The Best Episodes of Friday the 13th: The Series

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7.8/10(165 votes)
#1 - Mesmer's Bauble
S2:E205/6/1989
A homely record-store clerk is obsessed with pop diva Angelica, and happens to stumble upon a jewelry robbery where the thieves drop one of the items: a cursed pendant that first belonged to Dr. Mesmer. The curse lets the clerk fulfill his every wish by mesmerizing a victim into doing whatever he wants them to. He wishes first for attractiveness, and then for the diva's love and the chance to be close to her. Ultimately, however, none of this is good enough for him, and his final wish is to _be_ Angelica. The wish is successful, but Micki and Ryan, close on his trail, manage to intercept him/her at a concert and grab the necklace, undoing all the benefits it bestowed.
Director:Armand Mastroianni
Writer:Joe Gannon
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Director:Armand Mastroianni
Writer:Joe Gannon
7.8/10(163 votes)
#2 - Crippled Inside
S3:E410/21/1989
Fleeing fraternity boys who plan to gang-rape her, a figure skater is hit by a car and crippled. However, a mysterious old man sells her an antique wheelchair at a garage sale. The wheelchair is one of the cursed items, and allows the girl to use it to kill her victimizers and regain the use of a bit of her body with each death. Micki and Jack are out of town trying to recover an antique, so Johnny must deal with the matter on his own. He initially leaves the girl with the wheelchair out of pity, but she continues to kill. Ultimately, the girl is killed, and Johnny recovers the chair.
Director:Timothy Bond
Writer:Unknown
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Director:Timothy Bond
Writer:Unknown
7.7/10(241 votes)
#3 - Vanity's Mirror
S1:E153/5/1988
A homely girl, overshadowed by her prom queen sister, gets hold of a vanity which she can use to bedazzle any boy into falling in love with her. However, as soon as they do, she must then kill them. She eventually takes over her sister's boyfriend and has him hang her up by a noose. Micki and Ryan manage to save the girl, but the younger sister eventually commits suicide along with the boyfriend. The vanity is lost (although it will resurface in the second season episode ""Face of Evil"").
Director:William Fruet
Writer:Unknown
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Director:William Fruet
Writer:Unknown
7.7/10(190 votes)
#4 - Double Exposure
S1:E215/21/1988
Winston Knight, a TV anchorman, gains great fame because a serial killer, the Machete Killer, will only contact him. What no one knows is that Knight is using a cursed camera that lets him create an exact duplicate of himself that goes out and kills for him, providing him with an ironclad alibi and great ratings. As long as he destroys the negative within the allotted time, Knight is fine. Unfortunately, Ryan's new girlfriend Cathy witnesses one of the murders and realizes Knight is somehow the Machete Killer. One of Knight's photo-duplicates kills her, but the trio are close on Knight's trail. Knight eventually fails to destroy one of his indestructible duplicates in time, and disintegrates. However, the duplicate has little time to savor its new life before it dies of previously inflicted wounds.
Director:Neill Fearnley
Writer:Unknown
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Director:Neill Fearnley
Writer:Unknown
7.7/10(144 votes)
#5 - 13 O'Clock
S2:E91/7/1989
A woman and her boyfriend get hold of a cursed pocketwatch that lets the owner stop time for one hour (13 o'clock) if they kill a victim at a particular train station. Two street orphans witness one of the killings, and meet up with Ryan and Micki. By holding on to the couple, Ryan manages to enter their ""frozen hour"" and manages to get the watch away from them, leaving them trapped in time for eternity.
Director:Rob Hedden
Writer:Unknown
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Director:Rob Hedden
Writer:Unknown
7.6/10(144 votes)
#6 - Tails I Live, Heads You Die
S2:E410/21/1988
A Satanic cult leader gets ahold of the cursed Coin of Ziocles, and needs it to resurrect three powerful witches. Flip the coin and it comes up heads...killing the victim and allowing the user to resurrect someone else. Unfortunately, while spying on the cult Micki is captured and killed by the coin! Jack and Ryan are deeply hurt, and Ryan plans to quit antique-hunting once they've defeated the cult. Fortunately, they are able to substitute Micki's body for that of the third, mummified corpse, and the cult leader, Sylvan, inadvertently resurrects her instead. As the temple begins to crumble, Ryan grabs the coin and tosses it at Sylvan to deter him...but it's a fake. Unfortunately, Ryan loses the real Coin as well, leaving it buried under tons of rubble.
Director:Mark Sobel
Writer:Unknown
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Director:Mark Sobel
Writer:Unknown

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7.5/10(240 votes)
#7 - Scarecrow
S1:E112/6/1988
A small farming community has excellent harvesters. Little do they realize that one of the farmers uses a cursed scarecrow. She must pin the pictures of three victims on the scarecrow's chest. When it claims all three victims, tracking them down and beheading them, the result is a good harvest. Micki and Ryan come looking for the scarecrow, but the scarecrow's owner soon realizes what they are up to and tries to use Micki's driver's license to make her the scarecrow's third victim.
Director:William Fruet
Writer:Marc Scott Zicree
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Director:William Fruet
Writer:Marc Scott Zicree
7.4/10(203 votes)
#8 - The Baron's Bride
S1:E132/20/1988
A cursed broach possesses several strange abilities, including the ability to transform its wearer into a vampire and the ability to, when daubed with blood, let its wearer travel through time. Micki and Ryan find that the broach's owner, a female vampire, is trying to transform her new male tenant into a vampire. They manage to kill the female, but the transformed tenant, Frank, uses the broach to travel back into time to London in the late 19th century. Micki and Ryan managed to follow him. Befriended by a destitute writer, Abraham, and his fiancee, they manage to track down the vampire and kill him, but not before Abraham's fiancee is killed. They return to their own time, and Jack can only speculate that ""Abraham"" may have been Bram Stoker.
Director:Bradford May
Writer:Unknown
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Director:Bradford May
Writer:Unknown
7.4/10(158 votes)
#9 - The Playhouse
S2:E121/28/1989
Two children trapped in an abusive home stumble upon a cursed playhouse. The playhouse lets them enter a fantastical world of clown and parties in return for them luring in a child. The trail of missing runaways attact our trio's attention. Micki and Ryan have to enter the house where they confront its sinister presence. They manage to convince the two children to reject the house, which frees the other trapped children. The missing children are returned to their homes and the two siblings are put into a foster home.
Director:Unknown
Writer:Unknown
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Director:Unknown
Writer:Unknown
7.4/10(120 votes)
#10 - Wedding In Black
S2:E215/13/1989
A mysterious snowglobe is mailed to Curious Goods. When Micki gives it a shake, an old boyfriend of hers shows up, and convinces her to join him at a bed & breakfast. Then Jack and Ryan are both visited by old friends when they shake the globe. It turns out that each of the three newcomers is working for Satan. If Micki can be tricked into sleeping with her boyfriend, then she will be considered wedded to Satan as she ""willingly"" did so. Jack and Ryan, lured to the hotel, are separated from her, able to witness what is going on but unable to contact Micki. It turns out they are trapped in the hotel within the snow globe. Ultimately, Ryan's ex-girlfriend helps them, and they manage to drive a car into the edge of the globe, knocking it off the shelf it is resting and shattering it (and freeing themselves) before Micki can consummate her wedding with the Devil.
Director:Rodney Charters
Writer:Unknown
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Director:Rodney Charters
Writer:Unknown
7.3/10(159 votes)
#11 - Pipe Dream
S1:E247/16/1988
Ryan's father Ray, a small-time inventor, rolls into town and announces that he's achieved great financial success and is planning to finally marry. Ray's managed to do so with the aid of a pipe given to him by Lewis Vendredi, which allows him to totally disintegrate first the young inventor whose ideas he stole, and then his rivals in the company he's working for. Eventually Ryan and Micki discover the truth. When Ray tries to kill Micki with the pipe, Ryan throws himself in the way. Ultimiately reconciled with his son, Ray then takes the blast of smoke for himself, dying to save his son.
Director:Zale Dalen
Writer:Marc Scott Zicree
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Director:Zale Dalen
Writer:Marc Scott Zicree
7.3/10(150 votes)
#12 - And Now the News
S2:E310/14/1988
In an insane asylum, a doctor is using a cursed antique radio to enact miraculous cures on his patients. The cost, as usual, is that the radio then kills another doctor's patients, by bringing their greatest fears to life. Tracking down the radio, Micki and Ryan must break into the asylum and recover the antique.
Director:Bruce Pittman
Writer:Unknown
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Director:Bruce Pittman
Writer:Unknown
7.3/10(131 votes)
#13 - Scarlet Cinema
S2:E162/25/1989
An outcast college film student is obsessed with werewolves. Mercilessly teased by frat boys and rejected by the girls, he stumbles upon a cursed movie camera. When he films someone with it, he sees them being killed by a werewolf through the viewfinder. The victim is then actually killed by a mystically summoned werewolf. According to the camera, when the student kills three victims, he will get his fondest wishes. He does so, and becomes a werewolf himself. Ultimaitely, he tracks the trio back to Curious Goods, where they kill him by strangling him with the camera's film...made out of silver nitrate.
Director:David Winning
Writer:Unknown
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Director:David Winning
Writer:Unknown
7.3/10(135 votes)
#14 - Hate On Your Dial
S3:E711/18/1989
Johnny inadvertently screws up when he sells a box of junk to a retarded neighbor without checking the Manifest. A cursed antique car radio is among the items sold. The retarded man's brother, a car repairman and a racist, discovers that the radio can be used to travel back in time when smeared with a murdered victim's blood. He plans to travel back to the 50's in the South and prevent his father from being arrested and killed on murder charges, by killing the black lawyer his father tried to kill. Johnny and Jack, holding on to the car during the racist's second trip, travel back in time with him and manage to stop him. Ultimately, the racist ends up being burned at the stake by his father and other KKK members, who mistakenly think he is working with the black civil rights lawyer he was trying to kill.
Director:Allan Eastman
Writer:Unknown
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Director:Allan Eastman
Writer:Unknown
7.3/10(112 votes)
#15 - The Long Road Home
S3:E152/24/1990
In the first few minutes, Micki and Johnny recover a yin-yang amulet that lets the user switch bodies after killing someone. They steal it from a wife and her lover trying to kill her husband, and manage to escape. But, on the way back they run out of gas and stumble on a home lived in by two brothers. The brothers are psychopaths who have stuffed their family to keep around the house, and they want Micki. Johnny breaks his leg, but uses the amulet to switch places with the younger brother. He eventually convinces Micki of who he is, and they eventually manage to restore Johnny to his original body. The younger brother is killed, and the other dying brother uses the amulet to inhabit the stuffed body of one of his family members. However, Micki and Johnny manage to puncture enough holes in the animated body that all the stuffing is blown out by the high winds of a storm.
Director:Allan Kroeker
Writer:Carl Binder
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Director:Allan Kroeker
Writer:Carl Binder
7.2/10(223 votes)
#16 - Tales of the Undead
S1:E101/30/1988
A old and embittered comic book writer, Jay Star, gets hold of a cursed comic book that allows him to transform into Ferrus the Invincible and take vengeance on the individuals who stripped him of his legal rights to the superhero character he created.
Director:Unknown
Writer:Marc Scott Zicree
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Director:Unknown
Writer:Marc Scott Zicree
7.2/10(304 votes)
#17 - Faith Healer
S1:E122/13/1988
Jack is asked by a friend to investigate a ""faith healer"" who uses a cursed glove to heal one person...by transferring their ills magnified tenfold to another victim. Jack must not only recover the glove, but deal with his friend, who is dying of cancer and needs the glove to cure himself.
Director:David Cronenberg
Writer:Christine Cornish
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Director:David Cronenberg
Writer:Christine Cornish
7.2/10(133 votes)
#18 - Master of Disguise
S2:E611/11/1988
The trio become involved in a movie production when they loan some (non-cursed) antiques out to a set. Handsome actor William Pratt is the star, and Micki and he soon fall in love. Unfortunately, Pratt has two secrets: he is actually a disfigured ""monster"" actor named Jeff Amory, and he owns an antique: a cursed make-up case that belonged to John Wilkes Booth. Using the case, Amory can temporarily hide his disfigurement by mixing a victim's blood in with the make-up. Unable to bring himself to kill Micki whom he truly loves, he reverts to his normal features but Micki loves him anyway. He is locked up and the make-up case returned to the Vault.
Director:Unknown
Writer:Unknown
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Director:Unknown
Writer:Unknown
7.2/10(135 votes)
#19 - Wax Magic
S2:E711/18/1988
An eccentric wax sculptor and his wife tour with a carnival. Not so coincidentally, a series of ax murders follow the carnival and the ""Hall of Horrors"" wax museum the sculptor runs. Ryan falls for the wife, only to eventually learn that she had actually rejected the sculptor...who killed her and turned her into a wax statue. Now he uses a cursed handkerchief to reanimate her and force her to love him. However, she must be sent out to kill to maintain the curse. Ultimately, the wife, realizing what she has become, kills herself and her ""husband"" in a flaming tent.
Director:Unknown
Writer:Carl Binder
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Director:Unknown
Writer:Carl Binder
7.2/10(132 votes)
#20 - Eye of Death
S2:E132/4/1989
An antiques collector, Atticus Rook, makes a fortune selling new antiques from the Civil War era. It turns out that they are "as-new": by fueling a cursed "magic lantern" with the blood of a victim, he can travel back in time through a slide of wherever he wants to go, until the lantern "fuel" burns out in three hours. Ryan and Micki follow, but Ryan is captured as a spy trying to get close to Lee (whose sword Rook is trying to grab). A local woman, Abigail, helps Ryan only to be killed by Atticus. Ultimately Micki helps Ryan to escape, and they go back to the present and blow out the lamp... just as Rook emerges behind them, dying a particularly gruesome death caught partway in a wall where the image was projected.
Director:Timothy Bond
Writer:Unknown
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Director:Timothy Bond
Writer:Unknown
7.2/10(126 votes)
#21 - Better Off Dead
S2:E152/18/1989
A doctor is trying to develop a cure for a childhood syndrome lending towards hyperviolence. Due to his mistake, his daughter was inadvertently infected with the disease from a contaminated needle. Now, the doctor uses a cursed silver syringe to suck out the essence of a small gland that controls violent behavior from unwilling prostitutes, and inject it into his daughter to give her a temporary cure. Unfortunately, the process renders the donor hyperviolent as well. A friend of Micki's is grabbed by the doctor and submitted to the treatment. Trying to locate her friend, Micki herself is kidnapped and subjected to the process.
Director:Armand Mastroianni
Writer:Unknown
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Director:Armand Mastroianni
Writer:Unknown
7.2/10(114 votes)
#22 - Stick It In Your Ear
S3:E510/28/1989
Adam Cole and his partner run a vaudeville-style mental act using secret passwords. However, the act threatens to fall apart since Cole is losing his hearing. While being treated by a doctor, he finds an antique hearing aid in the doctor's collection. Using it, he discoveres that he can read minds, but the mental messages ultimately build up and kill the user...unless he discharges them into a victim. Either way, the result is a messy death. The trio track down Cole performing his new act. Left with nowhere to run, Cole can't ""discharge"" the accumulated thoughts and dies a gory death.
Director:Unknown
Writer:Unknown
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Director:Unknown
Writer:Unknown
7.2/10(121 votes)
#23 - Night Prey
S3:E811/25/1989
20 years ago, a man's fiancee is stolen by vampires and transformed into one. Obsessed, he hunts vampires until the modern day, when he stumbles upon a cursed antique cross that lets him not only repel vampires, but incinerate them. Of course, he must kill someone to get the cross to work. Jack's friend, a priest, is the first one killed by the cross and Jack becomes involved as a result. Ultimiately we find out that the man's fiancee is now a willing vampire. Ultimately, everyone is killed, including the vampire hunter and his fiancee.
Director:Armand Mastroianni
Writer:Peter Mohan
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Director:Armand Mastroianni
Writer:Peter Mohan
7.2/10(114 votes)
#24 - Femme Fatale
S3:E912/2/1989
Desmond Williams, a director, is obsessed with the role that his now-aged actress-wife played 50 years ago: that of femme fatale Lili Lita in a film-noir crime film. He finds a cursed reel that lets him bring the Lili character to life, by pushing an innocent female victim into the film itself while its playing. The victim is forced to relive the entire movie...which ends with the character they are stuck as being killed. Meanwhile, the movie version of Lili emerges into the real-world for the same period of time. To stay alive, Lili must convince Desmond to kill her aged real-life counterpart. The character is also increasingly dissatisfied with her limited ""life"" as a sex toy for Desmond. Ultimately, the aged actress shoots her husband when she finds out what is going on, and decides to enter into the film (replacing a trapped Micki) so she can have her youth back. Trapped with nowhere to go when the film ends, the film Lili is destroyed for good.
Director:Unknown
Writer:Unknown
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Director:Unknown
Writer:Unknown
7.1/10(164 votes)
#25 - What a Mother Wouldn't Do
S1:E257/23/1988
Two desperate parents were given an antique cradle by a symathetic Lewis Vendredi. The cradle belonged to a female passenger aboard the Titanic. Trying to rescue her child, she accidentally capsized a lifeboat that killed seven passengers, but her child floated to safety. Now, the curse of the cradle lets the parents cure their ailing baby if they kill seven people by water while the baby is in the cradle. However, they must do so before the anniversary of the Titanic's sinking. Ultimiately, trying to kill the child's babysitter, the parents themselves both manage to die by water, inadvertently giving their lives to save their child. The babysitter ends up with the cured baby, and the trio recover the cradle.
Director:Neill Fearnley
Writer:Unknown
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Director:Neill Fearnley
Writer:Unknown