Someone's definitely said it, but Girl Jeri taught Grace how to hide a body by complete accident
That woman stress talks and Grace just absorbs the information. Girl Jeri is losing her shit because Lil Jerry killed someone and starts venting to seven year old Grace.
Carrying bleach everywhere? Girl Jeri said that's normal, you should always be prepared. Lying to the police? Girl Jeri says you shouldn't talk to them
I've been thinking a lot about how much the Backrooms movie can be a really good au for Hatchetfield, with a man running a failing store, with very few customers, constant sales and fewer workers. But he stumbles upon an arcanic gateway, similair to our world, which inspires worshipers, but this other world leads to his eventual death. He also knows a woman who attempts to help him, utterly failing and leading him victim to the paranormal entities
So
Clark as Frank Pricely
Mary as Miss Holloway
Kat as Lex
Bobby as Ethan
Captain Clark would probably be Wiggly or maybe Sheldon or even Linda as a more mortal figure so Holloway could beat them realistically
I have a few gripes about how Frank’s redemption arc in Daddy is handled, but the added meaning to this line is just perfection.
In the context of Black Friday, Frank’s role is as a representation of capitalism on a smaller scale. Unlike Wiggly, who's the physical embodiment of greed and cruelty, Frank is a stand-in for the business owners, the bourgeoisie, if you will.
In this song, he has complete power over the situation, relishing in the amount of money he's soon to make, and this line, like a lot in the song, and later in Feast or Famine, serves to show the gap between Lex and Frank’s individual motivations.
While Lex covets money out of desperation, out of Famine, Frank hoards his wealth out of greed, he wants a Feast.
However, in the Nightmare Time episode Daddy, it's revealed to the audience that in the wider context of Hatchetfield, outside the framing of Black Friday, Frank is… almost poor. He's lonely, sure he's close with Miss Holloway, but his only real friend seems to be his dog, who's killed off in the beginning of Daddy.
Toyzone isn't a multi-million dollar company, it's Frank’s passion, and his livelihood. Without Toyzone, Frank would starve. In the context of Nightmare Time, Frank sees the shoppers’ money as a “meal” not in the predatory sense, but in the sense that it is literally his only source of income.
He may be greedy, but he sustains himself via Toyzone, something he's genuinely passionate about, and he may be hard on Lex, but she is one of the few people he apologises to when he thinks he's about to die.
Frank Pricely is a character who was developed from an allegorical representation of greed and capitalism, into a sympathetic flawed protagonist, who, while not being excused of his actions, is justified and explained as just a passionate man trying to make ends meet.
He's an incredibly interesting character to me, and it's a shame I never see anyone discussing him.
Weird thing that kinda stuck out to me listening to the Nightmare Time episode “Daddy”:
There’s a moment where Frank is about to die when he manages to blindly finds a weapon to save himself. In of itself, not too weird. It makes sense that he’d be able to grab the spear thrown at him earlier by groping around in the sewer water, but the exact phrasing of how he found it stuck out to me
“…then by chance, or fate, or whatever force is protecting Frank Pricely he feels a smooth wooden haft beneath the water.”
It might be a turn of phrase, but considering Hatchetfield it very well might not be. Assuming for a moment it isn't...
I'm wondering what was protecting him, my personal guess rn being Miss Halloway (Frank is an established friend of hers and they spoke earlier in the episode)
There’s a world in which Lex was a Mariah character and I think in that world there’s content of her and Frank having a weird, sorta fucked up father-daughter relationship.