Discusses violence against women. Also contains plot spoilers.
[Alfred Hitchcock Presents "Salvage," Season 1, Episode 6, Aired 11/6/55]
So let me get this straight. A woman — who was admittedly complicit in a robbery but who did not actually commit the murder in question — now fears that someone will murder her in retribution. When she seeks help:
- The bartender tells her she can’t be served in the bar unescorted.
- A creepy dude who can’t take no for an answer — unless he’s blaming her for being “cold” — hits on her and tries to act like he knows her (and she knows him? so therefore she owes him her attention?) from somewhere.
- When she meets the person she’s seeking — because she doesn’t actually want to be served in the bar — he tells her she can’t even be in his bar unescorted.
- When she confides in her hopeful significant other — who is at least someone who claims to care about Lois — he tells her she’s overreacting.
- Then she discovers that this person who she came to for help — and in fairness, who was still willing to help her according to his plan — is seeing another woman and has possibly only ever been interested in both of them for their money.
- When the out-of-jail big brother — the one who’s going to kill her — finds her, he physically grabs, slaps, and jerks her around.
- His only reason for not killing her right then and there? She hasn’t begged; she hasn’t pleaded; she’s not scared enough. If she had been, you know, that would have satisfied his Sadist Dudebro Boner right there.
I don’t even need to give away the ending to get to the heart of what this episode is all about. It’s not enough just to harm a woman physically; she has to be terrified and traumatized emotionally as well.
