The Twilight Zone-The Encounter

***/****

As the fifth and final season was nearing its end, The Encounter found a home and for many years I think it kind of was left unattended by an audience due to its topical, controversial subject matter. I found this episode quite spellbinding, confrontational, brave, and certainly unsettling. Daring to focus on the guilt of two men seemingly with a deep affect derived from the war and attack on Pearl Harbor, stories are shared thanks to a samurai sword found in Neville Brand's attic while surfing through twenty years of collective odds and ends, many from a war he's never been able to recover from and forget. And certainly the message of how America was becoming more diverse especially seeps in to the conversation as Brand waxes angry about losing his "cat job" to "cheap labor". He continues to throw up minorities as he achingly reveals his inner troubled thoughts with help from guzzled booze, a free flowing chatter, and the sight of a Japanese-American lawn "manicurist", played by George Takei, with a face reminding him of a past operating as a bruise that doesn't heal. Takei, in such a deft performance, also reminded of his father's betrayal, with first hand account of Pearl Harbor, having once lived in Hawaii, never able to relinquish the grief of what happened when he was just four years old.

The supernatural aspects don’t overwhelm the subject matter but reinforce its power. The sword, taken from a Japanese soldier by Neville who murdered him in cold blood, has writing on its blade that acknowledges the vengeance its owner will eventually carry out (even if no longer “alive”), as Takei, with a subtlety that I definitely appreciated, seems to take on a different personality (of the sword’s owner perhaps?); the end results seems predestined almost. The door to Neville’s home fastened by a stronghold perhaps otherworldly (a nice touch at the end shows it opening on its own), with these two struck with each other, tempers flare as thoughts spark in the inebriated (and highly emotionally charged) brain of both men.

Neville Brand fits the perfect profile of a disgruntled, disillusioned, frustrated, and insecure unemployed war vet who seems lost after returning home, conditioned into a killing machine where the “enemy” was considered as little more than apes, finding it difficult to process that they are “cultured” and not just animals to annihilate. Takei being a Japanese-American, with a face that is too reminiscent to Brand of a people he was once trained to destroy, was just at the wrong place, at the wrong time, arriving at his house offering to tend to the man’s yard not discuss war…but perhaps to the sword (or the spirit of its owner) it was right place, right time and forces at work finally converged to see that Brand answer for his past misdeeds. Once Takei takes hold of the sword (through no fault of his own as he didn’t want to touch it), the events that transpire seem cosmic. Brand, his life in ruins as the missus left the premises to stay at her sister’s as he pops the top of one beer after another, tells Takei that he honestly just didn’t want to be alone and does seem to try and mend the fences his racism (which comes in the form of certain wordspeak, penetrating his language despite his efforts to try and tone it down) undermines. By the end, the soldier spirit has overtaken Takei and Brand can’t undo what he started, through attempts at finessing the tension his mouth continues to spit out racist comments beer loosens from the latent hold. I have never been sure how to take Takei leaping out the window, sword in hand, yelling, “Bonzai!” or when Takei goes into expressive, animated depiction of the Japanese planes attacking Pearl Harbor. But I do really like his work especially in the scene where the recognition of Takei that his dad was a traitor expresses his ache and welling tears, communicating to us this lingering toll carrying that baggage around has accosted him daily during his life…it is a performance that really worked its magic with me more when Takei is allowed to portray subtle nuance instead of full-bore hysterics. 

But I think that was to make a point, and through its controversial message, the episode was sort of [well, maybe blacklisted in too strong a word, but perhaps not] disavowed for a long time as Syfy (pretty much the channel that has been its main home for years) didn’t show it as had any other location as syndication left The Encounter to remain in the ether. 

Today the episode might be the subject of much discussion as it has a message that is quite potent and reveals a lot about the harbored and often vocally expressed racism coming out of the presidency (and has always existed), surfacing out of the same angst, frustration, vulnerability, and hate that Brand felt. Brand is perhaps considered the embodiment of the confused working class man seeking to validate his existence through the results of his labor, having been sent into war with direct instructions to kill an enemy and returning home without purpose or direction, left to his own devices. Takei just happens upon him one day, offering to tend his lawn for a certain price, not intending to stay much less impale Brand with a sword. Brand insisted, not realizing that the sword he took off a man he killed who had surrendered and was not on the offensive would be the key to his own demise.

*The "I will kill him" line early as Takei holds the sword is certainly prophetic, but Brand's own dismissive tone using "Taro" instead of "Arthur" when talking to him doesn't help matters.