The Twilight Zone - Mute

Say what you will about the fourth season and its overly extended near-hour episodes but what it did do was allow actors to fully flesh out their characters. “Mute” has two really strong performances and has a really potent, emotional story with a lot of heart to it. In Germany a pact is formed by a select group deciding to uphold an agreement regarding total devotion to telepathy. Ann Jillian, as a child, was Ilse, a child prodigy of parents who put mental telepathic evolution above parental love and warmth, training her to be a wunderkind instead of raising her in an environment devoted to her development as a fully functioning human being. When they die in a fire, using telepathy to lead their child out of the burning house, Ilse is without family as her parents only ties to anyone were in Europe. The chief law enforcement officer in the town of German Corners, Harry Wheeler (Frank Overton), takes Ilse home to stay until he can get her to her rightful location (actually her godparents were to be Germans Éva Szörényi and Oscar Beregi Jr.), and his wife takes to her right away. Barbara Baxley is really the emotional anchor of this episode, an aching wife of Harry Wheeler, named Cora, enduring the painful loss still of her daughter, who drowned accidentally. Ilse is like a gift to Cora, a second chance to be the mother she always wanted to be but was denied by tragic fate. Ilse’s never been allowed to talk, just communicating with her parents mentally, thoughts to thoughts. Ilse was never allowed to go to school, kept at home with her parents to learn strictly through telepathic means. Cora, undeterred by Ilse’s inability to communicate vocally, nevertheless tries to be a nurturer, motherly and comforting, offering her support and compassion. Harry gets the address to the Werners and sends them a letter, not knowing that Cora burned it so that she could hold onto Ilse, perhaps deemed selfish and inappropriate, but desperation often encourages such behavior. If anything, it did prove that Cora wanted badly to be Ilse’s mother, even if she went about it maybe incorrectly. Harry eventually sends Ilse to schoolteacher Miss Frank (Irene Dailey), stern and confident, believing her parents neglected her. Cora is reluctant but walks Ilse each day to the school, hesitant to leave her but understanding it was maybe the right thing to do. Each day Miss Frank persists in Ilse’s breaking the “mute barrier”, urging her to stand before the class to say her name. Frank even gets Ilse alone and reveals that her own parents were using the telepathy treatment on her; this revelation has inspired Frank to not let another child go through such a similar appearance. An eye-raising conversation has Frank openly considering the death of Ilse’s parents as beneficial to the girl (!) with Cora reacting in shock, retorting such an unnecessary comment. But Frank eventually uses a clever trick to torment Ilse out of her own head by having the class students think aloud her name in unison. This works as the aching voices create this harsh cacophony, and their imbalance breaks the calm Ilse had before school and her parents’ death. As expected, Ilse breaks and the Werners arrive, realizing she’s no longer the telepathic wonder they were anticipating. Baxley has a hell of a part. Matheson’s script perhaps identified what her character was going through but Baxley carries the load and then some. The weight of losing her daughter, with this new arrival seemingly offering her a “substitute” with Ilse, Baxley really lays it all out in her face and posture. I thought she was magnificent, really. There’s this anxiety at someone arriving to take her away, even. When her husband reminds her of this being temporary, you can just see Cora resisting that, not allowing it to set in and take root. I think her situation is very relatable and those who have faced a similar tragedy and second chance will find “Mute” rewarding and pleasant. Is it wish fulfillment delivered by the Twilight Zone? Certainly, but Cora hugs Ilse at the end, tears flowing, and this episode concludes with both walking to school, holding hands and smiling, leaving us with quite a heartwarming close…beyond biology, nevertheless a mother and daughter, brought together out of the worst of circumstances, in the Twilight Zone. Good to see Beregi in a friendlier part as his stints in the Twilight Zone favored the darker side of humanity.