Friday, July 3, 2020

What I’m Watching: The Twilight Zone


The Twilight Zone: Season 2, Episode 3 “The Who of You” (B+)

I watched this episode, which was provided in advance to press, immediately after episode one, “Meet in the Middle,” and thought it was just going to be another hour where two people shared a connection that no one else could understand. I was pleased to discover that it wasn’t just two people exchanging bodies but rather a remarkable, unexplained ability to jump from body to body, leaving whoever the latest person Harry inhabited trapped in his body beyond confused in an interrogation room. I’m a big fan of Ethan Embry, who has done great work on “Brotherhood,” “Grace and Frankie,” and in the film “Blindspotting,” and he was great here in this constantly changing role of confusion. Daniel Sunjata from “Rescue Me” burst in to the bank like he owned the place as Peter the detective, and he was perfectly cast for that part too. I was also excited to recognize Billy Porter, the Emmy-winning star of “Pose,” a show whose second season I’m currently watching, as Keith the psychic, who purposely tried to switch places with Harry so that he could see if he was telling the truth. It’s always interesting to me when people try to embrace the weirdness of what’s going on and to face the impossibility head-on. Keith naming both of them as scam artists but singling out Harry for being worse since he doesn’t make people feel good was a helpful distinction, and Harry didn’t seem to internalize that lesson too well as he switched places with a kid and then with Peter so that he could get his body killed. I guessed a few minutes earlier that the woman who kept calling Peter was indeed Marina, but that didn’t lessen the impact of the formidable ending, which did, as Jordan Peele put it, give Harry exactly what he wanted.

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