The Facts of Life - Season 5, Episode 6

"We cast you out, unclean spirit!"

"The Halloween Show"
Original airdate: 10/26/1983

Episode summary: The Facts gals are "terrified" when they suspect Mrs. Garrett of slaughtering an old man and using his ground up flesh to make bratwursts.

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Recap: Natalie is working on a school project that entails filming a frazzled looking Mrs. Garrett as she shriekily flaps around Edna's Edibles, preparing multiple sausage orders...and in the midst of her flapping, she wails about how the local butchers have gone on strike in the middle of bratwurst season! Badoom bah. Roy drops by to deliver an order of buns, then flirts with Jo, who brusquely tells him to take a hike. Oops...I guess his budding romance with Alexandra (the Italian princess) in the Season 4 finale didn't pan out. A wrinkly old man named Mr. Bigley, wearing a plaid yellow jacket, enters the store, then glances around and remarks on how much the building has changed. He gets a faux faraway look on his face and says it used to be solely a residence...as well as the site of the Halloween Massacre of 1905. As the gals stare at him in horrified fascination, he tells a ghoulish story about a triple homicide that occurred when four spinster sisters got into a fierce argument and one of them - "Grisly Gertie" - became so consumed with rage that she went completely off the bend and murdered her siblings with a big butcher knife. Tootie is so wigged out by the story that she drops candy all over the floor...and after she's had a few seconds to recombobulate, Mr. Bigley continues on with his bone-chilling (not really) storytelling. Following the murders, all kinds of unexplained things started happening: certain areas of the house, such as the room Mrs. Garrett sleeps in, would get very cold. He chillingly adds that a number of women who resided in the house post-massacre turned squirrelly before slowly losing their minds. Cue the frazzled Mrs. Garrett, who bursts into the room carrying a large batch of bratwursts. The Facts gals quickly fill her in on the Halloween Massacre of 1905 - but it doesn't seem to get much of a reaction out of her...and Mr. Bigley looks intrigued by the volume of bratwursts she's holding and places an order. He then makes it a point to mention to the Facts cast that he's staying at the motel down the street.

​So noted, Mr. Bigley.

"I'm old enough to remember the horror of the Halloween Massacre of 1905."

"We can't thank you enough for sharing the grotesque tale."

At dawn the next morning, a spacey looking Mrs. Garrett stumbles into the Facts gals' bedroom clutching a large butcher knife. When Tootie sees her, she shrieks and wakes everyone up...and when the lights come on, Mrs. Garrett scrunches her face confusedly and says she has no idea why she's standing in the middle of their bedroom with a large butcher knife. She shakes her head as if to brush off the disturbing occurrence and says that since the local butchers are on strike, she's going to have to desperately scrounge around for sausage meat. After she stumbles out of the room, Natalie scrunches her face into a troubled expression and tells the Facts gals that she had been startled awake the other night by Mrs. Garrett, who was looming over her with a knife. Jo, Tootie, and Blair stare at each other worriedly...and when Tootie suddenly spots a slipper that belongs to Mrs. Garrett, she decides it's irrefutable proof that Natalie didn't dream the frightening incident. 

Later that day, Tootie, Jo, and Blair are busily working in the store while Mrs. Garrett sharpens her knives with a cartoonishly demonic expression on her face...then rushes back to the kitchen. A frightened Tootie tells Jo and Blair that Mrs. Garrett appears to be possessed - and a few seconds later, Natalie enters the room carrying a garbage bag. She pulls out Mr. Bigley's plaid yellow jacket and solemnly says she just found the bag in the trash can, along with one of Mrs. Garrett's large butcher knives. Blair scrunches her face concernedly and points out that Mr. Bigley never did return to the store to pick up his bratwurst order...and Natalie nods gravely and says she called the motel down the street and learned that his luggage is still there and he never checked out. A freaked out Tootie rushes off and returns with candles to exorcise the evil spirits currently inhabiting Mrs. Garrett...and then Mrs. Garrett bursts into the room shrieking, "I got the meat!!" and shows the gals the big batch of linked sausages she just prepared. The only explanation she can offer is that when she opened the ice box earlier she found a large pile of sausages. The gals (except for Jo) gasp in horror and leap to the assumption that the meat in the sausages could only have come from Mr. Bigley's flesh. Jo takes a bite of one of the cooked sausages and tells Mrs. Garrett it's very tasty.  

"I just opened the ice box and there it was: a big pile of meat."

"RIP, Mr. Bigley."

As Jo continues to chow down on the sausage, an icked out Tootie asks her how she can bear to eat poor, ground up Mr. Bigley. When Roy drops by the store for no particular reason, Blair informs him that Mr. Bigley has gone missing. He furrows his brows concernedly and says he remembers seeing the old man at Edna's Edibles shortly before lunch...and that he was bickering with Mrs. Garrett before the two ambled off to the kitchen. Jo suddenly looks ill, grimaces at the sausage she's eating, and decides that - yep - it's entirely within the realm of possibility that Mrs. Garrett killed Mr. Bigley, then pulverized his body into ground meat and made it into linked sausages. 

Mrs. Garrett re-enters the store and shriekily announces that she just got an order from the supermarket for more bratwursts - which means she's going to need additional pounds of fresh meat. Cue two cute children dressed up as Hansel and Gretel, who drop by the store to trick-or-treat...and Mrs. Garrett acts all weird as she coos that they look good enough to eat, and that she'd like to fatten them up before shoving them into her oven. Er...OK. When the kids refrain from fleeing the house in horror and instead remark on how whatever she has baking in her oven smells delish, Jo intervenes and yells at the kids to make a run for it. After the studio audience's obligatory laughter dies down, Mrs. Garrett closes up the store for the night and tells the Facts gals it's time for them to help her make bratwursts, then rushes off to sharpen her knives again. Tootie wails that Mrs. Garrett is definitely possessed by a demonic spirit, and Blair concurs and worriedly whimpers. Jo reminds them that there are four of them and only one possessed old woman - and that they'll be OK if they stick together. Or flee the store and call 911 if they truly are worried about their housemother's mental state. Mrs. Garrett re-enters the room to summon Tootie and Natalie to the kitchen...and when they nervously stammer that they're too busy with homework, she shrieks, "Get in the damn kitchen and get this over with!" The four gals suddenly leap into action, each grabbing the nearest broomstick - in Tootie's case, a giant bread stick - and corner Mrs. Garrett while glaring at her menacingly. Jo barks at her to hand over the knife, which she does before confusedly asking whassup with their sudden aggression. 

Blair demands to know what she did with Mr. Bigley and says that Natalie found his jacket in the trash. She adds that it can't have been purely coincidental when she (Mrs. Garrett) was suddenly able to make a plentiful batch of bratwursts. Mrs. Garrett admonishes them for implying that she slaughtered Mr. Bigley for the purpose of filling her bratwurst orders...and a few seconds later, Mr. Bigley (!) enters the store and nonchalantly tells Natalie he'd like his plaid yellow jacket back please. When everyone's all, "Wha-a-a-a??!", a quasi-sheepish looking Natalie explains that she was trying to be creative with her filming assignment and admits to making up the story about the Halloween Massacre of 1905. She then reveals that Mr. Bigley's real name is Lesseroni, and that he's the caretaker of the town's cemetery, as well as an active member of the local community theater. Womp womp!

"What ghoulish thing did you do to Mr. Bigley?"

"All I can say is that I have no memory of slaughtering him for sausage meat."

Natalie further explains that she wanted to orchestrate a live horror movie and film events as they unfolded...so she cast Mrs. Garrett as a knife-wielding murderess who had become possessed. (And obsessed with filling bratwurst orders during a butchers' strike.) She credits Roy for being the undercover camera man, and he dramatically pops out from his hiding spot in a nearby barrel clutching a video camera. Tootie, Jo, and Blair admonish her for playing tricks on them - and Natalie defends her actions by chirping, "This is the stuff memories are made of!" Mrs. Garrett sternly argues that it was selfish and manipulative - then contorts her face into a faux maniacal expression and says, "The legend is true" and threatens Natalie with strangulation.

Of course, none of this explains why Mrs. Garrett was acting so weird and demonic while waving around a butcher knife throughout much of the episode.  

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