The misogyny is pretty strong with this one. Aside from the whole sexist catty and cat fight tropes, the female characters are really one dimensional. In response to Eric’s question about the Queens motivation, there isn’t any beyond, she is a woman and women-be-jealous.

At no point does anyone challenge the main guy, who is obviously an unreliable narrator. This is really about how put upon men are and how even after getting away with murder, it still seems to be this whole woe-is-me attitude. 0 out of 4.

Also, the casual animal cruelty and violence, made my stomach turn. Then the ending bit by the mysterious traveler probably caused some real life animal abuse.

When the Mysterious Traveler says “Some years ago, when I was practicing medicine…,” I wonder if there’s an unspoken “before they took away my license” in there?

Regarding Eric’s complaint likening this to “everyday stories of real-life people doing real-life things”: If he feels that this is too much like real life, Eric must have a much more interesting life than I do.

But what intrigues me about this episode is the difference in personality between Dr. Smith in the story and the Mysterious Traveler in the opening and closing bits. They’re supposed to be the same character, but Dr. Smith seems calm, authoritative, and relatively rational. He doesn’t appear to believe in the supernatural, as he regards Chris’s problems as being in his mind, and tries to treat them accordingly (though the method of treatment may be somewhat dubious — I said he seemed rational, not competent). The Mysterious Traveler, on the other hand, seems to take gleeful, almost sadistic pleasure in relating stories about people being torn to pieces and their eyes ripped out by malevolent cats (and implying that the listeners’ own cats might be liable to do the same thing). What happened in the meantime, to turn the calm doctor into the deranged commuter? I suppose if you lose too many patients through horrific supernatural violence, maybe that would be the result.