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 Heavy-handed social messages frequently superseded creative storytelling, and any sort of intrigue was either minimal or absent altogether.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.
Despite what the higher-ups at Marvel would have you believe, Stan Lee’s original vision for Spider-Man was very different from the friendly neighborhood wall-crawler that fans ultimately got.
It was comics maestro Steve Ditko that turned him into the lovable web-head that we all know and love, though even that first draft of the character wasn’t exactly meant to be a child-friendly mascot. Ditko envisioned an uncanny arachnid-human hybrid whose freakish poses and dark costume would strike terror into the hearts of criminals, with the inclusion of web-shooters possibly having been a suggestion by Ditko’s roommate at the time, renowned fetish artist and bondage enthusiast Eric Stanton.
These more adult-oriented origins may have changed over the years, but one could argue that Spidey never completely lost his darker side. In fact, we’d eventually see several grim storylines that explored the horrific consequences of Spider-Man’s radioactive blood. While having his irradiated body fluids give Mary Jane cancer is likely the most terrifying of these yarns (track down Spider-Man: Reign if you’re up for a depressing read that was at one point set to be adapted to film by Michael Jackson), one of the most memorable horror-adjacent moments in these comics has to be the acceleration of Peter Parker’s mutation and the eventual introduction of Man-Spider – a storyline that appears to have been one of the main inspirations behind the upcoming Spider-Man: Brand New Day.
I sincerely doubt that Marvel Studios is really going to give their toy-selling juggernaut a Cronenbergian rebrand, but the most recent trailer for Brand New Day suggests that the creative team is pulling from some surprisingly spooky source material in this latest superhero sequel. Specifically, the trailer makes it seem like the film is set to be a loose adaptation of the Neogenic Nightmare arc from Spider-Man: The Animated Series, commonly known as the best exploration of Spidey’s radioactive dark side that also features the most iconic version of Man-Spider.
If you’re wondering what these influences could mean for the upcoming film, I’d like to invite you to join me as we look back on some of the animated series’ most horror-tinged episodes.
A fourteen-episode story arc that made up the show’s second season, Neogenic Nightmare began airing in September of 1995. At this point, the series had already earned a reputation as the definitive version of Spider-Man despite dealing with absurd levels of censorship and executive meddling. It’s widely known at this point that this incarnation of Spidey was prohibited from ever punching his villains, and the studio even insisted that realistic guns should be replaced with futuristic laser weapons in order to avoid enraging concerned parents.
And that’s not even mentioning bizarre demands like setting up Hobgoblin as the original Goblin villain simply because the folks responsible for the toy-line had already prepared the character’s merchandise before scripts were even written.
At the end of the day. the show’s success mostly came down to John Semper’s excellent writing, with the (mostly) faithful recreation of the Spider-Man’s core principals and a handful of iconic storylines (coupled with an excellent cast behind the scenes) elevating a what was intended to be a kid’s show promoting ToyBiz products.
Naturally, the rampant cartoon censorship of the 90s couldn’t keep Semper from wanting to explore darker themes from his own favorite Spider-Man comics, and that’s how his team came up with a season-long re-imagining of iconic arcs like the Six-Arm Saga, The Mutant Agenda and even the first appearance of the Sinister Six. These stories would be enhanced with additional “dark” characters like Blade, The Punisher and even Morbius (though the latter had to exchange his vampiric blood-drinking for bizarre plasma-absorbing powers in order to conform to network guidelines).
If you haven’t yet seen it, the complete Neogenic Nightmare arc follows Spider-Man as he discovers that his mutation is progressing beyond his initial superpowers and threatening to turn him into a more monstrous hybrid. After developing extra arms, Spidey goes so far as to request help from both the X-Men and several other super-heroes as he becomes embroiled in a criminal conspiracy involving a team-up between some of his most iconic villains. The arc eventually introduces us to the show’s version of Man-Spider, which is depicted here as the monstrous final stage of the process which began when Peter was first bitten by that radioactive spider.
Personally, I think this werewolf-like addition to Spidey’s genetic curse is the best incarnation of Man-Spider that we’ve ever seen. This is because the six-armed body horror of it all adds even more weight to Peter’s decision to keep helping others regardless of what his powers may cost him, with the creature’s final rampage even giving the supporting cast a chance to help Spider-Man for a change. While I don’t hate the Morbius movie as much as some other comic fans, it’s a shame that Sony relegated that story to a solo film instead of later incorporating it into the Man-Spider saga like Neogenic Nightmare did.
Season two of the animated series ended up being an even bigger hit than the first, with fans loving the show’s take on an expanded Marvel Universe (which even included the ’90s X-Men cast) as well as the darker take on a more monstrous Spider-Man. That’s why it makes sense that the MCU’s return to street-level comic adventures would harken back to this particular storyline – especially since it appears that the Disney wishes to use the upcoming film as an opportunity to shine a light on other Marvel characters just like Semper did back in the day.
From what we can see in the trailer, Tom Holland’s Spider-Man appears to be going through his own additional transformations, including creepy fully black eyes and organic web-shooter, as well as the cocoon-building behavior previously seen in Marvel’s The Other arc in the comics. As I mentioned before, I doubt that the MCU will allow this particular cash cow to fully transform into a nightmarish spider freak that can scare away children, but there’s always a chance that the studio could surprise us with more horror elements. I’d also love to see the story explore Spidey’s mutation and use that as an excuse to formally introduce X-Men’s mutants into the MCU, especially since Sadie Sink is rumored to be playing Jean Grey in the flick.
However, even if Brand New Day doesn’t adapt as much of the Neogenic Nightmare as the promotional material has suggested, I’d argue that this particular season of Spider-Man: The Animated Series is still worth revisiting simply because it’s a great example of artists being able to work past network limitations in order to tell complex stories that approach full-on body-horror.
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