In this latest horror polemic, Martin Donovan plays Cliff, husband to Abby (Julia Andersen) a wife who doesn’t love him anymore.  Fate intervenes, and she ends up a hunk of jerky on a stretcher.  Cliff wants to end her misery.  Meanwhile, her mother shamelessly enlists the public in a crusade to keep her charred husk of a daughter alive.  What neither suspects is that Abby might have her own thoughts on the subject.

Every time that she flat-lines, she can transmute herself into ghost form.  This form is ethereal enough to disappear in a moment, but corporeal enough to have euphoric sex with her husband in a hot tub.  Isn’t it odd how, in this series, women never look bored during sex?  It also allows her to stake out people who she deems worthy of death.

In the episode’s most absurd moment, Cliff’s lawyer (Corbin Bernsen) finds himself stuck to a wall due to an enormous hospital magnet (!), courtesy of the disembodied Abby.  After five minutes of buildup, he takes off his watch.  Then Abby sets him on fire.  Why didn’t she set him on fire before?  Because then we couldn’t have a protracted sequence where he really, really needs to take off his watch.

While that scene lacks punch, other scenes compensate.  The hot tub freak-out works well, and I especially liked how Cliff’s cell phone gives him a gruesome clue later.  One scene is brilliant dark comedy, as a dazed Cliff rushes through the hallways of the hospital with a cooler.  What’s in the cooler?  It’s probably not soda.  Those scenes give clever twists to the setup, many eliciting dark chuckles from a genre nut like me.  New is always invigorating, even if it only lasts for a few seconds.

Working against those bizarre moments is a shockingly good Martin Donovan.  He plays everything low-key, and lets the insanity prance around him.  His face communicates much by doing almost nothing.  It’s the antithesis of Meat Loaf’s rapturous excess in Pelts, but it’s just what this story needs.  When a last act revelation redefines everything, Donovan makes it seem like an inevitable conclusion, instead of the cheat it is.

Rob Schmidt (Wrong Turn) directed the episode.  The man is unafraid to show off disgusting imagery, which is a plus, but there are very few risks here.  Had the story been willing to turn a few more conventions on their ears, Right to Die would be a success.  The episode is solid, no doubt, and worth watching.  But the series is worth watching anyway, because each week promises something new, an episode that some fans will respond to more than others.  Right to Die works, but I suspect that most will remember it simply for the controversy.