The Who of You
Episode 3 of The Twilight Zone Season 2 begins with an actor called Harry reading lines but struggling to impress. Instead, he heads home empty-handed once more. It’s clear he resents the success of his girlfriend Morena and as the electricity goes out, Harry admits nonchalantly that he hasn’t paid the bill. In a bid to try and make more money, Harry takes drastic measures and decides to rob a bank. Only, as he looks in the eyes of the clerk he switches bodies and finds himself adopting the role of this woman called Jill. She tries to rush off out the back door but her coworker Belinda stops her from going. A nearby police officer overhears the commotion and comes running, snatching the bag from her hands. As she looks at the officer, Harry switches bodies once more and hurries out the building with the bag of cash. This cat and mouse game continues, with Harry switching places with numerous people to outrun the police. Everytime he does, the person he switches with adopts his body in the police station while he’s questioned by understandably-confused officers. Eventually Harry heads in to see a fortune teller who helps try and get through to Harry about his reckless behaviour. After shouting at him, the fortune teller forces Harry outside but unfortunately the bag of money is still stuck in the office. This prompts Harry to go on a mission to try and retrieve the bag. As the show reaches its dramatic conclusion, Harry switches into the detective’s body while inside the fortune teller’s apartment. Police rush into the building as gunshots sound and Harry is killed. As the detective (now actually Harry) arrives to break the bad news to Morena, it turns out she’s been having an affair with this man all this time. Harry decides to play along and takes on the role of the detective. This brings Harry back into the audition again where he impresses and is given the lead role, which is where the episode ends. While the character depth for Harry is a little lacking, revolving solely around his selfish desire to get cash quickly, the episode does raise some interesting ethical questions around just what we would do for money. Body switching has been done numerous times in the past though but there’s certainly a conscious desire to add an original spin on this trope here, which does work quite well. With a bittersweet ending, one that does leave a fair amount of questions hanging over this, The Twilight Zone delivers a pretty enjoyable episode that overshadows the opening couple of chapters.
