I apologize.

As I was working on Season 2, I totally skipped this episode.

And how could I? It’s one of the most memorable in the entire series.

Anton LaVey specifically called out this episode. But more importantly, whenever people talked about the scariest movies that they had watched, my father always went back to “The Sins of the Fathers.”

“The Sins of the Fathers” was directed by series workhorse Jeannot Szwarc and written by Halsted Welles from a story by Christianna Brand. It stars Geraldine Page as Mrs. Evans, the wife of the Sin Eater of the town of Cwrt y Cadno, Wales. What is a sin eater and his task? Well, they must eat a meal in the company of a dead person, taking on their sins so that the deceased can go to meet God with a clean conscience.

Her husband is too sick to perform the ritual, so her son Ian (Richard Thomas) must go in his place. He fears the pain of accepting all of these sins, much less feasting from the chest of a dead person. But Mrs. Evans and her family have been hungry since the plague has taken Mr. Evans, so she comes up with a plan. Ian will conduct the ritual but hide the food, bringing it home to her family.

Ian barely escapes from the funeral rite and the widow (Barbara Steele!) who wants to watch him conduct the ceremony. The tragedy is that he arrives home to a dead father and must now consume that food — and the food around his lost patriarch — and now take on the sins, the many sins, of the Sin Eater.

Working with art director Joseph Alves, Szwarc pretty much made a legitimate theatrical experience with this short story. NBC wasn’t sure they would even air it, so for once I have to give credit to series producer Jack Laird, who stood behind his talent and pushed for the episode to air. Beyond talent like Page, Thomas and Steele, he also had Michael Dunn as a servant obsessed by the food.

It’s probably the most memorable Night Gallery episode. It has no blood, no special effects and just mood and theatrical acting by all. It just plain works.

“You Can’t Get Help Like That Anymore” was directed by Jeff Corey and written by Rod Serling. It has quite the cast — Broderick Crawford, Cloris Leachman, Lana Wood, Severn Darden — and a great story. The Fultons (Crawford and Leachman) take their rage out on everyone around them, including their robotic maids, which often come back to the Robot Aids, Inc. storeroom in pieces. Dr. Kessler (Darden) worries that soon the robot help will evolve to the point that they turn the tables on the couple.

He’s right, as Model 931 (Wood) responds to the pinching sexual impropriety and outright physical attacks of the Fultons by decimating them. By the end, the robots have even replaced Kessler with a new model and are quietly sending their models into the suburbs to take over the world.

I love the 1970s future that appears in this story too. The makeup gave the production issues, but you’d never know it, as I really love just about everything in this Serling parable.

Again — apologies for missing this episode. I honestly feel like it’s the best of the entire series, so I appreciate you waiting for it.