Alex Hayes (Beverly Hills, 90210‘s Joe E. Tata) is a corrupt developer sitting atop an empire built on backstabbing, fraud and evicting elderly tenants in sub-zero weather. But karma doesn’t just knock on Alex’s door. It crawls right up through the floorboards via a jackhammer wielded by his recently deceased, ladder-plunged former business partner, Jacob Caine (Carmine Caridi).
Enter the true star of the episode: the Devil himself, masquerading not as a serpentine tempter with a pitchfork, but as an affable, no-nonsense construction union boss named Red (Peter Bromilow). Red isn’t here to trick Alex into a typical monkey’s paw contract. Instead, he is genuinely impressed by Alex’s high-volume sin quota. He’s looking for top-tier management material for Hell’s middle management, offering Alex a lucrative position as The Dragon of his dark forces with full salary, commissions and stock options.
The dynamic between Red, the dead-and-resentful Jacob and the gold-digging femme fatale Amanda (Brioni Farrell) creates an episode so utterly populated by scoundrels that the literal Prince of Darkness comes across as the most honest, straightforward boss you could ever hope to work for.
This is another episode directed by John Harrison. It was written by Edithe Swensen.
