Friday the 13th: The Series Ep. 56 Crippled Inside Review

Crippled Inside originally aired on October 9, 1989. Jack does not appear in this episode, but by telegram he has offscreen recovered the shard of Medusa which was half the storyline to episode 44. Micki appears albeit briefly. This episode was an effort to get the audience to warm up to/like Johnny and boy did it succeed! Tragedies always help with a character's likeability. The cursed antique in this episode is an old wheelchair. This old wheelchair has the ability to heal people who are paralyzed from the neck down, but only if the person kills someone. The person while being in the wheelchair will have a faint image of themselves come out of the chair so that they can walk and kill. This episode brought up an interesting dilemma. The girl who is given the wheelchair was nearly raped. That is the sole reason she was put in the wheelchair. Is it right to take revenge on someone who ruined your life by attempting a purely evil act? My answer is no. The episode, I think, leans toward my answer and here's why: Johnny has to debate whether he'll let her keep the chair to take revenge on the rapists, he does for a little while. She kills them one by one in horrific ways. One boy got killed by having all the chem lab substances fall onto his face...he was beyond recognizable at that point. She took great glee in her killing as well. Her acts of killing were JUST AS evil as their attempt to rape her. In the end, the entire group of rapists die, but it also costs her her own life. The mother's shriek at seeing her daughter dead was so painful to hear. It seemed so real. Having said all these positives, this episode is not free from some criticism. The old man character does not make any sense. He says he used the chair in the past and was healed. However, in one shot, he literally dissolves out of frame. Was he a person, was he a ghost, the devil, a demon, who the heck knows???? The episode sure didn't know what he was! Johnny gets the chair back and severely regrets letting the girl keep it as long as she did. It led to her death. The old man comes back and wants it back to give it to another cripple. Johnny refuses. The old man tells him that even though they're collecting these cursed antiques, they'll never stop him, the objects will live a lot longer than they will. Johnny attempts to ax the chair, but it just keeps bouncing back. Like we learned in episode 1, the objects cannot be destroyed. It's overall a very strong episode and a great transition to Johnny as our male lead.