A lonely bachelor makes a telepathic connection with a stranger, but not everything is as it seems in his new romance.A lonely bachelor makes a telepathic connection with a stranger, but not everything is as it seems in his new romance.A lonely bachelor makes a telepathic connection with a stranger, but not everything is as it seems in his new romance.
Emily Chang
- Barista Lily
- (as Emily C. Chang)
Storyline
Did you know
- TriviaSara Amini and Emily Chang who co-wrote the episode, also served as Jimmi Simpson dinner dates. The later date was the Barista from the Coffee Bar.
- GoofsNear the end, you can hear the sound of handcuffs being used by the police officers as they arrest Phil on the floor of Annie's home. While being brought to the police car, he still seems to be handcuffed as his hands are restrained behind his back, but once he's in the back seat, he can clearly be seen thrashing about with no sign of any handcuffs restraining him.
- Quotes
The Narrator: [opening narration] A voice in your head can mean a few different things. A conscience, divine inspiration, or madness. But what if instead, it were a case of crossed wires? One made through the tangled enigmatic switchboards of the Twilight Zone.
- Crazy creditsThe episode ends with an "in memoriam" to Carolyn Serling Carol Serling, Rod Serling's widow. Carolyn (1929-2020) died on 9 Jan 2020, one month shy of her 91st birthday.
- ConnectionsReferences The Twilight Zone: To Serve Man (1962)
Featured review
"They council me, they understand. They talk to me"
I did individual episode reviews for each addition to the first season of Jordan Peele's newly rebooted "Twilight Zone". Mostly those were a catalogue of disappointment, but here we are again, for the second season and this first episode was actually alright.
Whilst on a date that isn't going very well Phil Hayes (Jimmi Simpson) starts to hear a voice in his head. The voice isn't an inner monologue though, rather belonging to a separate personality, Annie (Gillian Jacobs) who seems equally annoyed as Phil about the situation. After coming to the belief that Annie is a real person, and not just a manifestation of a personality disorder, the pair bond and Phil falls in love, but as they plan to meet disaster strikes.
I felt that a lot of the first season's failings were because they chose to beat the message into you with a mallet. Here though, the subtlety was increased a bit and a story about not blindly trusting the messages and images people choose to present of themselves to you, was nicely done. The voice in the head was never explained, which is fine, it's just a science fiction-y cypher for social media. The story was pretty good, it sagged a little in the middle, with the "getting to know you, getting to know all about you" section running a bit long. Maybe we could have mined the dates with the shows two writers, Emily Chang and Sara Amini, a little more instead or seen the pair bond over something else, a work issue or something like that.
Jimmi Simpson has been nailing these "decent" guys with awful undertones for a while now. I liked the subtle nods to his buried racism on his first date, but he keeps the character building across the run and the ending that he gets too feels plausible, again, despite that conceptual tweak that has got him here.
Whilst it's not a classic, it's better than many of the episodes of the first season.
Whilst on a date that isn't going very well Phil Hayes (Jimmi Simpson) starts to hear a voice in his head. The voice isn't an inner monologue though, rather belonging to a separate personality, Annie (Gillian Jacobs) who seems equally annoyed as Phil about the situation. After coming to the belief that Annie is a real person, and not just a manifestation of a personality disorder, the pair bond and Phil falls in love, but as they plan to meet disaster strikes.
I felt that a lot of the first season's failings were because they chose to beat the message into you with a mallet. Here though, the subtlety was increased a bit and a story about not blindly trusting the messages and images people choose to present of themselves to you, was nicely done. The voice in the head was never explained, which is fine, it's just a science fiction-y cypher for social media. The story was pretty good, it sagged a little in the middle, with the "getting to know you, getting to know all about you" section running a bit long. Maybe we could have mined the dates with the shows two writers, Emily Chang and Sara Amini, a little more instead or seen the pair bond over something else, a work issue or something like that.
Jimmi Simpson has been nailing these "decent" guys with awful undertones for a while now. I liked the subtle nods to his buried racism on his first date, but he keeps the character building across the run and the ending that he gets too feels plausible, again, despite that conceptual tweak that has got him here.
Whilst it's not a classic, it's better than many of the episodes of the first season.
helpful•41
- southdavid
- Dec 21, 2020
Details
- Runtime43 minutes
- Color
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