The Twilight Zone - Two

While I can envision “Two” perhaps being a bit slow for some viewers, I think this is Twilight Zone at its very best. I really think this is an excellent half hour of sci-fi drama television. This is also, to me, an excellent use of Chuck Bronson. This kind of story just fits him like a well tailored suit. In the “distant” future, some nondescript town, leveled obviously by some great world war, reveals an “invader” (Liz Montgomery of “Bewitched”), in battle fatigues (a dress, coat, and knee-high boots), covered in soot and dirt, clearly hunting for food and shelter eventually encountering a soldier (Charles Bronson), in disheveled uniform, with a grizzled visage and unshaven face. At first this invader goes on the assault, hurling pots and pans (and basically anything she can get her hands on) at him, until he socks her across the chops, knocking her unconscious. While she dozes, Chuck takes advantage of a cup Liz opened featuring some chicken legs (I have always wondered just how healthy those could be), devouring the meat with great relish. He doesn’t eat all of them, leaving her a few as well. Eventually he finds a pan of water and drenches her face, awakening her.

Because they were on opposing forces, there is distrust and caution. But Chuck is tired, damn tired. He is fed up with fighting, death, and war. In the town, one of my favorite aspects of this anti-war parable is the visual symbols of combat recruitment. You see signs and such begging for any man or woman to join up for the war effort, including a marquee at a theater where two different skeletal remains with machine guns lie just inside the building. Earlier in the episode, Chuck is investigating the town, locating the skeletal remains of birds in a cage of a café he and Liz raided for scraps. Later in the episode, Chuck finds a dress modeled in a picture window by a mannequin, realizing Liz desires to wear it, considering it “precassney” (pretty, I guess, in her native language). Chuck insists she put it on, but the building she chooses to change in is a recruitment office. With all the signs designed for soldier combat interest and appealing to volunteers joining the fight against the enemy, Liz is urged to take shots at Chuck, dropping him backwards in fear of being hit (the gun fires laser blasts). Again, he’s fed up with this, and her attempt to attack him is the last straw. He will venture on somewhere else.

In the episode Liz often will follow behind Chuck, shadowing him. With raccoon-eyed mascara and this carefully cultivated survival instinct disguising an interest in Chuck, Liz says one word and communicates almost entirely with her face and expressive demeanor. I love her work in this episode. While charming on “Bewitched”, I just thought it was neat to see her three years before her most famous role in such a much different role. Even as she is “dirtied up”, there is just no disguising her beauty. Behind the guarded exterior and hesitant ability to embrace Chuck’s attempts at an olive branch, I loved how Montgomery gives little clues in her performance hinting at a desire to be in his company.

Chuck does “tired and pissed off” well. I enjoyed just how he would toss a dress or a towel (or bar of soap) at Montgomery, annoyed at her because her uniform and previous assault still reminds him of what has been lost. There was this moment I found quite amusing where Bronson just shouts into an open ceiling in the restaurant towards the sky declaring an end to the war. Liz doesn’t understand him so there is that language barrier they will have to overcome. That is something else I also consider a gem of this episode: the ability of the two of them to communicate despite the language setback. Through action must they speak to each other in a way they can understand. Shaving his face is even made interesting by Bronson because of the situation and compelling abandoned sets used for the episode. These amazing rundown Hal Roach sets for the town are an incredible visual that really gives the story a just-right aesthetic backdrop. Clearly once Bronson leaves her behind, Liz recognizes that his companionship beats loneliness. And he’s really patient with her despite the resistance. The emphasis on “ridding themselves of the different colors on their uniforms” is a call to rise above warring and move past the killing. Enough is enough. The two of them walking side by side towards whatever future awaits them is that “moving past their differences”, accepting each other. Serling tells us at the end: what we watched was a love story. And this love story was borne out of the battered shell of a town left in the ruins of war. And out of all this is two people wanting more than what was left them.