The Tale of the Final Wish

The Tale of the Final Wish
	Season 2 , Episode 1
Air date	June 19, 1993
Written by	Chloe Brown
Directed by	D.J. MacHale
	Episode guide
Previous; The Tale of the Pinball Wizard	Next; The Tale of the Midnight Madness

The Tale of the Final Wish is the First episode and season premiere of the Second season of Are You Afraid of the Dark?, as well as the Fourteenth episode in total.

Cast

Midnight Society Cast

Story Cast

Samantha Chemerika (also known as Samantha Aboud) as Jill Petterson
Thomas Sievewright as Jon Petterson
Jane Wheeler as Mrs. Petterson
Ian Finlay as Mr. Petterson

Special Guest Star

Bobcat Goldthwait as The Sandman

Intro

Kristen is all dressed up in an old-fashioned fairy tale dress--not a princess dress, but a fairy tale dress--and is reading out loud gruesome tales from an equally old-fashioned and unabridged fairy tale book. The first story she reads is about an evil woman who wished to cut off two children's heads and be smeared with their blood to receive life again. David is astounded and thinks it's disgusting. Frank walks in, sees the book, and thinks it's childish. He tells her that fairy tales are weak.

Kristen snaps at him for that and asks if he's ever even read them. David backs her up, saying they weren't the wimpy versions, but the original ones. Frank stubbornly tells her that no, he can't say that he has. Gary says that he has and they're full of stabbing and demons and man-eating animals and cutting off limbs and all sorts of things. Betty Ann says her favorite one is where an old woman kidnaps a prince and puts blood on the queen's mouth to make the king think she ate him. David loves it even though he thinks it's gross, but Frank still doesn't seem convinced and says that a kid's story is a kid's story.

Kiki isn't too excited with the idea either; she complains and asks if Kristen will be telling them some boring old fairy tale. Kristen explains that the story she is going to tell is about a girl who loves fairy tales, who had a huge collection and knew most of them by heart. The trouble was that she spent so much time thinking about the world of make-believe, that she started to forget the difference between reality and imagination. When that happens, a fairy tale can become a scary tale. She submits her story for Midnight Society's approval, calling it "The Tale of the Final Wish", and begins.

Story

Kristen, tells the story. The story begins with a beautiful, kind young woman offering a person an apple. The woman politely tries to persuade the young person to take a bite of it, since it's such a good looking apple. Suddenly she gets impatient and transforms into an evil queen and screams, "If you don't I'll force you to eat it", laughing in a sinister cackle.

This turns out to be the nightmare of a young girl named Jill Petterson who suddenly wakes up scared from her nightmare. Then it turns out she had the nightmare because she fell asleep while reading her book Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs. Jill reaches on her lamp table for her glass of water. When finding out the glass is empty she starts to get up and refill it but suddenly she’s afraid that something is under her bed.

So she arms herself with a baseball bat and checks under her bed and is relieved to find nothing and she tells herself to grow up. Then she goes to get herself a glass of water, when she returns to her bed, finishing her glass of water she nervously checks the side of her bed again and she begins to tell herself that it's stupid because there is nothing under there. Suddenly two hands from under her bed grab her she screams in fear and she runs to her parents room.

Jill scared and nervous wakes up her parents from their deep sleep, they come into her room to check things out. Her father checks under her bed at first he pretends something has him. Then he pulls out a small dirty dinner plate. Her brother Jon comes into her room asking what's going on. Their mom explains Jill had another nightmare, Jill tries to explain it was not a nightmare, but her dad just tells her everyone has nightmare and just not to take them so seriously. Then her mom tells her to go back to sleep and her parents go back to bed.

When her parents leave, suddenly Jon smiles at her and tells her it was him under the bed. Jill is furious that he did that too her as a joke and claims that she hates him. Jon says he did it because she is always looking for something under the bed and he thought he would help her find something. When she tells Jon to grow up, he tells her that she's the one who needs to grow up still living in a fairyland playing with childish toys and reading childish book and that she is thirteen and she should act more her age and stop believing in monsters under the bed. Jill wasn't sure how kids her age should act and her friends weren't being much help either.

Then next day as usual Jill took too long getting ready for school so one of her parents had to drive her to school. When she visited the school library she took out a few fairytale books one them including the book "The Sandman and other tales" Two of Jill's classmates are both really attracted to a boy in their class. When they find out he seems interested in Jill the two girls are jealous and they think she’s a geek and childish when they look in Jill's backpack and see the books she checked out.

When the boy sits down and speaks with Jill about their school work, the two girls plan to embarrass Jill by showing the boy the childish books Jill has checked out, Jill's excuse is she’s doing a book report. When they also find a Troll doll in the backpack and show it to the boy, the boy mentions he used to play with them as a kid. The jealous girls tell him Jill still plays with them. Jill grabs her stuff and leaves embarrassed.

That night when Jill is sleeping she was having a wonderful dream, She dreams that she was about to be kissed by a handsome prince. The prince was none other than the boy she had a crush on from school. She wakes up in her dark room to seeing a terrifying face and she screams in terror and runs around her room. Turns out it was her brother Jon scaring her with a new Halloween mask. Fed up with her brother she shows him the door.

Jill picks up her library book without knowing it she picks up "The Sandman and Other Tales" book and walks over to her open window and wishes upon a star saying "What's so wrong about wanting to live in a world where dreams come true, and you can wish on a star? I wish I could, and I wish everybody would just leave me alone." She goes to sleep for the rest of the night.

The next morning, Jill wakes up and in shock she see her brother standing beside her bed. His head is tilted to the side and he’s fast asleep. She‘s furious thinking he pulling another prank and she’s about to tell their parents. When she looks back suddenly he's vanished. Jill checks her parents' room and they both don't seem to be there either. She goes back to her room thinking her brother is under her bed to scare her again.

Jill checks under her bed, then suddenly the bearded face of a long haired man appears and tells her "Hi there!" She screams in horror and tries to run off for help when suddenly she gets sucked in gust of wind and sent under her bed down a well into some other dimension. When she comes to, she is in a place that is pitch black with all sorts of clocks everywhere. There are many people asleep while floating in the air she speaks to some but they just don't answer.

Then Jill enters a door numbered 7 and the room has a huge clock in it.There are tables filled full of vials of various sands and other types of dusts such as Deep Sleep, Catnap, 40 winks, Snooze and Out Like A Light. Then she sees a huge hour glass filled with sand. Then a man in a purple house coat and night cap with a goatee beard and long hair approaches her. Jill addresses him as "that guy under my bed".

The man turns out to be none other than The Sandman himself. He assures her she isn’t dreaming and that it's all real and he's brought her to The Land of Nod, where everyone goes to dream. The reason this has happened is because The sandman granted Jill her wish when she held his storybook looked at the first star and said mimicking her "What's so wrong about wanting to live in a world where dreams come true, and you can wish on a star ? I wish I could, and I wish everybody would just leave me alone".

The sandman has granted her wish and now everyone will sleep forever in The Land of Nod and leave her alone. Also he tells her, she's in her own fairytale now and has a big book for it to, he won't show the ending because it would be cheating. Jill upset, demands to go home but The Sandman won't let her claiming fairytales can't be changed.

Jill wants everyone to go back home. The Sandman won't let them because that’s reality and she wanted a fairytale. After Jill once again tells him she wants to go home, He tells her she should have been a little more careful with what she wished for, as The Sandman is laughing Jill tries to run away. Jill passing by all the sleeping floating people again and to a number of unknown doors. Jill tries a white door with a red question mark this happens to be for the story, Alice in Wonderland, inside happens to be the Queen of Hearts she is holding a huge battleaxe and for unknown reasons she approaches Jill and screams "OFF WITH HER HEAD!" Jill screams and slams the door and runs. When Jill tries another door and it turns out to be for the story Hansel and Gretel, the witch is standing right in front of her stove and she looks at Jill and tells her "I was expecting Hansel and Gretel.. but you'll do nicely come closer my dear ha ha ha ha" Jill shuts the doors and runs off again.

Jill passing by the floating, sleeping people again. She recognizes a couple of them now, one of them is one of the two classmates from school who embarrassed her. The other one is the boy from school who turns out to be named Rick. The other one is her brother Jon, she’s crying when she pleas for him to wake up, then she sees her own parents and she is devastated and runs off crying. When she stops running she cries and she shouts that she didn't want this, and it's not what she wished for. The Sandman's face appears huge in the dark ceiling telling her in a laughing tone that yes it was what she wished for and welcomes her to her own fairy tale.

Jill once again runs off screaming, ending up back in The Sandman's office room she tells him she wants to go home and he tells her that isn’t in her fairytale. Jill then approaches the huge hourglass and threatens to smash it, if he doesn't send her and everyone else back home. The Sandman now appears and he‘s serious and concerned pleading her not to break it. She demands he send Her and friends and family and everyone else back home. The Sandman tells her Fairytales can't be changed, they are what they are. She cries and still threatens to smash it. The Sandman tells her nicely that she wanted everyone to leave her alone so now they'll sleep forever in the Land of Nod. Jill claiming she and everyone there are prisoners.

The Sandman now getting annoyed, tells her that the way she’s acting isn't how her fairytale is supposed to end. If she insists on being foolish he'll have to put her to sleep too. When hearing this Jill now smiles a bit of relief and realizes that fairytales can be changed after all and tells him that. He tells her that she's wrong and she tells him she isn't because it's her fairytale and if he can change it then so can she. Then she tells him she’s gonna close the book and smashes the huge hourglass.

When the hourglass smashes The Sandman screams no, then all the visions of everything scary Jill saw recently in her nightmares and behind the doors appear and disappear in a flash ending with The Sandman screaming no! Jill wakes up in a full blast terrified scream waking up her entire family. She is thrilled to see everyone back again and apologizes for being so childish and decides it times to stop believing in fairytales and to grow up.

When she goes back to sleep, the wind blows open the Sandman and other tales book open, It opens it to the last story in the book called Tale of the Final Wish. Then it blows to the last page in the book. We then hear The Sandman saying "The little girl went back to sleep, promising never to believe in fairytales again. If only she knew she never would have gotten into that bed again!" and it ends hearing The Sandman diabolically laughing. This could have meant either Jill would from now on have the worse nightmares ever, or The Sandman still was going to capture her.

Ending

As Kristen ends her story he friends seems very impressed and she tells them not to take fairytales lightly. You never know which ones are made up and which ones are real. David tells her it was excellent and Betty Ann and Kiki happily nod at her. Frank now asks Kristen while holding her hand, which part of the book has the part where the children get their heads chopped off everyone laughing as Frank intriguingly looks through the fairytale book as others excitingly look with him.

This is the only season opening with the original Midnight Society that did not include an inductee being introduced though one character from the previous season, Eric (Jacob Tierney), had left the show.
One of twenty-one episodes where the Midnight Society didn't leave and douse the fire with the water-bucket (they were leafing through a collection of original, dark versions of fairy tales).
The Midnight Society gave absolutely no mention or any clue as to what happened to Eric.
Bobcat Goldthwait, was famous for his portrayal of the character Zed in a few of the Police Academy movies.
Bobcat Goldthwait had tremendous difficulty remembering his lines in the episode.
Samantha Chemerika would later reappear in the series again portraying Sharon in the episode "The Tale of the Chameleons" however for unknown reasons, she went by the name Samantha Aboud.
Jane Wheeler who portrayed Mrs. Petterson later reappeared in the episode "The Tale of C7" as Ellen as the mother.

The Tale of the Final Wish
Season 2 , Episode 1

Air date	June 19, 1993
Written by	Chloe Brown
Directed by	D.J. MacHale
Episode guide
Previous The Tale of the Pinball Wizard	Next The Tale of the Midnight Madness