Summary
“The Golden Arm (Michigan) Part 2” is another nice episode full of horror tropes, but how will the end be presented?
This recap of 50 States of Fright Episode 2, “The Golden Arm (Michigan) Part 2”, contains spoilers. You can check out our thoughts on the previous episode by clicking these words.
So with Heather minus an arm, lumberjack husband Dave is naturally mortified by the whole affair. Heather, who prides herself on her beauty, is struggling with her handicap and when Dave presents her with a false arm, she finds it hideous. Heather is understandably struggling, but Dave is not going to give up.
Heather finds him online preparing a better replacement for her severed limb, and although more aesthetically pleasing for her, Heather announces that she will wear it if it is made from gold.
Yeah, I know, how impractical in so many ways, but once again for this kind of series to work, the viewer has to understand the way these types of stories are constructed. Like urban legends of old, there has to be a set up to move the story forward, and the suspension of disbelief that the audience has to have works in the same way that we watch any fantasy-based screenplay.
Before watching Avengers: Endgame, you have to believe that Tony Stark can invent time travel that is “super easy, barely an inconvenience”, so just run with it.
Now a golden arm isn’t going to come cheap, so the house is remortgaged and the tractor sold to provide the funds, and Dave wastes no time in buying enough gold to melt down and form into an arm for his wife.
This works well, in the short term, but as Winter approaches, Heather grows ill, the gold is slowly poisoning her, but she refuses to remove the golden arm, which is now the focus of her beauty.
As Dave watches over her in hospital, she makes one last dying wish, that she is buried with the arm.
You can see where this is heading, and as 50 States of Fright Episode 1 ends, we see Heather buried, and Dave falling into desperation, as business is bad and the bills are piling up.
“The Golden Arm (Michigan) Part 2” was another nice episode, and at this point, we are really just watching to see how the end of the story is presented. Sure it’s full of horror tropes, but I think that’s the point.
