The Gothicism of American Gothic: "The Plague Sower"

[For the previous entry, click here.]

In this episode, American Gothic hearkens back to the work of Charles Brockden Brown, by setting its story against a backdrop of terrible plague.  A mysterious illness has been leveling the people of Trinity, who end up bleeding out from their mouth, eyes, and ears.  Naturally, panic is burgeoning in the as-yet-uninfected, but Sheriff Lucas Buck tries to calm down the nervous masses by discounting the reports of bloody demise. 
"In a small town," he tells reporters and concerned citizens, "rumors can act like a cancer."

Meantime, Lucas is using the situation to his advantage.  When local hardware store owner A.E. Tippett comes to him complaining of bloody visions, Lucas offers to help the desperate man out--but only if Tippett will frame his own brother for the crime of vehicular homicide.  Later, in a wonderfully ghoulish scene, Lucas moves to steal a plasma bag from a would-be transfusion recipient lying on a gurney in the hospital, just because the man had refused to do "business" with the sheriff in the past.

"The Plague Sower" is ripe with disturbing images, none more so than when Tippett falls victim to the bloodshed.  A basic act of bathroom hygiene transforms into an uncanny incident: as Tippett brushes his teeth, the froth in his mouth is suddenly stained crimson, and what he ends up spitting into the sink looks like the product of the most gruesome case of gingivitis ever.

The source of all this Old-Testament-type unpleasantness?  Merlyn Temple, in the role of avenging angel.  Determined to protect the righteous and punish the wicked, she preys on anyone who has fallen in with the devilish Lucas (including her own lust-filled cousin Gail).

One minor but memorable moment from the episode perfectly captures the eponymous Gothicism of the series.  Dr. Billy Peele, an investigator of the plague sent to Trinity from the CDC, goes door to door questioning the townspeople.  When he asks one of the local yokels if he has noticed anything odd about his neighbors, the man's superficially innocuous response rings with suggestiveness: "No, no more than usual."