The Autopsy

"**The Autopsy**" is the third episode of Netflix's *Cabinet of Curiosities*, having premiered on October 26, 2022. It is written by David S. Goyer, based on a short story by Michael Shea, and directed by David Prior.

## Synopsis

A seasoned sheriff investigates a dead body in the woods and calls on an old pal, a medical examiner, to help piece together a series of chilling events.

## Plot

### A nightmare special

Late at night, men work deep inside a mine. As the bell rings for end of shift, they proceed to the mineshaft elevator. Suddenly, a grinning man, Joe, drops on top of it. They ask what he's doing, asking if he's trying to kill them. He leaps off before it reaches the bottom. He races away, then tosses a strange spherical device with flashing lights that makes strange beeping, chittering, and snarling noises. As they move to look at it, he rushes away. The device explodes.

A well-dressed man gets off a Greyhound bus in front of a diner. The man, Dr. Carl Winters, makes his way to an office. There, he meets with Sheriff Nate Craven. After chatting briefly about family, the two discuss the situation with the mining explosion: ten men dead and "one inhuman son of a bitch." The conversation then turns to the insurance company, Fordham Mutual, who is taking the position that they can only pay out for deaths that arrive out of the course of employment and not *in* the course of employment, meaning that an act of terror doesn't count. The investigators concluded that there was strong presumptive evidence of a bomb, so in order for the insurance to pay, that would have to be proven otherwise.

Sheriff Craven tells Dr. Winters that the whole thing is like a nightmare special. He begins recapping a strange series of events that began approximately two months before. A man, Ronald Hanley, a mill worker, simply vanished without a trace. About a week later, the lady who ran the laundromat disappeared, a total of six missing people in just a month. He says that he and his men may as well just have stayed in bed for all the good they did. They eventually found a body, badly butchered, but it wasn't animal work, it was knife work. The body had been butchered clean, yet there wasn't even a single drop of blood. He and his men encountered two hunters whom they enlisted Posse Comitatus to do a stakeout. He and his men later returned only to find both the hunters missing. They then got a call from a sheriff in another city, saying that their corpse resembled a man named Abel Dougherty who had also been missing.

A flashback shows Abel Doughetry approaching a man whom he addresses as "Eddie Sykes." The man, however, insists that his name is Joe Allen. Confused, Abel tells him that they've been working together for ages. He asks just where he's been, but "Joe" tells him he's had too much to drink or not enough. Abel says they were supposed to go angling, but he never showed. The man asks just who Abel thinks he is again. He insists that his name is Joe. Abel asks why he's doing this and he says he'll tell him, but not there, rather somewhere quiet, that it's a secret. He says that they are, after all, friends, and Abel seems to be mesmerized by his voice. Joe says they could be best friends. He tells him to knock his beer onto the floor, to be sloppy, to call him his friend and ask him drive him home. "Do it now," he tells him. Compelled, Abel does just this. "Maybe you need a ride," Joe tells him, asking for his keys. Abel hands them over.

### Examinations

Sheriff Craven explains that Eddie Sykes was an itinerant worker who was reported missing nine months before after going to check out a meteor shower. He never came back, but a week later he showed up under the name of Joe Allen. He went to go look at the place where "Joe Allen" was supposed to be staying. It was a terrible hovel, infested with insects. There, he discovered a British passport with the name "Joseph P. Allen" and a millworker card for Abel Dougherty. He also discovered the strange, snarling sphere. He and his forces proceeded to the mine, hoping to establish a perimeter. They encountered "Joe Allen" and tried to arrest him, only for him to run to the squad car, shatter its window and claim the sphere. He then ran back inside, and used the sphere in the incident they are both now investigating.

Sheriff Craven tells Dr. Winters that he thinks that Joe Allen set off the explosion, intentional or not. He says that he doesn't understand how Joe knew that the ball was in his car, that he could have made it to the tree line, but inside went to fetch it. The two of them head out to investigate. Winters asks how far the river is and Craven says it's about a 100 yards away, offering to take him once they get done sorting the case. Seeing his look, he asks him what's going on, and he tells him that he has stomach cancer and only six months to live. Craven is stunned, but Winters says that there's no point complaining, that some people just get more time than others. They arrive at the Pennsylvania Ice and Refrigeration Company and meet with a Deputy Davis. Davis tells them that they were only able to get the temperature down to 36 degrees, but Winters says it will be cold enough. Craven apologizes for the conditions, but Winters says that it will work, that he couldn't have asked for anything more.

As they examine the bodies, Craven tells Winters that he's been having crazy thoughts about the whole thing. Winters says he should let it lie, that he needs to get sleep. Craven tells him he didn't want to leave him with it, but Winters tells him he'll press him into service in the morning, that he's unlikely to get through more than a few anyway. Craven leaves and Winters sets to work. He puts on a tape recorder, identifying himself as the recording pathologist for the Braddock Fort Mine incident, saying that his typed report will serve as the official record. He states that he will start with Miller as the most likely candidate for bomb fragments. He apologizes to the corpse for any indignity, telling him he's right behind him if it's any comfort.

As Winters continues the examination, he comments to Craven, for the recording, that he's seeing nothing that says "bomb," nothing to prevent a finding of death by crush asphyxiation. As he prepares to begin work on another corpse, Walter Lou Jackson, he hesitates and hears a voice as he turns and looks at a reflection of himself in the glass of a door, "Run. Get out now." "Run from what?" he wonders, but he gets no answer. He wonders to the absent Craven if the explosion was not a botched escape attempt and the sphere not a bomb, that perhaps the destruction of the sphere itself was the aim. He discovers a wound on Jackson's sternum, curving through the diaphragm towards the heart. He finds the lungs and heart to be shrunken and abnormally pale, completely drained of blood. In the refrigeration room, one of the corpses exhibits movement. Winters enter the room, then exits with another corpse, that of Brady. He discovers the same strange wound and, once again, the blood drained. Suddenly, the lights in the facility go out and the fans for the refrigeration stop, then come back to life. Winters tells Craven that he's thinking crazy thoughts, wondering if all the blood is in Joe Allen's stomach. "I'll examine him," he declares.

### The being

In the refrigeration room, there is a creaking. Winters enters. There is a snarling from Joe Allen's body and his hand shudders and flexes, then the body rises, then collapses to the floor. Moving jerkily, it crawls forward towards the horrified Winters. He backs out of the refrigeration room, brandishing his scalpel and the animated corpse rises and exits the refrigeration room as well, causing him to drop the scalpel. It picks up the scalpel and inserts it its mouth, from which emerges a strange, alien being. "Help me," says Joe Allen. He says that he is trapped in this flesh and starving. "What are you?" asks Winters and the being identifies himself as a traveler not of Earth, whose true from is small. He tells him he feared death. "Death was your escape," wonders Winters, saying that maybe he doesn't need oxygen. "A lesser component of our metabolism," agrees the being.

The body of Joe Allen rises and Winters asks about the sphere. He says it was his ship and he needed to destroy it to not be discovered. Winters asks why his ship had to be destroyed and he says they must not be understood. "Why not?" asks Winters, and the being tells him to put down the knife he has picked up. "Livestock must not understand what devours it?" asks Winters and the being tells him he will understand, that it is essential. He tells him that he can smell his cancer, that it is delicious and he will rid him of it. Dr. Winters tells him that the body he's in now will be his coffin as tentacles emerge from his mouth.

The tentacles writhe through Dr. Winters, who finds himself pinned in place. The alien, still in control of Allen, tells him it's high cost to deal with the both of them at once. He says he will be near starvation once the two of them are one. He tells Dr. Winters that he is a prized host because through him he can feed even when killing is too dangerous, that meals are delivered to him still warm. He prepares to cut Allen's body to make it look as though it was Dr. Winters who did it. Dr. Winters asks why one of his arms is still free and the alien tells him that the final neural splicing has to be perfect. "You're going to transfer yourself from Allen into me?" asks Winters, and the alien agrees this is correct. He tells him that over aeons, they have become perfectly streamlined to enter into other beings. He explains that his people "travel light," since their hosts already have all the senses they need.

### Something it forgot

Dr. Winters laugh at the alien, calling him deluded. He tells him that his people are jealous, that they have no senses and have to steal them from others. The alien says they've caused great nations to fall, but Winters calls him pathetic, "cancer with a big mouth." The alien says that the sheriff will come soon and he will make a fine first meal. He tells Winters that he used energy to keep the brains of the others alive, just so that he could whisper into their eighth cranial nerves, so they understood everything he was doing to them. "And Eddie Sykes?" asks Dr. Winters, and the alien agrees that he is there too, mute and powerless. Dr. Winters tells him that he's forgetting something, that his arrogance makes him stupid. The alien asks just what he's forgetting. "Never mind," Dr. Winters tells him.

The alien uses the body to extract its form, then places it atop Dr. Winters, a tentacled parasite being. He cuts open Dr. Winters' body. "All mine," he says. The body goes limp. "Sykes knew you would be blind and deaf, once you were out of him, you sadistic bastard," says Dr. Winters. He takes the scalpel he is still holding and tries to jab it at the alien, but is unable to reach. He mutters that there must be a way. As the alien penetrates him, he realizes he can't survive, but there is something he can do. He slits his neck using the scalpel he is still holding, then jabs it in his mouth, then his ear. He pulls it out, then does the other ear, then slits his neck some more. He pokes out one eye, then the other. The alien enters. He takes control of Dr. Winters' brain. "What have you done?" he asks and the two communicate through the eighth cranial nerve. "Where am I?" asks the alien.

Dr. Winters tells him that he's in his new home, but that he won't be occupying it for long. "There's been some vandalism, I'm afraid." The alien tells him he can still make him move and they will await his friend's arrival. "I should mention the plumbing has a terminal leak," Dr. Winters tells him, saying that he only has a few minutes before he bleeds out. The alien swears he will live. As Sheriff Craven arrives at the building, Dr. Winters asks the alien if he'd like to know what he forgot. He tells him that the whole time he was forcing Sykes to slice himself up, he was being recorded, that his tape machine was running and the portion that was recorded will make for interesting listening for the sheriff. He laughs as the alien shouts at him to let him out. He collapses on the ground, Sheriff Craven hearing the noise outside the exam room. He enters and discovers Carl's mutilated body. On it is a message in blood - "PLAY TAPE BURN ME." He plays the recording.

## Cast

### Starring

* Guillermo del Toro as Himself
* F. Murray Abraham as Dr. Carl Winters
* Glynn Turman as Sheriff Nate Craven
* Luke Roberts as Joe Allen (Eddie Sykes)

### Co-starring

* Dan Beirne as Deputy Davis
* Calwyn Shurgold as Deputy Lawrence
* Evan Adamson as Young Boy
* Alistair Lowe as Hoist Man
* Peter Deiwick as Jim Dodge
* Billy Parrot as Owens
* James Acton as Abel Dougherty
* Michael McLachlan as Brady
* William Foley as Walter Lou Jackson
* Norm Owen as Hudson Miller
* Kim Horsman as Landlady
* Jackie English as Tavern Bartender

## Reception

"The Autopsy" has received to date by far the best critical and audience response for any episode of *Cabinet of Curiosities*. It currently holds an audience rating of 7.9 at IMDb, over a point higher than the next highest rated episode, "Graveyard Rats," at 6.8, as of December 3, 2022. Shortly following its debut, *Cosmopolitan* noted the strong response to the episode as a fan-favorite.

## Music

The musical tracks featured in this episode include "The Autopsy," "The Transferable Alien Thing" and "Horror Within You, Horror Within Me." The music was composed by Christopher Young.

## Trailer

The Autopsy Official Trailer - GUILLERMO DEL TORO’S CABINET OF CURIOSITIES - Netflix
## References

1. ↑ Guillermo del Toro's Cabinet of Curiosities Episode List. IMDb. Retrieved on December 3, 2022.
2. ↑ Williams, Sophie (October 31, 2022). Cabinet of Curiosities fans are all saying the same thing about The Autopsy episode. Cosmopolitan. Retrieved on December 3, 2022.