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Sister's Keeper
Season 1, Episode 7
Sister's Keeper title card
Air date November 20, 1988
Teleplay by Jeff Freilich
Michael DeLuca
Story by Jeff Freilich
Directed by Ken Wiederhorn
Episode guide
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Saturday Night Special
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Mother's Day

"Sister's Keeper" is the seventh episode of the 1st season of Freddy's Nightmares: A Nightmare on Elm Street: The Series.

Plot[]

THIS SECTION NEEDS TO BE DIVIDED INTO TWO HALVES.

Lisa and Merit Blocker are the teenage twin daughters of Tim and Sara Blocker. While Lisa is popular at school Merrit has been left traumatised after their father's death and has become a social outcast after time in a psychiatric hospital. Recently, she has been having recurring dreams of Freddy Krueger, who she blames for her father's death.

One night, Lisa and her boyfriend John come home late and start kissing on the couch. Experiencing a false awakening where she catches them from the door of their bedroom, Merit's dream turns into a nightmare where Freddy trashes the room before slashing her in the chest. Sharing a latent psychic connection, Lisa instead suffers the slashes, but assumes John was playing too rough and sends him home. When she comes to bed, Lisa finds the room trashed but blames Merrit for it. Later in the night, Merrit has another false awakening where she is being choked to death by a red and green blanket while Lisa laughs at her. When they wake up for breakfast, Lisa has a bruise along her neck, though considers the possibility Merrit did it.

While at school, Merrit is approached by Jeff Fritzl who asks her out on a date with flowers and a guitar, though she is too self-conscious to accept due to the repeated bullying she has experienced, including by Lisa's friend Allison. As they style and dress differently (Lisa in red, Merrit in blue), Lisa conjures up a plan where they can swap clothes and live a day in the other's shoes, which she hopes will boost Merrit's self-confidence. Merrit tries to stay up all night to avoid having another dream, but ultimately fails. Lisa changes the plan and phones in sick so she can go to school as Merrit alone.

Lisa's day at school quickly turns into a nightmare. Before her first class, she is solicited by John, who has had a strange attraction to Merrit throughout their relationship. At class Alison quickly moves in on Jeff, but when Lisa calls her out she is subjected with abuse and gets drawings of Freddy thrown at her for the hour. Back home, Merrit has gotten out of bed and is enjoying her time playing Lisa. When John drops by to check on his girlfriend, she takes advantage of the situation and the two make out. Merrit finally breaks character when John tries moves his hands up her skirt. Initially thinking the two swapped places for his benefit, he lets slip his own attraction to her but this time she resists. Lisa returns home at night angry and crying, having learnt about John's encounter with Merrit, accusing her of deliberately trying to steal her boyfriend and vows to stop helping her.

At night, Freddy enters Merrit's dream once more, taking the form of John who solicits sex with her in exchange for killing Lisa. When she realises what is happening, she tries to wake up Lisa, who is quickly dragged into Merrit's nightmare. When the two become separate, Lisa finds herself at school being tied up, pelted and verbally abused by her friends while dressed like Merrit, while a dream version of Merrit smugly watches on before being stabbed in the back by Freddy.

Lisa wakes up up for breakfast covered in blood, and dressed in blue pajamas. When she rushes down to warn Sara about Freddy, she finds Merrit dressed in red, having swapped clothes during the night. Having already told Sara about "Merrit's" problems, two orderlies arrive to take Lisa to the hospital, where she is harassed by Freddy while confined to a straight-jacket.

Lisa wakes up still at home, having only dreamt of being in the hospital, but finds she is in Merrit's bed and told of being sedated. Merrit comes clean to Lisa that she posef as her, but her last dream was only a loose retelling of events - there were no orderlies, and Merrit did it in fear they would both be sent to the hospital otherwise. Despite her experience, Lisa refuses to believe Freddy is real and dismisses her whole experience as nothing more than Merrit planting suggestions in her head. When she goes downstairs to talk to Sara to vent about her sister, she is told she is Merrit and Lisa doesn't exist. Sara soon turns into Freddy, who suggests murder as the best way she can become an only child. Lisa wakes up once more, lying in Merrit's bed. Like in her previous dream, Merrit really did fool Sara, but this time Lisa believes that Freddy is after them.

In the days since Lisa's dreams, the sisters have done without sleep, accomplishing four while regularly drinking coffee and in each other's clothing. Having to deal with Calculus and History, respectively, Lisa and Merrit begin to doze off. In a state of hypnagogia, Lisa is trapped in the real world while Freddy slashes her arm. When she escapes Freddy she rushes to history class and wakes Merrit up. Out of ideas, Merrit suggests getting advice from her guidance counselor, Seligmann. Opting not to tell him about Freddy, they learn from him it is at least possible for two twins living together to share dreams.

At night, Lisa and Merrit have agreed on a sleeping arrangement where multiple alarm clocks are to wake them up in exactly 60 minutes. As expected, the two find themselves in the same dream world, though separated from another. Merrit is lured away by Freddy and sealed in a bedroom with him. Before he can stab her, Lisa comes up behind him and bashes Freddy with a wooden bat. Rather than fight back, he disappears, and they wake up.

The next day, Seligmann leads a psychology class on symbiosis in twins and the effects of post-hypnotic suggestion using Lisa and Merrit as voluntary subjects. Understanding now that their synchronicity is crucial in having shared hallucinations, they continue being in sync for the rest of school, continuing to do so at home. At night, Lisa comes up with the plan of 'wishing' Freddy away - that if they both do so, Freddy will be excised from their dreams forever.

In another shared dream, the two find themselves together in a boiler room, which Merrit recalls was such a place Freddy died in. Freddy quickly pops out and puts Merrit under a headlock while he stretches his arm out to drag Lisa over. The two begin chanting Freddy's nonexistence, and he fades away. Merrit gets of bed, but her triumph is undone when she finds Lisa on the couch being dragged into it by Freddy. Waking up in the real world, she finds Lisa has been brutally slashed and killed. Sara runs into the room, believing Merrit is responsible.

Production[]

Cast[]

Crew[]

Writer(s)
  • Wes Craven
  • Michael De Luca
  • Jeff Freilich
Director(s)
  • Ken Wiederhorn

External links[]


Freddy's Nightmares: A Nightmare on Elm Street: The Series - Season 1
No More Mr. Nice Guy I It's a Miserable Life I Killer Instinct I Freddy's Tricks and Treats I Judy Miller, Come on Down I Saturday Night Special I Sister's Keeper I Mother's Day I Rebel Without a Car I The Bride Wore Red I Do Dreams Bleed I The End of the World I Deadline I Black Tickets I School Daze I Cabin Fever I Love Stinks I The Art of Death I Missing Persons I The Light at the End of the Tunnel I Identity Crisis I Safe Sex
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