Micki will return to the Pentite community next week and hopefully, she’ll pay attention and grab the right quilt this time. Will Ryan return to the civilization with her? Considering that John D. LeMay didn’t leave the show until the end of the second season, I imagine he probably will.
This was a pretty good episode. The scenes where Effie entered the dreams were well-directed and definitely achieved a nightmarish intensity. Some of the Pentite stuff was a little bit silly but John D. LeMay really sold his decision to stay with the sect. With everything that we’ve seen of Ryan on this show, his decision actually makes sense. Ryan has always been the one searching for deeper meaning while Micki is the more down-to-Earth member of the team.
Next week: Part two of the Quilt of Hathor!