This is a strange one where fact meets fiction. Poe and Virginia (aka Sissie - which he really did call her) live alone with a canary, a fish, and black cat name Pluto (like in Poe’s story “The Black Cat”). A drunken Poe (Jeffrey Combs) is going mad with desperation when Virginia (Elyse Levesque) suddenly contracts tuberculosis. He has difficulty writing between her coughing and Pluto acting out. He removes the cat’s eye when he believes that animal killed the fish and canary.
Shortly after Poe’s act of violence, Virginia dies from a fit and his publisher encourages him to drink in order to get him back on track with the writing. In his deteriorating mind, he becomes convinced that the cat caused his wife’s death and [SPOILER ALERT] kills the cat.
Look at the pretty kitty! I wanna snuggle it’s smug face!
But this is a horror story, so that cannot be the end of it. Oh no. It turns out Virginia is alive! So Poe goes back to drinking. Virginia finds a new Pluto who looks suspiciously like the original. Poe celebrates this new addition to the family by drinking, trying to kill the cat (again), and having a breakdown in front of Virginia where he declares he can’t write or support her. From there the last act gets rather gory and mimics the original short story. But the whole thing does make Poe love the cat and gives him the inspiration he needs to write. In the end, isn’t all the terror worth that?
I feel like this TV special isn’t fair. First, it removes Virginia mom from the story completely and makes Virginia’s illness a quick down slide. More than that - they made Poe cruel to animals! He loved his cat! Her name was Catterina and she would sit on his shoulder while he wrote. My cats only sit with me when I write because they want my chair and they are waiting for me to get up.
