Finally, a simple premise meets a great execution. THIS is "The Twilight Zone".
Sanaa Lathan plays Nina, a mother accompanying her son on the trip to college, along with her trusty camcorder- recording every moment before he goes off for good. But after stopping in a cafe for lunch, a racist cop spots them and starts to follow them threateningly for no other reason than they are black. She begins to film the incident unfolding, but before anything bad can happen she accidentally presses REWIND- and the world rewinds her right back to the cafe where they were having lunch.
As the episode unfolds, it becomes clear that the cop is so racist that no matter how many times Nina rewinds or tries to outsmart him, he always finds a way to altercate them.
That's quite terrifying, and pertinent to everything happening today.
My favorite scene is in the middle, when Nina decides to mitigate the situation and apply to the cop's good side by buying him a slice of pie at the cafe to thank him for his "hard work"- almost like a Hail Mary. And she even sits down and speaks with him for a bit- while knowing the whole time who this man really is inside. Despite Nina's colloquial smile, one can tell how absolutely afraid she is for her son's safety and hers. It was a brilliantly directed scene that built tension in a way I've never seen done in the Zone.
The only critique of this episode is the somewhat-cheesy ending (which I still won't spoil). But this was the episode that made me think "You know, maybe this iteration of the Zone won't be so bad after all."
How wrong I ended up being. But at least this episode was a very good one. And I do wish Sanaa Lathan received an Emmy nomination for Guest Actress over Kumail Nanjiani. She had the better performance.
Sanaa Lathan plays Nina, a mother accompanying her son on the trip to college, along with her trusty camcorder- recording every moment before he goes off for good. But after stopping in a cafe for lunch, a racist cop spots them and starts to follow them threateningly for no other reason than they are black. She begins to film the incident unfolding, but before anything bad can happen she accidentally presses REWIND- and the world rewinds her right back to the cafe where they were having lunch.
As the episode unfolds, it becomes clear that the cop is so racist that no matter how many times Nina rewinds or tries to outsmart him, he always finds a way to altercate them.
That's quite terrifying, and pertinent to everything happening today.
My favorite scene is in the middle, when Nina decides to mitigate the situation and apply to the cop's good side by buying him a slice of pie at the cafe to thank him for his "hard work"- almost like a Hail Mary. And she even sits down and speaks with him for a bit- while knowing the whole time who this man really is inside. Despite Nina's colloquial smile, one can tell how absolutely afraid she is for her son's safety and hers. It was a brilliantly directed scene that built tension in a way I've never seen done in the Zone.
The only critique of this episode is the somewhat-cheesy ending (which I still won't spoil). But this was the episode that made me think "You know, maybe this iteration of the Zone won't be so bad after all."
How wrong I ended up being. But at least this episode was a very good one. And I do wish Sanaa Lathan received an Emmy nomination for Guest Actress over Kumail Nanjiani. She had the better performance.