Tom Bennett returns to work after having a heart transplant.  You know he is a prick because he is a CEO in the 1980s; the double-breasted suit and massive hairdo are timeless indicators.  I can’t say enough about that hair.  Literally — I just don’t have the vocabulary.  What is it?  It goes way beyond a mullet.

As he walks in, the staff begins singing For He’s a Jolly Good Fellow.  One guy is accompanying them on piano.  Or is he?  As Tom tells the gang to get back to work, the guy leaves but we see the keys continue to be depressed and the song continues.  OMG, the piano is haunted!  Wait, it’s just a player piano.  But in a show about the supernatural, the most obvious conclusion was that it as a ghost.  Why set up that distraction?

He immediately gets back to work, criticizing a deal made in his absence.  Then he stops and expresses a sudden desire to buy some boots.  So he goes out with his secretary to buy a pair.  Uncharacteristically, Tom then takes his secretary out for a hot dog, and a walk on the beach.  He sees a woman there who looks familiar, but he can’t remember where he has seen her.

That night, Tom and one of his minions go out to dinner.  He drives around aimlessly until he is suddenly compelled to pull up at a run down diner.  He sees that one of the waitresses is the woman he saw at the beach.  He impulsively asks her out to dinner, admitting that “this is out of nowhere” but she declines.

She tells her co-waitress . . . BTW, the women in this universe seem to have no names. ^[1]  Her friend tells her Tom looks like a good catch, that she should go.  Or she should go out with Ralph — a guy not even in the story, who still rates a name.  But the waitress says she is just not on the market now.  Her friend helpfully reminds her, “Jim is dead.  You aren’t.”  So, another man not even in the story gets a name.

Some days later, Tom’s secretary barges into his office and says, “OK, agreed we have no claims on each other.  Fine, but I will not be humiliated!”  What?  They have had a couple of scenes together, but there was not the slightest hint of any romance.  The dude just had a heart transplant and he didn’t even get a kiss on the cheek or houseplant from her.   Also she specifically feels humiliated because the other woman is “a waitress in some greasy spoon!”  Elitist!

He tells her he goes to the diner a couple times a week.   She sarcastically asks what brings him back, “the ambiance or the cuisine.”  He says he is comfortable there even though no one likes him, just like when Donald Trump does a press conference.  Mary-Jo refuses to serve him — hey, she has a name!   He questions why he keeps going back.  His secretary says, “Poor baby, all that meatloaf, but no love?”  Hunh?  Yeah, diners serve meatloaf, but what’s the connection?  She should have said, “Don’t let your meat loaf, Tom!”  Yeah, baby!

Once again, Tom is drawn back to the diner.  Mary-Jo ignores him when he says hello.  He asks for pie and she snaps, “I’m getting sick and tired of you hanging around here all the time!  You’re not coming here for the food!  And if you aren’t coming here for the food, there is nothing here for you!”  ZING!  She tells him to get in his fancy car and drive away.  After Mary-Jo walks away, her co-worker explains to Tom about her fiancee dying (although this is inexplicably covered up by insipid 1980’s synths).

The friend makes Mary-Jo at least talk to Tom.  He apologizes now that he knows she was in mourning.  Seeing how devastated she still is, Tom says, “You must have been pretty close.”  Close?  Well, he was her fiancee, dumb-ass.  It’s not like they were already married.

Mary-Jo says her fiancee had an auto accident and even then manged to do a good deed for someone else.  Tom catches on, about 10 minutes after the audience, and asks her fiancee’s name.  She gets on the bus, says, “Jimmy Adler,” and bursts into tears.

Tom’s doctor, in a shocking breach of confidentiality, confirms that the heart he received was from Jimmy Adler.  Tom begins to loosen up.  He is not such a shark at work, ^[2] buys some jeans, and trades in his Mercedes for a pickup. ^[3]  He goes back to the diner.  He sits there all day, until he is the last customer.

Finally she sits with him.  He says he is willing to wait for her.  She says Jimmy promised he would always be with her.  Blah, blah, they get together, but Tom never gets around to telling her about receiving Jimmy’s heart.

Yet another TZ boy-gets-the-girl happy ending.  I rate it a Disappointment on Route 17.  Obvious, but it’s about what this episode deserves.

Other Stuff:

• [1] At IMDb, 2 women get character names:  Elise and Mary-Jo.  But I don’t know who half of them are.  The three other female credited roles are Tom’s Secretary, Tom’s Secretary, and Secretary #2.  I guess one of Tom’s Secretaries is Secretary #1.  But he seems to call one of them Hill (Hillary).  A commenter at IMDb suggests the credits are hosed up on this episode.  I believe it.
• [2] Sorry staff, no bonuses this year because the boss decided to slack off.
• [3] So, Mercedes bad / pickup good, suit bad / jeans good, wingtips bad / boots good, fancy restaurant bad / hot dog good.  Who’s the snob now?
• Title Analysis: Just junk.  Appointment?  Was this supposed to happen?  Was this all God’s masterplan for Mary-Jo to win Tom’s heart?  Well, she had already won it when it was still in Jimmy.

Willy Gardener is the manager of the run-down Winchester Hotel.  When he opens the front desk this morning, there is already a bum flopped on the lobby sofa.  The seediness factor just increases when 1980’s gangsta Danny comes in with Candy, Rocco and Cap.  Candy asks if he would like to take a walk with her.  Yada yada, she humiliates him by screeching, “Sure if ya got $50!” and the gang howls with laughter.  Wait, Candy hangs out with losers, reveals herself to be a whore, and Willy is supposed to be humiliated?  I guess I just don’t get bullies.

Willy is hurt by this, but goes about his job which is more than those parasites ever do.  He goes room-to-room announcing check-out time is 12 o’clock.  Seems late, but check-in time might have been 11:00 at this joint.  The door of one room swings open to reveal an unoccupied room with a large trunk in the middle of the floor.  He opens it, but it is empty.  He says, “I wish I had a nickel for every old piece of luggage left in this hotel.”  When he tries to move it, it won’t budge.  He opens the lid again and the huge chest is filled with nickels.  Apparently, based on his wish, millions of pieces of luggage have been left in that hotel.

Like all fictional characters, he wastes his second wish.  He wishes for an “ice cold root beer, just like when I was a kid.”  He opens the lid and hoists out a mug of root beer.  Oddly, the prop department not only screwed up by not giving him a frosty mug; but the root beer is completely flat.  It looks like a mug of coffee.  He looks at the nickels he had been diligently rolling and says, “What do I need you guys for?”

We cut to some time later when Willy is dressed like a 1970s dandy and his shabby room has been transformed into a swinging bachelor pad.  Unfortunately, the only people he knows to invite over are the bums from the hotel and the idiots who bullied him earlier.  It would just be churlish of me to ask how he got this fancy stuff.  He said he didn’t need the money, but some of his new things would not have fit in the trunk.

At the party, a Winchester wino praises Willy’s free liquor and Candy the hooker still offers to be his girl if he buys her things.  I’m not sure the trunk was necessary for those two things to happen.

One of the gang asks if he can borrow Willy’s new TV to watch the game.  Willy tells him to just take it.  Seeing that, another jerk asks for the stereo.  Willy tells him to take it.  He tells the rest of his guests to take whatever they want.  So they loot every nice item from his apartment, down to the lamps and statues.

This isn’t enough for one of the gang; not sure which, let’s call him Rocco.  He’s the one who lacks the ambition to even be a skinhead.  He has short blonde hair and looks like a soccer hooligan.  Plus no sleeves — a pretty good indicator of douchebaggery.  He demands that Willy show him where all these swell new housewares came from.  What kind of gang is this?

He chases Willy through the hotel.  Willy ducks into the trunk room.  Rocco follows.  The trunk is the only place Willy could be hiding, so Rocco throws up the lid.  It is empty, so he leaves.  An interior shot in the closed trunk show Willy is in there, the trunk just hid him from Rocco.  Cool.

Unfortunately, when Willy tries to get out, the lid won’t open.

We cut to the apartment of a nice young woman.  She tells her mother that she just got dumped.  All she wants is to meet a nice guy.  The trunk is sitting in her living room.  How it got there, we have no idea, but she doesn’t seem surprised to see it.  She uses a butter knife to pry open the lock.  So she bought it not knowing what was inside?  Did it also hide his weight?

In response to her wish for a nice guy, Willy stands up in the trunk when she lifts the lid.  He is looking dapper, in a nice suit.  His hair is neatly groomed.  In fact this is actually the best I’ve ever seen Bud Cort look.  So I guess both their wishes came true.

Once again, a perfectly serviceable high concept is somewhat urinated away.  I’m cool with not knowing who was staying in the room where it was found (although Willy could have at least checked the register).  I assume the original owner found his own destiny the way Willy will.  But what really is the story?  Does Willy become greedy and conjure up big money?  No, he just creates some furniture, gives it away, and that’s about it.  Does Rocco lock Willy in the wish box to face some crazy shit?  Does Willy somehow trick Rocco into the box, trapping Rocco in the titular twilight zone?  No, Rocco just kind of gives up and walks away.  What a waste.

Another freakin’ TZ happy ending.  From the writers of Aqua Vita which I quite enjoyed.

Classic Bud Cort:

Another There Was an Old Woman?  How come it’s never There Was a Young Hooters Waitress?

This episode was really a slog.  Rather than go through it in detail, I’ll just mention the one scene I will remember.  Author Hallie Parker calls the home of a sick boy she had befriended.  The boy’s mother has to tell Hallie that her little boy has just died.  The line reading is so bad that she might as well have been saying she burnt dinner.

It reminded me of another dead-son scene.  I always thought the line where Saavik tells Kirk his son was killed was just dreadfully delivered.  At least she had 2 excuses: 1) she was playing a Vulcan, and 2) people were going to dislike her anyway for not being Kirstie Alley.

Nothing else worth commenting on.

Other Stuff:

• Classic TZ Connection:  Maybe a little too reminiscent of Changing of the Guard.  Both had a lead whose days were numbered (by retirement or suicidal thoughts).  Both lamented that they had no impact on the students they taught.  And both end up surrounded by ghost-kids.
• Dang if I could make those clips start where I wanted.

Well congratulations to Warren Cribbens who was just promoted to Loan Officer at the bank.  No time for a bear claw and looking up his neighbor’s account balances, though.  Vern Slater was waiting for the bank to open so he could talk to the previous Loan Officer, Mr. Simmons.

The meek Cribbens accidentally bumps into his cute new secretary Sandy that he inherited from Simmons.  Amidst the carnage of dropped papers and files are Cribbens’ glasses with a cracked lens.  Luckily, he says they are just for “up-close work.”

There is a scene in his cubicle which doesn’t really fit his character.  He bruskly says to a caller, “I didn’t take out the loan, you did!”  It is unprofessional and makes no sense for someone who was established as being mild-mannered and fastidious about his work.

After getting all worked up, he emerges from his cubicle.  He puts on his cracked glasses.  Across the bank, he clearly sees one of the tellers accidentally knock a $100 bill into the trashcan.  Although, with reading glasses, at that distance she should have just been a blur.  When he confronts her, he sees that there is no bill in the trash.  He apologizes, but as he backs away and takes his glasses off, he sees her knock the bill into the trash again.  This time it is real, and the teller is baffled; also really overweight.

Bank President Cutler calls Cribbens into his office to talk business.  He has a map on the wall with color-coded pins denoting 1) property the bank owns, 2) untouchable land belonging to corporate farmers, 3) property the bank holds the mortgage on, and oddly, 4) the nearest Popeye’s Chicken ^[1].  He reminds Cribbens that many of the farmers are operating at a loss and “we have to call in all loans as they come due.”  By no coincidence, a new highway is going to be built and Cutler wants the bank to own the property.

Vern Slater is shown into Cribbens’ office.  Wait, this all seems to be the same day.  Slater was there when the doors were unlocked.  Has he been waiting all this time?  Is this Bank of America?  Slater asks for an extension on his mortgage.  Cribbens quotes both Presidents Cutler and Coolidge that, “The business of America is business.”  He puts on the broken glasses and sees Slater as an old man.  Slater counters that the business of America ought to be people, and that his farm is his life.

The next day, Cribbens goes out to the Slater farm to see if they can work something out.  Unfortunately, he is not authorized to extend the loan and their equipment is pretty old, so he recommends selling off some land.  He tells Vern that Cutler wants to foreclose.  When he puts on his broken glasses, he sees the farmhouse as vacant and dilapidated with a flapping front door and broken windows.  Warren, dude, they’re just cheaters; you couldn’t have dropped by CVS for a new pair for $7?

Slater says he isn’t going to sell.  Cribbens gets back in his car.  In a strange continuity error, Cribbens backs up looking like he is going to accidentally run Slater down.  They cut to another angle, and Slater is safely to the side.  It’s just strange.  Seems like the actor would have been genuinely concerned about being accidentally being killed for a dopey 1980s TZ episode.  At least Vic Morrow was in a TZ movie.

The next day at the bank — and this must be the busiest bank in America — he vaguely describes the Slater problem to Sandy and asks her opinion.  He slips on his glasses and has a vision of her falling off a ladder.  He asks her to cut a cashier’s check out of his own account and tells her to be careful.

Cribbens’ solution is to loan Slater the money himself.  Slater accepts and swears he will pay Cribbens back.  When Cutler hears about this, he chews Cribbens out in front of the whole bank, and fires him.  As he is packing up, he sees Sandy on a ladder.  She falls just as in his vision, and he catches her.

Dammit, I was so happy to bust them on another error! But I guess it is the same sweater, but just decolorized in the vision.

This accident further shatters the lens.  Cribbens says he won’t need them anymore and drops them in the trash.  What?  He wasn’t interested if they still saw the future?  Didn’t he want to see if future Sandy had his ring on her finger? Or maybe now they gave the wearer x-ray vision!  At least try the x-ray vision out on her!  [UPDATE:  Read in the light of day, that was a little too #METOO.  Maybe it would work on scratch-off lottery tickets].

Or does he not need the glasses because he will make so much off the new highway on Slater’s land that he won’t have to work again?  Was there profit participation in the Loan Agreement he gave Slater?  And why does Cutler say Cribbens’ bail-out of Slater “cost me a fortune”?  The bank would have repossessed the farm, not Cutler.  Cutler said earlier he did not own the bank, he just worked there.

This episode is the 1980’s Twilight Zone in a nutshell:

• 1960’s TZ:  Broken glasses result in a cruel, ironic denial of the one thing Henry Bemis loved; and that on top of the crushing loneliness of being the last man on earth, and eking out a miserable survival in the post-apocalyptic ruins.
• 1980’s TZ:  Broken glasses result in saving the family farm and getting the girl.

Take it to Hallmark ^[2].  I know it was filmed in Canada, but does it have to be so nice?

Some of the premonitions after the first one are just a mess.  When Cribbens sees Slater as an old man in his office, what is the point?  OK, he is still alive, that’s good.  He got older — welcome to the club.  Still has a nice head of hair — screw him.  He apparently didn’t lose an arm in the thresher — isn’t that a point in favor of him losing the farm?

Cribbens’ vision at the farmhouse is equally nonsensical.  If the bank were to foreclose on the farm, the house would not become run-down and abandoned; it would be torn down and paved over for the new highway. Or maybe a Cracker Barrel.

So, another simple yet promising high-concept is fumbled.

Other Stuff:

• ^[1] OK, not really.  They are finally building one near me and my excitement at that news is a sad commentary on how my life is going.
• ^[2] Hallmark replaces Lifetime as the sappy go-to channel.  I had actually typed Lifetime, but its website was plugging a movie called Deadly Matrimony.
• Title Analysis:  Another mess.  Kudos for it being sight-related and having the word vision, but the 20/20 part is like one of those Tales From the Crypt titles with only half a pun.  Why 20/20?  The future in his visions is changeable, so they are not perfect (i.e 20/20).  Even the cinematography of the visions themselves is inconsistent, so that’s not perfect either.  The term 20/20 isn’t even relevant for reading glasses, so the whole thing makes no sense.

“Well,” as the commenters say, “there’s nothing funny about this.”

Louise Simonson, after years of physical and psychological abuse by her husband, gets the ability to conjure attack dogs for protection.

That’s about it.  The episode really destroyed my desire to think any more about it, which, I guess, means it was effective.  The thought of the prison Louise was in and the excuses she made for her bruises continued long after the brief enjoyment of seeing her idiot husband gets his due (actually getting off way too easy).

Melanie Mayron and Kenneth Walsh were amazing in their roles.  If I have any criticism, it is that maybe it was a little too real for this often-silly edition of The Twilight Zone.

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