Editorials
“The Twilight Zone”: Ranking All 10 Episodes of the Reboot’s Second Season
Rod Serling‘s The Twilight Zone changed television for the better. He and his team thoroughly examined the human condition through the use of groundbreaking thought experiments, all the while serving up some of the finest writing on the small screen.
When Jordan Peele rebooted the series last year, critics and audiences alike agreed his version fell short of imposing expectations. Seeing as the 1959 series tackled topics that its contemporaries — largely escapist and family-friendly fare — dare not bring up, doing the same thing but in a modern setting just did not work in the reboot’s favor. Heavy-handed social messages frequently superseded creative storytelling, and any sort of intrigue was either minimal or absent altogether.
Unlike the first season, the second’s arrival was more downplayed. Another change was its scheduling habit; all ten episodes were simultaneously released. Season Two was already off to a curious start. Yet, as everyone worked their way through the episodes, the wary ones couldn’t help but feel like things were going to be different this time around.
While Season Two isn’t outstanding all across the board, the various improvements and a greater consistency in quality make the Twilight Zone‘s return all the more enjoyable.
10. The Who of You
Directed by Peter Atencio
Written by Win Rosenfeld
An out-of-work actor (Ethan Embry) develops the uncanny ability to switch consciousnesses with other people after he fails to rob a bank. However, this experience is nothing short of traumatizing as his tormented mind is passed around from stranger to stranger with no end in sight. In the meantime, a cop (Daniel Sunjata) wants to arrest him for the attempted robbery, but he can only do so if the suspect is returned to his rightful body.
As much as body swapping is a cliché nowadays, the device can work under the right conditions. Audiences will surely feel every misstep in the protagonist’s fraught and agonizing mind trip; the sharp, if not peculiar, twist near the end is worth a mention. On the downside, the plot wears thin, and Billy Porter is incredibly underused as an all-seeing swindler. The theme of feeling like you’re trapped in someone else’s skin is also not lost on viewers — the new Twilight Zone definitely understands that sentiment.
9. A Small Town
Directed by Alonso Alvarez-Barreda
Written by Steven Barnes & Tananarive Due
The snowy hamlet of Littleton is in need of serious fixing, but the lousy mayor (David Krumholtz) is too inept for that kind of undertaking. That is, until the former mayor’s widower (Damon Wayans Jr.) finds a scale model replica of the town. As he tinkers with what he assumes to be just a toy, he magically repairs all that’s broken in the real town. The mayor then decides to take credit for something he obviously didn’t do.
The most important thing to say about Season Two is that there are no outright bad episodes. Something like “A Small Town” is modest. Maybe too much. Besides some noteworthy visual effects — the massive spider is a sight to behold — the story comes off as a tad too plain.
8. Ovation
Directed by Ana Lily Amirpour
Story by David Weil
Teleplay by Emily C. Chang & Sara Amini
A struggling singer (Jurnee Smollett) is handed a strange coin before the gifter, a famous musician (Sky Ferreira), dies in front of her. Now, the singer is offered the chance of a lifetime as she’s cast in a televised talent show. Audiences all around love her, but looking beyond their unconditional devotion, she sees something unnatural and scary about the world as well as herself.
Although exposing the dark and disposable side of fame is nothing new, “Ovation” breathes just enough life into an old chestnut that it entertains on the most fundamental levels.
7. A Human Face
Directed by Christina Choe
Written by Alex Rubens
In this one-location story, a couple (Jenna Elfman and Christopher Meloni) discovers an alien in their house following a cosmic flare. The creature absorbs their dead daughter’s (Tavi Gevinson) memories and replicates her appearance. The parents are then given a life-changing choice.
Again, the show chooses clarity over complexity. It is easy to write another harrowing alien invasion tale, but “A Human Face” takes a completely different route. The ending here is truly bittersweet.
6. You Might Also Like
Directed and written by Osgood Perkins
One of the best things about the reboot has been its desire to reference the classic series through easter eggs and sight gags. “You Might Also Like” continues the tradition but goes one step further. In the episode, a housewife (Gretchen Mol) looks to acquire a new product that is intended to make life easier. As she and others later learn, the device’s creators have different plans for their consumers.
Osgood Perkins’ overwhelming affinity for triangles is front and center in the season’s closing episode. His knack for the unconventional is present, too. This is genuinely the weirdest and most confounding offering in the reboot so far. The callbacks to the 1959 show are appreciated, and the episode looks like it was fun to make. Be that as it may, “You Might Also Like” is a certifiable head scratcher that banks on its sheer kookiness and visual appeal.
5. Downtime
Directed by JD Dillard
Written by Jordan Peele
From Philip K. Dick to the Wachowskis, sci-fi authors and auteurs have suggested our lives are nothing more than artificial realities. Jordan Peele lends his skills as a writer in this astoundingly pensive episode. “Downtime” begins with a recently promoted hotel manager (Morena Baccarin) learning her world is nothing more than an invention of technology.
“Downtime” may come off as simple, but it’s affecting. It is thoughtful and just the kind of story that the original Twilight Zone would have come up with.
4. Try, Try
Directed by Jennifer McGowan
Written by Alex Rubens
“Try, Try” addresses a pressing topic in today’s social climate, but it does so without the clumsiness of Season One’s “Not All Men.” A meet-cute goes terribly wrong for a woman (Kylie Bunbury) when her savior (Topher Grace) turns out to be a creepy stalker who is reliving the same day over and over.
One shouldn’t mistake this episode as the show going back to its old ways; “Try, Try” is infinitely more clever than that. The stark conclusion and Jordan Peele’s revealing and astute narration — Grace’s character is just as trapped as his victim — are nothing short of brilliant.
3. Meet in the Middle
Directed by Mathias Herndl
Written by Emily C. Chang & Sara Amini
A man (Jimmi Simpson) suddenly hears a stranger’s (Gillian Jacobs) voice in his head one day; she hears him, too. From there, the two engage in a physically distant relationship that can never be anything more so long as they’re apart. Regardless of the obstacles before them, the two agree to finally meet.
Audiences anxiously wait for the other shoe to drop in “Meet in the Middle,” an insidious story about twin souls. Viewers will linger over the chilling ending long after Peele’s closing statement.
2. 8
Directed by Justin Benson & Aaron Moorhead
Written by Glen Morgan
At the bottom of the ocean, a team of researchers look for displaced sea creatures. They find a unique species of octopus that is highly coveted by a pharmaceutical company. Capturing the dangerous and elusive mollusk will be no easy task, though.
Season Two has been positively diverse when it comes to the kinds of stories it tells. X-Files alum Glen Morgan, also one of the reboot’s executive producers, wrote some of the better episodes last season (“A Traveler,” “The Blue Scorpion”). Here, he crafts an expertly oddball story which Justin Benson and Aaron Moorhead, the great minds behind The Endless, punctuate with deep-sea dread. “8” distinctly belongs in the aquatic horror category with elements of Alien thrown in for good measure. It’s ambitious and risky; this is the kind of experimentation the new Twilight Zone can benefit from. As absurd as an episode about a hyper intelligent, killer octopus sounds, it’s hands down one of the season’s standouts.
1. Among the Untrodden
Directed by Tayarisha Poe
Written by Heather Anne Campbell
At a boarding school, a new student (Sophia Macy) is bullied by her classmates. When she realizes one of them (Abbie Hern) has psychic abilities, the two become secret friends. In exploring the other’s extraordinary talents, the new girl makes an unsettling discovery about herself.
“Among the Untrodden” is an impressive depiction of teenage growing pains seen through a supernatural lens. It’s more raw and straightforward than other episodes in the season, but the ending is absolutely devastating and startling.
In this day and age, the word “troll” is often used to describe various online nuisances. Yet as abundant and irksome as the modern troll can be, they aren’t usually as fearsome as their mythological counterparts. I’m not talking about the small and gentler versions that have become more common to see in media. No, there are much bigger and scarier trolls out there—and André Øvredal’s movie Troll Hunter is one of the best places to find them.
It doesn’t take long for Troll Hunter (or Trolljegeren) to dump the Blair Witch Project-esque setup and aim for something a lot fresher. The trajectory of the story is augmented by Otto Jespersen’s character Hans, the titular Troll Hunter. The second he comes barreling out of the deep, dark woods and shouts “troll” at the camera, this movie takes a turn into what feels like uncharted territory. Not only subject-wise, but also conceptually.
For fantastical and made-up subject matter in cinema, found footage is a fast way to add a guise of believability. After all, what we accept to be the most crucial aspect of documentaries—the truth—rubs off on pseudo-documentaries, despite our understanding of the pretense involved. That is what Øvredal delivered with Troll Hunter: a movie so convincing that some viewers wondered if trolls really do exist. So, had this been straightforwardly made, it likely wouldn’t have been as effective. Conventional narratives would be more inclined to treat something like trolls as flat out unreal, and never try to convince the audience to think otherwise.
Hans petrifies the three-headed Tusseladd troll.
The viewers, like the characters trailing Hans, are quickly thrown into the deeper end of that extraordinary story. They have to process all this new information while staying on the go. So, although there is no significant amount of meandering, narratively or physically, there is still a good amount of atmosphere, not to mention tension building. It’s never anything frightful, but then again, Troll Hunter isn’t your standard offering of horror; it’s more on the low end of the dark fantasy spectrum. We aren’t ever spirited away to a faraway world—we stay in rather familiar surroundings, as well as dip into those less so. The outcome is a movie where you’re constantly more in awe than in terror.
As fantasy fiction might do, Troll Hunter prefers not to deal with incredulity. There is no time to waste on doubt, as interviewer Thomas (Glenn Erland Tosterud), soundperson Johanna (Johanna Mørck), and cameraman Kalle (Tomas Alf Larsen) all follow Hans around, recording whatever this character is willing to reveal about his bizarre job. Of course, the Troll Hunter himself is not an open book; in that respect, the diegetic documentary fails to fully capture and unpack the more interesting of its two subjects. Yes, all those giant, monstrous trolls are indeed incredible, but understandably, your mind wanders to their pursuer. What kind of person signs up for this gig and then chooses to stick with it for so long?
Reviews have called out Troll Hunter for its lack of character development. In regard to Thomas and his fellow documentarians, that criticism is valid, but bear in mind, they aren’t the focus of the story, either. Meanwhile, Hans is a well-crafted character. At least better than first realized. Before he was introduced, Hans had already grown tired of the troll grind. Fed up with that low compensation for his services, resentful of the bureaucracy, and wanting to expose his employer on a large scale, Hans’ discontent is glaring.
Then there are those finer details about the Troll Hunter, such as that indifference to both the natural splendor of his everyday surroundings and the affections of an obviously smitten colleague, that also suggest some level of despondency. So it is fair to say this movie doesn’t feature any sizable growth for its characters; however, the namesake isn’t underwritten. No doubt, putting a real-life character like Otto Jespersen in that role is partly why Hans is so fascinating—maybe even relatable.
Otto Jespersen as Hans the Troll Hunter.
There is always a small risk whenever using the term “mockumentary” to describe a found-footage movie, as the word could imply humor where there is none. In the case of Troll Hunter, the term’s usage is appropriate. Some folks have claimed the English-dubbed version has the more comedic tone, however, the Norwegian cut isn’t exactly humorless. Apart from the trolls’ absurd appearances, this is a movie where the characters nearly choke on the monsters’ farts, and Christians are like walking targets. Hans’ complete apathy towards everything is another cause of laughter. Overall, the comedy is intentionally dry and inconsistent. Unfunny, though? Absolutely not.
In a movie where endemic creatures are maltreated, as well as disavowed from living freely and peacefully, it’s hard not to notice the ecological message buried beneath the story. In addition to that is the unmistakable political satire. There is this whole business about intrusive and unsightly power lines—like trolls, they’re big blemishes on the land—that leads to what is perhaps the movie’s funniest moment. The scene in question is that one where certain electric lines, the ones secretly being used to keep the trolls at bay, go in a loop and don’t actually send power to any residents. Yet the monitors of said lines don’t find this at all weird. So it stands to reason that Øvredal was having a go at those who accept the government’s doings without question.
Looking past the fact that trolls aren’t actually real, this movie is an enlightening source of information. And not just for international audiences; Norwegians, too, get schooled about their homeland’s own mythology. It’s also evident from everything on screen that Øvredal and his crew were enthusiastic about the topic. The creature designs are the most indicative of that zeal; those imaginative yet myth-accurate manifestations are equally amusing and grotesque. One second you’re laughing at their phallic noses, the next you’re white-knuckling during a hairy sequence. Most surprisingly is how well the trolls’ visual effects hold up after fifteen years. It’s not all spotless, but on the whole, they remain impressive.
Vouching for a mockumentary about trolls isn’t easy, but those who do come around and give it a shot will more than likely be grateful for the recommendation. For Troll Hunter is a real find in that vast and varied genre we call “found footage“.
A bridge troll reaches up for food and finds Hans decked out in armor.
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