Welcome to Late Night Retro Television Reviews, a feature where we review some of our favorite and least favorite shows of the past!  On Mondays, I will be reviewing Nightmare Cafe, which ran on NBC from January to April of 1992.  The entire show is currently streaming on YouTube!

This week, Frank and Fay get involved in a case of ghost noir!

Episode 1.2 “Dying Well Is The Best Revenge”

(Dir by Armand Mastroianni, originally aired on March 6th, 1992)

This week’s episode of Nightmare Café begins with Frank and Fay feeling pretty comfortable in their new roles of working at the café under the watchful eye of Blackie.  I guess some time has passed since the pilot, as both Frank and Fay seem to be totally okay with the fact that they’re both dead and destined to spend the rest of their existence working as, respectively, a cook and a waitress.

Don’t get me wrong, of course.  There’s nothing wrong with being a cook or a waitress.  If I was a waitress, I would definitely want to work for Robert Englund and get to wear a cute uniform like Fay does.  I think what is throwing me is that Fay and Frank seem to be so comfortable with the idea of being dead.  It would take me a bit longer to accept that.

As for tonight’s episode, the action starts when a sultry woman named Angela (Beth Toussaint) enters the café and asks for a cup of coffee.  Frank immediately starts flirting with her and Angela flirts back in typical film noir fashion.  All of the flirting ends, though, when Angela’s husband, Edward (Justin Deas), stumbles into the café, his face bloodied from apparently being attacked outside while he was waiting for Angela.  Angela and Edward leave but Angela later returns so that she can talk to Frank.

Angela claims that Edward is abusive.  Frank leaves the café so that he can visit Angela at home and eventually sleep with her.  (Fay and Blackie watch on the television.)  Fay doesn’t trust Angela, especially after her previous lover — a country club tennis pro (Andrew Airlie) — is mysteriously run over by a hit-and-run-driver.  As Fay puts it, she thinks that Frank could be putting his life at risk.  But, the thing with that is that Frank and Fay are already dead.  That was established in the pilot.  So, if Frank is already dead, how is he putting his life at risk?  For that matter, if Frank and Fay are dead and the Nightmare Café is basically a dimensional portal, how are they both able to casually leave the café and walk around town?  I mean, are they dead and in purgatory or not?  Seriously, what are the rules of the Nightmare Café?

Eventually, Edward confronts Frank and Angela and Frank …. SHOOTS HIM!  Well, I guess since Frank is dead, he can be a murderer.  Except, in a clever twist, it turns out that Edward was already dead and the Nightmare Café gave him a second chance to prove that Angela was the one who set up his murder.  When Angela tries to put Edward in the trunk of her car, Edward suddenly gets out of the trunk and Angela shoots him several times.  Edward pretends to die once again, allowing the police to arrest Angela for murder.  The episode ends with Angela in prison, with Edward as her ghostly companion.

So, as I said earlier, I’m still not sure what the rules of the Nightmare Café are supposed to be and, in this episode, it felt like Frank and Fay could basically just do whatever was convenient to the plot.  That’s a bit of a problem because, when there are no rules, there aren’t any stakes either.  That said, this episode was helped immensely by the friendly charm of Robert Englund.  Blackie didn’t really get involved in the storyline but he did break the fourth wall and talk directly to the audience a few times and Englund delivered the lines with just the right amount of cheery sarcasm.  Robert Englund definitely kept things entertaining!