The Twilight Zone (2019) Season 2: The Who of You

When I started this look at season 2 of the 2019 Twilight Zone I did go into things with the hope it would be an improvement over season 1. Season 1 was bad but there was still potential there I hoped they would capitalise on. So far, that hasn't happened. The last two episodes failed to impress and I'm right back to where I was with Season 1. Watching simply to see how bad it could get but hoping in vein that it gets better. Fortunately my optism has returned because today's episode, “The Who of You”, is actually pretty good. It's not great or anything but at the end of the day it's a fun time and at this point I'll take anything fun. Warning, spoilers ahead.

Harry Pine is a struggling actor who is dealing with a disintegrating relationship. Harry is also somewhat entitled so he thinks his relationship with his girlfriend, who he suspects is cheating on him, is due to money problems and not because of him. When his power gets cut off due to an unpaid power bill, he does what every person desperate for money does, tries to rob a bank. During this robbery he looks into the eyes of the cashier and somehow swaps bodies with her. He uses this to escape but now the police give chase. Harry's body is taken into custody and every time he swaps bodies the soul, for lack of a better term, of the person whose body he inhabits goes to his body at the precinct. Suffice to say the detective working on the case is gonna have a confusing day.

So what we have here is a typical body swap story and a pretty decent one at that. Body swap stories like this really only need two things to work, a colourful cast of characters and actors who can convincingly swap between said characters. And that's exactly what this episode has. Harry swaps between multiple different bodies throughout the episode from a female cashier, to a kid and even a very camp con man who is easily the best character in the entire episode. Not only are these character varied enough to make the body swapping fun but the acting is superb. Whenever Harry inhabits a body the actors will act and even talk as he does while Harry's body acts as they do leading to some genuinely funny moments. While the entire cast is great the two standouts for me are Brian Porter as the con man, again best character, and Ethan Embry who has to play multiple roles as Harry's original body and he does an excellent job.

If I can praise this episode for one thing, it's that it's fun. It isn't a complicated story, its basically one long chase, but character motivations are clearly defined and the rules for the body swapping are easy to understand. It does a good job of getting you invested by keeping things straight forward and builds tension effectively since you do want to know what happens to these characters. Last time I looked at “Downtime” which ended with a chase sequence that lacked tension because you didn't care for what was going on. “The Who of You” does not have this problem. The episode does a good job of building tension, which makes the scenes where Harry has to make a run for it all the more enjoyable. This is helped by some pretty fantastic pacing. I know, I'm as shocked as you are but the pacing in this episode was actually really good. It never meandered at any point and it used it's length effectively. At no point did I feel like the episode was wasting my time. “The Who of You” is almost the complete opposite of “Downtime” in that it starts off slow put then picks thing up as it goes on, continuiously building to something that actually pays off somewhat.

From a structural perspective this episode is incredibly tight. Pacing is great and the tone is consistent. “The Who of You” has some genuinely funny moments that never feel out of place despite the somewhat serious tone. One criticism I have for the episode is the drab cinematography and editing. This show takes itself way too seriously and “The Who of You” does suffer from this to a certain extent but it is still nice to see that the show is capable of trying to have fun with itself. It's a step in the right direction, albeit a small one. However, despite all of what I've just said, this episode does have one major flaw. For as fun as it is and for as structurally sound as it might be, it's also rather shallow.

I criticised Season 1 for being very heavy handed with it's messages. Season 2, at least so far, appears to have addressed this criticism by putting less emphasis on the messages. So far though it appears that they've over corrected. The original Twilight Zone was a series of morality plays. Stories designed to impart messages of the human condition. The 2019 Twilight Zone failed to do this in season 1 by becoming marred in politics while season 2 has “corrected” this issue by removing the politics entirely. Which is a good thing, but they also failed to replace it with anything. The last three episodes of 2019 Twilight Zone have had interesting concepts but little in terms of meaning or depth. I think “The Who of You” is meant to be about entitlement and how you only get what you want through sacrifice. The episode ends with Harry in the body of the detective who was chasing him and his old body getting shot. He returns to his girlfriend only to discover she was cheating on him with the detective. He gets the girl but not in the way he wanted. There is an attempt at a deeper message here but it ultimately falls flat. The episode doesn't do a good job of convincing me that Harry had grown as a character which made the ending feel a little weak. Not a bad ending by any means but not a great one either.

“The Who of You” is a fun episode but it lacks depth and substance. The Twilight Zone is the perfect blend of both and so far this new version hasn't lived up to that. “The Who of You” is an enjoyable episode and one I can recommend but it may leave you wanting more. Still it is an improvement on what came before it and I now have a renewed sense of optimism for this series going forward. It's gained some momentum, let's see if it can keep it.