420: Clarity

Synopsis

Someone inside room six slams the door shut as Billy opens it, and inmates close in from down the hallway. Dr. Simeon spends ten magic points on a Smiting Blast of the Foul One. A huge, heavyset inmate leading the charge is driven sixty-four feet back down the hall, bowling over the men behind him, and crashes through the stairwell door and over the railing. The corridor is dubbed "Midnight Alley." Meanwhile Dom slams his shoulder into the door beside Billy and it bursts open. Inside the padded white room, a terrified Randolph Tomaszewski protests that the game isn't over and that they were never supposed to make it this far.

Billy uses Command of the Wizard to make Tomaszewski say who put him up to it. He grunts out that it was always Corbitt: Corbitt told him that taking the Major's family would break him and stop him. Dom pins the man to the floor. The man's eyes roll back and the radio flares, and as Dom feels a cold presence wash over him and stars rush toward him out of the darkness, the Major presses the medallion against the man's chest and recites the incantation. Dom's luck holds, the binding takes, and the man wakes up cut off from his power, thrashing in panic. Before anyone can react, the Major drives his trench knife into the man's eye and kills him.

In the argument that follows, Tallahassee repeats what the man said about Corbitt, and something in the Major snaps. In a bout of madness he storms through the ward in silence, shooting inmates in his way, but at the bottom of the stairs he finds a nurse and a guard asleep on the floor and Corbitt's cell already empty. Outside in the rain there is no sign of Corbitt. When Tallahassee eyes him with a shotgun, the Major shoots him three times, and the bullets ricochet off his diamond skin. Simeon finally puts his hands on the Major's chest and commands him to be calm, and the rage drains out of him. Alone with his thoughts in the rain, the Major reflects on all he has lost, and finds a glimmer of light in his new comrades.

A few days later at Simeon's house, the group finally deciphers the pages. The medallion's binding can only be broken by someone else casting the spell, or by transferring it to another person. Corbitt had been bound all along, and the investigators gave him the means to free himself. A jewelry kit, a chain and a blank medallion are found in his cell. Then Goodman Gray knocks at the door and proposes another alliance against their mutual problem, Bernard Corbitt.

This is the final episode of The Radio Man.

Funny Moments

• Simeon unleashes the Smiting Blast in a "tiger style" karate stance and declares the hallway "Midnight Alley."
• The heavyset inmate is "a bowling ball going down Midnight Alley."
• The Major's incantation, as rendered at the table: "Shnibbadi shnibbadi shabbadi."
• Simeon puts his hands on the Major's chest and commands him to "calm."

Notable Quotes

• "You're not supposed to be here. The game isn't over yet." —Randolph Tomaszewski
• "Major, what have you done?" "I put a stop to the madness."
• "He played us. I should have seen it coming." —Tallahassee
• "Gentlemen, it appears that we once again have a mutual problem." —Goodman Gray