The Twilight Zone (2019) Season 2: Among The Untrodden

The Twilight Zone, like most anthology shows, is a rollercoaster. Not in the fact that it's a fast paced thrill ride as it's often quite the opposite, but in the fact that it zips up and down rapidly. For every dizzying high there's a terrifying low. Last time we looked at the lowest point so far so it therefore stands to reason that the episode after that should be a high point. In theory anyway. Then you remember that season 1 followed “Not All Men” with “Point of Origin” which were both different flavours of awful. Suffice to say my expectations for “Among The Untrodden” were subterranean. I went in expecting the absolute worst. Then I watched it, and something terrible happened. I actually liked it. Warning, spoilers ahead.

“Among the Untrodden” follows Irene, a young transfer student at Saint Mary's Boarding School. Irene is somewhat of an oddball in that she's fascinated with psychic powers to the point that she is doing a science project on it. As you would expect, this leads to Irene being teased by a group of “popular” girls. Irene soon discovers that one of the “popular” girls, Madison, may have psychic powers of her own. Madison doesn't buy this at first but she does agree to further testing and soon finds that she does indeed have psychic powers and she slowly becomes friends with Irene. A friendship that becomes strained when Irene tries more and more to fit in with the “popular” girls. Something Madison is uncomfortable with.

This is a very character driven story. There really isn't much of a plot but that's ok be cause the main focus is on the friendship that develops between the two main characters.

Thankfully the episode handles this very well. Irene is an oddball and an outcast that just wants some form of acceptance so her trying to fit in with the “popular” girls makes sense. Madison on the other hand is already part of the “popular” girls clique so her character is more centred on being stand offish and not being able to open up to others. Both characters are believable and their developments make sense. Madison comes across as a bit of a bitch but she's like that by necessity. She isn't very likable at first but by the end you do understand why she is the way she is. Irene is meant to be the likable protagonist and she is which makes it frustrating when she makes an ass of herself trying to fit in. But it also makes sense, it's high school. Everyone went through an issue like this at some point during high school. We all try to change ourselves to fit in with some clique, that's kind of how society works.

I liked both main characters but the side characters did come across as a bit one dimensional, especially the “popular” girls. The story on the whole though is very good. The psychic powers are used effectively and tie into the main theme very well. When you think of psychic powers and The Twilight Zone the first thing you think of is “It's a Good Life” where the kid could do whatever he wanted because his powers were god like. “Among the Untrodden” never quite goes that far as the powers are given clearly defined limits which are explained pretty well. My only real issue with the story is that it could have been fleshed out a little bit more. While the friendship between the two main characters is believable at the end, I would have liked to have seen a little more of them growing a little closer. Madison also acts like a jerk to a lot of people and doesn't show remorse for it until the very end which feels like a mistake. I've complained that this show in the past often runs too long but in this case it's the opposite. I feel like it could have been a little longer. It could have used a few additional scenes to flesh certain things out. I will give it credit that a lot of the development is subtle which is good to see but it leaves a lot of the development up to the ending.

Speaking of which let's talk about that ending. As Madison begins to explore her powers she discovers she can conjure up objects. She conjures a key that allows her friends and Irene to go to the balcony but the key disintegrates when used since the object can only exist until it serves it's purpose. Following an argument Irene falls off the balcony but miraculously survives. She continues to embarrass herself in front of the “popular” girls in a vein attempt to join them, until the science fair where the “popular” girls show all the stuff she did in front of everyone humiliating her. Irene lets out a scream which causes the display to break and the “popular” girls to drop dead. Madison confronts Irene over this claiming that Irene was the one with psychic powers all along. But Irene claims that she doesn't have powers and that it was Madison who did everything, including killing the”popular” girls to protect Irene. Madison doesn't buy that claiming that she hoped Irene would just be a normal girl and that they could be friends to which Irene says that they are friends and the two hug it out. Only for Irene to crumple into dust. She was a construct created by Madison to deal with her own loneliness.

This is the first twist this season that actually works. It's foreshadowed throughout the episode and the fake out of Irene being the psychic is effective as it's equally believable. It can be a little predictable if you pay attention but I'll take a predictable twist that makes sense over a “Gotcha!” twist that makes no sense.

It also works because it ties into the central theme of the episode. That being loneliness. Madison on the surface may appear to have friends but it's a facade. I've been putting the word popular in quotation marks when describing Madisons clique because “popular” girls aren't popular, they're arrogant, spoiled little bitch queens who take out their own shallow emptyness on others. Madison was the only one cognisent of that fact that she tried to get out. Her psychic powers developing and the creation of Irene representing her subconscious desire for actual friendship. Irene therefore is a projection of what Madison wants. Madison tries everything to prevent Irene from joining her clique to protect her from becoming like them. Madison's psychic powers are therefore a metaphor of her awakening to her own shallowness and self imposed isolation. She acts like a bitch to people out of fear of becoming attached to anyone, fearing that they will betray and abandon her. But human beings need companionship in order to survive so she creates Irene and another girl at the very end in an attempt to escape from the isolation she herself created. If I may be 100% honest, this is the first episode of the 2019 Twilight Zone, to actually feel like the Twilight Zone. Finally, it only took them 15 episodes. There's no political posturing of any kind just a simple story dealing with the struggles and loneliness of being in high school through metaphor and the supernatural. More of this please.

Really my only chief complaints with this epiisode are issues with the 2019 version as a whole. I've already talked about how drab this series has looked many times so I won't bore you with it any further but there is one issue that I haven't talked about yet, the dialogue. Now this is somewhat unfair because it's not a problem exclusive to Twilight Zone 2019 but this needs to be said regardless. It's a practice in modern writing to make dialogue more real. To make the conversations more realistic in a way to make it more natural. This, in my opinion, is wrong. To me making the dialogue more realistic makes it sound less natural. Dialogue should be like a dance of words. It should but more emphasis on the emotion of the words spoken because that leads to such dialogue sounding more natural when spoken aloud. Look at Shakespeare, no one talks like he wrote even during his time and yet the words he wrote flow more naturally from an actors toungue than any other.

The original Twilight Zone had masterful dialogue. Every line had meaning and depth, it was deeply quotable to the point that people still quote it decades after it's initial release. The 2019 Twilight Zone is criticised by some for containing swears but to me that isn't the issue. The real issue is how base the dialogue is. So unmemorable and lacking in meaning that you fail to remember a single word of it not five minutes after viewing it. The dialogue is also too blunt, often hammering the point home with the force of a mac truck. A good example is with the narration. Jordan Peele's narration is designed to explain the message to the audience in a way that almost feels insulting to their intelligence while Serling's narration trusted in it's audience intelligence and would read almost like poetry. I'm not saying that natural sounding dialogue doesn't work or that there's no place for it, because there absolutely is, but it doesn't work well for The Twiligh Zone.

“Among the Untrodden” is the best episode of season 2 thus far. The closest the show has come to matching the orignal series. I wouldn't say it's up to the standards of the original series as that is a nigh on impossible task but it does match the best of the 1980's version of The Twilight Zone. And that's saying a lot from me because I really like the 80's Twilight Zone. I enjoyed “The Who of You” well enough but this is the first genuine hit this season has had. I would recommend it to most Twilight Zone fans as long as they're open minded enough to accept that it isn't quite like the original. We're halfway done folks and things are looking up. But if that roller coaster analogy I made at the beginning is accurate that could mean, we're in for a drop. Until next time, remember to stay safe and have fun.