As much as I love this epísode, I have to admit that it suffers a great deal from Chris's writing and some of the acting from the guys who played the rockers and the lady friend, even though I liked their characters most of the time. They get to show the shallowness of such atmospheres and things like fame, fortune, greediness and of course all of that based on the image you can give to the outside world even when on the inside you're probably the most horrible or double-sided being.
On the directing, technical things like the scene where Sam is going to get hit by the light that falls from the ceiling or when he's going to get stabbed by Dwayne looked so fake they actually hurt the suspense. Another thing I didn't like, and I don't know if I should blame the writing or the directing for that, was that we never get a clear shot of the mirror image on this one. I know the important thing was the hand there but all you get is a distorted face and a bit of a lame picture at the end of the episode. Oh, well, not that important, either way.
On the writing side, well, point a) I know the kid is in love with his dad but he kind of overdoes it and all the scenes where he is alone, especially in his hotel room are all pretty bad acted because his character is a bit over-the-top. When he interacts with Sam, everything changes and even more when you get to hear his back story. He gets dimension there at least. Point b) Dwayne and the security guard are both pretty cliched. Especially Dwayne, and he practically gives the mystery of "who's the killer" away. Which brings me to my third point: c) Chris handled these "mysteries" greatly in "The B**gieman", but when he began to use such tricks as the "oh, yeah, maybe he did it... or could be the other one... or maybe that other guy did it... or maybe the son" mixed with a little lame humor it meant that his writing efforts began to weaken. He failed to try to confuse us but even more, he became laughably predictable. He kind of used that same trick in "...Ptah-Hotep" and "Hurricane" and it didn't work those times, either, it was pretty clear from the very beginning who was going to be the murderer, even though it was a bit more effective on those eps. I mentioned than on this one. It kills the mystery as well as the suspense and that makes it a pretty light-weight episode.
To the suspense's credit, it's a bit of a creepy episode when Al mentions the idea of some deranged fan who could be the killer almost at the beginning and also when they show the son: We still don't know who he is but he's spying Sam from the street. The scene when Sam talks to Dwayne in his office about the ranch and his bouncing account is a bit unsettling, too. Especially when you know who he is, and in that brief moment, Dwayne doesn't look cliched but authentically deranged, psychotic and insane. Gives me a shiver everytime.
A mixed point for me was the make-up itself. I didn't have any problem with it later but the first couple of times I saw it, it made me think that maybe they wanted to make some publicity for Kiss on this ep.
Anyway, it's not a bad episode in itself but I feel like it suffers from bad execution throughout. It's one I keep coming back to pretty often, though, as it's considered a classic and even with the many problems it presents it's still pretty fun to watch.
By the way, I know I'll probably get a lot of hate for this but I thought that most of the songs here were utterly ridiculous. Fate's Wide Wheel was good but, in my opinion, nothing special as it relies on many philosophical stereotypes. Hehehe!! Oh, well, I still liked them for what they were worth. They were fun to listen to even though they were all pretty short (a bit of impossible for songs that are considered 'hits', especially when it comes to Rock).
My rating: Average. Chris's weakest script, in my opinion.
