Tales from the Darkside S2 E9: The Trouble with Mary Jane (1985)

Desperate to save her granddaughter, Mary Jane, from an encroaching supernatural rot, the wealthy Mrs. Nugent turns to the only experts she can find: Nora (Phyllis Diller) and Jack Mills (Lawrence Tierney). Nora is a wisecracking, flamboyant medium, while Jack is a hard-nosed cynic. They are career con artists used to fleecing pockets and putting on dim-lit seances, but Mrs. Nugent’s $50,000 bounty is enough to make them ignore the smell of sulfur.

Mary Jane claims to be Aisha Candisha, a Moroccan demon of legendary malice. To prove her pedigree, she doesn’t just growl. She casually unhinges her jaw and consumes a silver spoon like it’s a communion wafer. Nora, realizing they are wildly out of their depth, tries to bow out, admitting they are merely fortune tellers. Jack, fueled by greed and a stubborn refusal to be intimidated, doubles down. He wants to try a transfer ritual, removing the entity from Mary Jane and trapping it inside a live pig.

Directed by T.J. Castronovo and written by Edithe Swensen, this ends with both Aisha and Gad finding new bodies to live in. As the demons argue over their prize, the con artists realize that playing at being the Warrens has invited a darkness that doesn’t care about their bank accounts.

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