MBTI Type: ISFJ

Ernest was a celebrated surgeon before his fall from grace; then he became an accomplished painter of dead bodies, celebrated for his extreme talent in knowing how to duplicate flesh tones. It just dawned on him that spray paint might work, and he’s meticulous about his job (fretting over getting Madeline’s color and texture just right). It’s his expertise in this matter that makes Mads and Hell want him to stick around so much—but Ernest also realizes that’s no way to live (forever) and chooses a full mortal life instead, going off at the age of fifty to get married again, take on a bunch of hobbies, and do things that he neglected before. He is quite emotional and accommodating, trying to keep his wife happy, concerned when Helen tries to convince him to kill Mads because it seems like an immoral thing to do, and generally falling into a caregiver role until he finds the strength to break away for himself. Ernest has become pretty logical in terms of taking care of dead bodies, and doesn’t realize until halfway through his explanation about why they look so good that he has offended someone with his morbidity. His Ne is repressed until after he leaves Mads; then at his funeral, people talk about all the places he traveled around the world, the friends he made, and the different things he tried out, before he passed away.

Enneagram: 6w5

Ernest is in many ways the comic relief, because he worries about everything and massively overreacts to everything. He frets almost constantly, about Madeline and Helen, about what might happen, about going to jail, and the police coming, and the morgue… it goes on and on, but he also is rational enough to realize that both women are playing him, this is not what he wants for his life (to be stuck “painting their asses” forever), and that he has no intention of living a long, long time when he can just get a life. Prior to that, he showed a lot of 6 attachment. Though miserable in his marriage, he never divorced or left her, he stayed and became a drunk. He fears her wrath and what she might say to him, until he snaps and chucks her down the stairs—and then he frantically calls Helen to ask what to do about it, and excitedly thinks about how his life is going to get better from this moment on. But when Mads wakes up with her head on backward, he instantly falls back into the caregiver role and drives her to the hospital, rescues her from the morgue, and so on. It’s only his sheer panic at the thought of living eternally with them that makes him head for the hills (and finally, he lives a long, full life with a decent marriage, kids, and “everyone loved him”).