June 8, 2023

Spoilers

“The Big Tall Wish”

“In this corner of the universe, a prizefighter named Bolie Jackson, 183 pounds and an hour and a half away from a comeback at St. Nick’s Arena. Mr. Bolie Jackson, who, by the standards of his profession is an aging, over-the-hill relic of what was, and who now sees a reflection of a man who has left too many pieces of his youth in too many stadiums for too many years before too many screaming people. Mr. Bolie Jackson, who might do well to look for some gentle magic in the hard-surfaced glass that stares back at him.”

Aging boxer Bolie Jackson looked to get his career back on track against some younger fighters. He was encouraged by a young boy who lives in the same building as he did. They were close and the boy told Bolie that he would wish for him to be able to win.

Things looked badly for Bolie, as he lay on the mat, staring up at the lights, the ref counting to 10. However, the little boy’s wish made everything right, flipping the script.

And all Bolie had to do was believe in magic.

Similar to some ideas found in Peter Pan, magic required that Bolie believed in it, but he couldn’t do it. This sent everything back to the way it was supposed to be.

This was a straight-forward episode that told a basic story. However, the all-black cast was anything but basic at the time of broadcast.

“A Nice Place to Visit”

“Rocky” Valentine was a thief. During a robbery, he wound up in a shoot out with the police and was shot. He awakes with a man who called himself Pip standing over him. Pip insisted that he was there to help him do anything he wanted, and gave him $700 dollars from his pocket.

Pip took Rocky to a hotel room, helped him win at gambling and brought him some beautiful women. Rocky realized that he had been shot to death by the cops and he guessed that he was in heaven and Pip was a guardian angel.

After awhile of never losing at gambling or never failing with the women, Rocky became bored and pressed Pip to find out how he could change things up. Rocky even said that he did not want to be in heaven any longer and wanted to go to the other place. Pip laughed and told Rocky that he was not in heaven, but was already in the other place.

Be careful what you wish for because you might get it feels like the moral of this story.

“A scared, angry little man who never got a break. Now he has everything he’s ever wanted – And he’s going to have to live with it for eternity – In The Twilight Zone.”

I found Rocky extremely annoying and he was difficult to watch. I figured the twist very early as if was obvious that Rocky wasn’t going to heaven. Heck, even Rocky wondered how he was in heaven.

Pip was definitely the highlight of the episode, but I found myself more irritated with the character and even the ironic ending did not rewcue that for me.

“Nightmare as a Child”

So this was the best of the three I watched for this post. I loved the psychological aspect of this episode.

“Month of November, hot chocolate, and a small cameo of a child’s face, imperfect only in its solemnity. And these are the improbable ingredients to a human emotion, an emotion, say, like—fear. But in a moment this woman, Helen Foley, will realize fear. She will understand what are the properties of terror. A little girl will lead her by the hand and walk with her into a nightmare”

When Helen met Markie, things felt odd. Little did we know that Markie was just a figment of her imagination. Something there to help Helen Foley remember the traumatic event of her mother’s murder.

Everything was triggered when she had seen the killer (off screen) by her school where she worked. This led to Markie and those memories returning.

Mr. Seldon, who was the killer, came by her apartment to see what she was remembering. He knew that she was the loose end, the person who witnessed his murder.

I really liked the fact that they did not make something supernatural or magical about this. Instead, they played the little girl as a psychological symptom.

Mr. Seldon did fall into the villain who just explains his plans trope. The audience did not have to have it laid out as such. At least, I figured that he was the killer. I could have had a better wrap up of the episode, but overall, this was decent.