The Twilight Zone (2019) Season 2: A Small Town

Well, I can't say I'm surprised. I said last time that I was prepared for this episode to be a disappointment. I was prepped for it like Batman. And, yeah I pretty much called it. This episode sucks. Now don't get the wrong idea here, “A Small Town” isn't bad because it's abhorrently terrible or anything, it's bad because it's so generic and safe that it ultimately leaves you feeling nothing at all. It's the text book definition of a filler episode. Warning, spoilers ahead.

The story centers around the small town of Littleton, yeah I know I cringed at that too, which is struggling financially due to a recently built highway drawing traffic away from the town. This was opposed by the last mayor, Trina Grant, but she died in an accident and was succeeded by the town treasurer who is basically every jerk ass mayor you've ever seen in any movie ever. Trina's widow, Jason, is still coping with her death and lamenting the state of the town. While cleaning the church loft he lives in he discovers a minature of the town. The minuature is an exact replica right down to the smallest detail and Jason discovers that anything he does to the mianture afects the actual town. So he uses it to try to help fix up the town. But when the douchbag mayor starts taking all the credit, Jason decides to use it to mess with the mayor instead.

So what we have here is a standard power corrupts absolute power corrupts absolutely narrative. It's similar to an original series episode “The Little People” just not as good. The main problem is that Jason is too likable of a character. He means well in what he does and we never get the sense the power is actually going to his head. Sure he messes with the mayor but that leads to another problem, the mayor is a complete asshole. He's every cliched politician character ever. He's a cartoon character, but ironically not enough of a cartoon character that he's fun to hate. If your going to make a character totally unlikable at least go ham on it. The mayor is meant to be a foil for the main character but a story like this doesn't work when the foil is the cartoonish bad guy.

Let's look at a story with a similar theme that actually did it well, Death Note. In that series the main character, Light Yagami, is kind of an egotist with delusions of granduer but he also wants to make the world better place, by killing all the bad people in the world using the Death Note and grows more evil as the power he wields begins to consume him. He isn't a hero but he's not an outright villain, at least at first. Meanwhile his foil is a detective named L simply trying to bring him to justice for the lives he's taken, so when Light kills L we can see how much Light has fallen. In “A Small Town” the roles are reversed. The mayor is a jerk, he's portrayed as someone who deserves what they get while Jason is a nice guy who just wants to help people. When Jason starts to mess with the mayor it doesn't feel like a fall from grace it feels like karmic justice being doled out.

If the mayor was more developed and actually had some depth, like maybe he means well but is woefully underequipped, maybe it could have worked. Instead he's just a generic jerk. And generic is the best way to describe this episode. It is so boring and safe you can predict everything that will happen, plot point by plot point, within 10 minute of watching it. And that's it. No, I'm serious that's all I got. This episode is so boring that there's nothing to say about it. There's no interesting message, twist or characters. It, has, nothing going for it. Say what you want about “Ovation” and “8” but at least I had something to talk about. Here, absolutely nothing. I don't feel anything about this episode, it just exists.

I could talk about the ending. After messing with the mayor for a bit, Jason goes back to try and help the town by building a better sign to attract visitors. But the sign short circuits causing a massive blackout. The mayor gets blamed for this but Jason confesses it was all him and shows off the power of the replica by making a giant gold ring appear and the douchebag mayor tries to take it so he can turn the town into Vegas. Have I mentioned how generic this character is. Anyway, a fight ensues, the replica is broken causing a lot of structural damage to the town and they all agree to come together to fix it using the giant ring to pay for it all. What can I say about that? I guess the message was that the power of community was stronger than the individual. Ok. At least it was short so it only wasted a little bit of my time.

I'm sorry ladies and gentlemen, I wish I had more to say but I don't. This episode is just there. To give you an idea of how basic this episode is, at one point they actually play He's Got The Whole World In His Hands. Seriously? You couldn't find any other songs to play. You had to go with the easiest pick you could find. Alright, let me say one positive about this episode before we wrap up. I actually like how it looks. I know I've complained a lot about the visuals in this season bt I actually think this one looks pretty good. I like the winter atmosphere, the lighting is nice. Just a pleasant episode to look at but that's all it has going for it.

This was painful. And the thing is, it isn't necesarrily a bad episode. Theres nothing offensively awful about it but it's so mind numbingly bland that it was a chore to get through. For as bad as this season could get at least it was an interesting kind of bad. This one just feels like filler. It was made simply because they needed 10 episodes a season. It exists, that's all I can say about it. I went into this expecting to be disappointed but, somehow, I still feel let down. Two more episode left guys and so far it's batting 3-5. meaning that these next episodes need to be good just so it can break even. Until next time, remember to stay safe and have fun.