This fun episode is loosely based upon "Mighty Max Grips the Hand", which was a Doom Zone that had a zombie graveyard theme and was one of the coolest of the play-sets because it was designed so as to resemble a rotting stitched-together hand, and the "MM" logo was placed on the main finger, just like a ring! Classic. Kate Mulgrew, yes that is Captain Janeway herself provides the strong commanding vocals of one of the few female villains to ever appear on the show, and although her voice is practically unrecognisable she's terrific as the Egyption goddess Isis, who after dwelling alone among mortals for millennia has grown bitter and angry, and ruthlessly plots to resurrect the soul of her husband and fellow god Osiris by sending her Ring of Osiris to chosen victims around the world in the hopes that it will find and possess the hand of the prophesied "Justified One" who will then be drawn to Osiris' temple where the statue of him will complete itself and he will revive at last, so that they may destroy humanity together and restore their fallen empire to its former glory...except the only problem is that Osiris doesn't quite share her cold-hearted ambitions. I love how this is one of the episodes that has an ending that's probably different than what you're expecting, with the newly-risen colossal Osiris seemingly about to squish Max like a bug at the behest of Isis until it's apparent that he's merely kneeling in respect to the Mighty One for restoring him, and is in fact a merciful and benevolent deity. And then the way he brings his wife to her senses by reminding her that the gods were never meant to dominate or harm mankind, but only to serve and guide it, and how the two depart and disappear into the desert sands together forever is a very well realised and kind of a moving ending that concludes the story in an unexpected way. The notion of a hand taking on a morbid, crawling life of its own is a most freaky one, and this episode brilliantly plays up to that a lot in the story, with people being helplessly dragged to their doom by their possessed appendages, our heroes having to fend off a whole horde of eerie dead hands, and Norman even briefly grappling and losing against a humongous boss hand! And there are so many hand jokes! They just went nuts with them, a new one pops up every couple of minutes, and all the hand-related puns and one-liners are as hilarious as they are relentless! You might say they get a bit out of hand..! The dialogue is actually my favourite feature of this one, and this was a fine choice to place just before the big finish of the series. Very creepy, very well put together, and I like it a lot. Bye for now! π
