Another very good TZ ep. Becoming young again (this episode and "Short drink from certain fountain"), time travel ("Walking distance", "20 yards over the rim"), the afterlife ("The hunt", "Stop at Willoughby"), and eternal life ("Long live Walter Jamison", "Queen of the Nile") have been excellent topics that have made Twilight zone so great.
In "The trade ins", elderly couple appear to be in the future (the future from the 1960s anyway) at a museum/hospital type clinic where they see young adult bodies on display. Those bodies would actually become the old person's new body through a mind/soul transfer procedure. The old man mentions several times the intense pain he is always in through very old, dysfunction, aching muscles and joints. He looks very uncomfortable with his facial expressions and his struggling to walk and move around, which makes his pain look quite convincing. His wife, younger by about 5 years but also in her twilight years is also very enthusiastic about the body switching procedure. The problem is the finances. The old man has saved up 5 thousand dollars through his years of hard work, but the body transfer job is 5,000 a person. The old man refuses to get it done alone without his wife by his side doing it with him, in spite of his burning desire to be young again and to be out of his constant pain. (what about him just taking some good doses of methadone, oxycodone, or morphine to ease his pain. They were around in the 1960s, but since this episode was supposed to be the future well beyond the 1960s, perhaps all those painkillers had been discontinued in this future. He really looked like he was suffering that pain raw and not taking anything for it)
SPOILER BELOW
This takes us to the first of two very poignant moving scenes where the man visits a bar and a back room with card players for high stakes. His desperation gets him to insist on taking the chance. The way the man started crying and looking in such unbearable despair was hard to watch. Between knowing that he's about to lose the entire $5,000 and now realize there will never be a way out of his pain, he looked at the very end of his rope now. Then we see the card dealer and proprietor of the bar do something very unusual for a card dealer to do; he technically lost but the dealer decided, since he really felt sorry for him, gave him the full $5,000 back he walked in with (in spite of him earlier in the game saying "I'm gonna clean you out").
Then, his wife, made an ultimate noble move herself (even though later on severely regretting it). She told him to go ahead and get his side of the procedure done and transfer himself on to that 24 year old strong, fit, masculine body on display that he really wanted. She was so happy for him at the moment However, once she sees for the first time this young, ecstatic, gleamingly thrilled young man running and dancing around the room in pure joy by his new return to a strong, happy, healthy and fit young man, she goes into utter shock and then suddenly realizes how just him has taken the miracle journey on his own without her. She may still have been physically next to him, but she was no longer next to him due to the dramatically increased distance that he has just moved away from her in almost every way possible. She was now dramatically different from him, 50 years apart in age, and now him being extremely enthused about doing things that she could not really do with him now. It's true, it really had to be either both of them or neither of them. He then makes the most noble sacrifice of all; he goes back to being an 80 year old in horrible pain and at the last part of life, and he did it all for her.
In "The trade ins", elderly couple appear to be in the future (the future from the 1960s anyway) at a museum/hospital type clinic where they see young adult bodies on display. Those bodies would actually become the old person's new body through a mind/soul transfer procedure. The old man mentions several times the intense pain he is always in through very old, dysfunction, aching muscles and joints. He looks very uncomfortable with his facial expressions and his struggling to walk and move around, which makes his pain look quite convincing. His wife, younger by about 5 years but also in her twilight years is also very enthusiastic about the body switching procedure. The problem is the finances. The old man has saved up 5 thousand dollars through his years of hard work, but the body transfer job is 5,000 a person. The old man refuses to get it done alone without his wife by his side doing it with him, in spite of his burning desire to be young again and to be out of his constant pain. (what about him just taking some good doses of methadone, oxycodone, or morphine to ease his pain. They were around in the 1960s, but since this episode was supposed to be the future well beyond the 1960s, perhaps all those painkillers had been discontinued in this future. He really looked like he was suffering that pain raw and not taking anything for it)
SPOILER BELOW
This takes us to the first of two very poignant moving scenes where the man visits a bar and a back room with card players for high stakes. His desperation gets him to insist on taking the chance. The way the man started crying and looking in such unbearable despair was hard to watch. Between knowing that he's about to lose the entire $5,000 and now realize there will never be a way out of his pain, he looked at the very end of his rope now. Then we see the card dealer and proprietor of the bar do something very unusual for a card dealer to do; he technically lost but the dealer decided, since he really felt sorry for him, gave him the full $5,000 back he walked in with (in spite of him earlier in the game saying "I'm gonna clean you out").
Then, his wife, made an ultimate noble move herself (even though later on severely regretting it). She told him to go ahead and get his side of the procedure done and transfer himself on to that 24 year old strong, fit, masculine body on display that he really wanted. She was so happy for him at the moment However, once she sees for the first time this young, ecstatic, gleamingly thrilled young man running and dancing around the room in pure joy by his new return to a strong, happy, healthy and fit young man, she goes into utter shock and then suddenly realizes how just him has taken the miracle journey on his own without her. She may still have been physically next to him, but she was no longer next to him due to the dramatically increased distance that he has just moved away from her in almost every way possible. She was now dramatically different from him, 50 years apart in age, and now him being extremely enthused about doing things that she could not really do with him now. It's true, it really had to be either both of them or neither of them. He then makes the most noble sacrifice of all; he goes back to being an 80 year old in horrible pain and at the last part of life, and he did it all for her.