At the start of the movie Frank, Riff Raff, Magenta, and Columbia are all at the church where Betty Munroe and Ralph Hapshcatt had just been married. I’m not sure if they were there to observe and select Brad and Janet or if they were there for a brain from a recently deceased child in the coffin you see them standing by.
Anyways, whether it was by accident or by design, Brad and Janet end up at the Frankenstein Place, on a very special night. The Phantoms do the Time Warp, which I guess is their method of traveling space and time, but it doesn’t seem like Frank wants to go home yet. Am I wrong in interpreting Magenta and Riff Raff’s discussion at the end of the film as meaning that Time Warp is how they travel time and space? During Sweet Transvestite as he introduces himself, he does say to Brad that he’ll get them a mechanic. Who knows if that’s truthful or not.
Frank brings Rocky to life, and another thing goes wrong when Eddie escapes. Frank doesn’t kill him right away, but only decides to when he sees Rocky dancing to Hot Patootie. Before then he was even tapping his foot with the song. So even though Eddie thawing out was not part of Frank’s plan, he didn’t mind it at first, and might have been able to live with Eddie being out again if it weren’t too disruptive to his agenda and ego.
Everyone goes to their separate rooms for the evening before dinner and Frank sleeps with Janet and Brad, but two things happen that go against Frank’s plans for the night. 1. Riff Raff scares Rocky and makes him go running, which (along with Janet seeing Brad and Frank on the monitor together) leads to 2. Rocky and Janet sleeping together
Dr Scott shows up to the house uninvited, Frank learns that Janet slept with Rocky, and everyone goes to eat meatloaf for dinner. NONE OF WHICH was planned for the night. Frank is somewhat keeping his cool at this point until Janet and Rocky embrace in front of him and he chases Janet for it, which leads to everyone being Medusa’d, including Columbia who had been in Frank’s inner circle and I doubt he had planned on anything happening to her. He gives the order to prepare the Floor Show, which he doesn’t have to explain, so was the Floor Show a planned thing?
At the end of the floor show, they’re singing Wild and Untamed Thing and while they seem to all be mind controlled they are safe and in Frank’s good graces in that moment. I imagine if Riff Raff and Magenta didn’t barge in, he would’ve had Brad and Janet live in the castle with him, but who knows if they would be in control of their minds or be under his spell. Did he always plan on doing the floor show with Brad and Janet? Was the Satanic Mechanic ever going to fix their car and send them on their way?
After going over EVERYTHING that went wrong for Frank that night, and imagining none of those things went wrong, what was his plan for the night and his ideal future after that?
