Linda Wolfe is invited to the offices of the THE CARD card. It is an exclusive new invitation-only credit card operated out of a strip shopping center across from the 7-11.
Ms. Foley immediately brings up Linda’s past problems. “Mrs. Wolfe, you have a very spotty credit record . . . AMEX, Visa, MasterCard have all cancelled you in the past. So have the department stores. Even Union-76.” [1] Linda swears she’s learned her lesson. Mrs. Foley says they offer credit to those who can’t get it anywhere else, but they have some stringent requirements: They require a minimum payment within se7en days of purchase. She is honest that there are some serious penalties. Mrs. Foley hands Linda a contract which has only slightly more fine print than a standard non-Twilight Zone cardholder agreement. Like only 100% of applicants, Linda signs without reading. Mrs. Foley hands her an onyx THE CARD with her name already embossed on it.
Back at home, her husband notices a bottle of perfume and the new card and asks about it. Linda replies 3rd personally, “Are we going to start fighting about Linda’s problem again?” Her husband, hoping to ever see her naked again, says, “No, I don’t think that would be a good idea at all.” He does carefully ask her to be careful, though.
You know there is going to be trouble when a title card pops up that says “ONE WEEK LATER.” She is looking for their cat, but he has disappeared. No one else in the family even remembers them having a cat.
Two days later, they are shopping for a new refrigerator. They pick out one with a $1,698 price tag, which would be — holy crap — $3,700 in today’s dollars! Natch, she blows this purchase also, and the dog disappears.
Then the car breaks down; there’s another $360. Using the card again even though she is already delinquent earns her an immediate penalty. When she gets home, the kids have disappeared and her husband doesn’t remember them. The mass extinction of all 3 kids at once answers one of my questions — why not just buy a bowl of goldfish and be late on the card every week? I guess they delete all like items at once, so that wouldn’t work. But you could still make it work for you — did I mention my pet termites, Mrs. Foley?
Linda understandably flips out like a woman whose kids are missing. She runs to the kids’ room, but their stuff is gone. The family portrait seen earlier is now just she and her husband. She realizes it is the THE CARD card.
The next morning, Linda goes to the THE CARD office and demands to see Mrs. Foley. While she is waiting, she sees her kids in the hall [2]. She screams for them, but they seem not to recognize her. Mrs. Foley calls her into the office. “Yes those were your kids. Earlier this month, we acquired your cat and your dog. What seems to be the problem?” Linda finally hands Mrs. Foley a check to get her kids back.
Linda rushes home to yell at her husband about her day. She says she wrote a check out of their joint account. He says the bank called him to approve it and he told them not to honor it. She screams and runs out to the car — which disappears. She tries to call Mrs. Foley, but furniture starts disappearing. Then her husband disappears from the family portrait which is now just of her. Her The Card, lying on the floor, now says Linda Wilson, presumably her maiden name. There is a good laugh as she digs through a kitchen drawer looking for scissors. As she removes each item from the drawer and places it on the counter, it disappears. Great stuff. Or maybe I’m just reminded of Zinc Oxide.
She cuts the THE CARD card in half. In an exterior shot, we see the house disappear. The card halves flutter to the ground. Even Linda has disappeared.
Great episode, and not just because I’m a sucker for nobody-else-remembers-what-I-remember stories. There was a lot packed into this episode and they did an amazing job making it fit.
I’m undecided on whether they should have shown the kids again. It provided an opportunity for Linda to give a great reaction; plus, it is creepy that they no longer recognize their mother. On the other hand, I would have liked the idea of them just being gone, blinked out of existence. I guess the The Card needs to make a profit off of them, though.
Maybe they have an adoption service that places the kids for a fee. But what lucky guy gets the pixie-haired Linda as part of his Rewards Program? Actually, it would have been the interesting for the 2nd segment of this episode to be a stand-alone story that showed The Card operation from the opposite POV. We would see where the cat, the dog, the kids, Linda, her husband and the house go.
Other Stuff:
- [1] I was prepared to say Linda had caused the jingoistically-named Union-76 to mercifully go under before it had the chance to trigger any snowflakes. Turns out, they still have a few stations. OK, 1,800.
- [2] I have no idea if that link is representative of their work.
- Classic TZ Legacy: And When the Sky was Opened. A rocket returns to earth with its crew. One by one, the crew disappears with only one crew-member remembering them. Then he disappears and no one at all remembers any astronauts . . . just like today.
- Skipped Segment: The Junction.
Drew Barrymore is in bed screaming. Unfortunately, this is 1986, not 1996; and she is reading a copy of Tales from the Crypt.
Drew and her father go back to the woods after dinner, but there is no sign or sound of the woman. Undeterred, she finds a couple of shovels and recruits her dippy friend Chubby, no her chubby friend Dippy, to help. They go back to the woods. They start digging, but before they get far, the owner of the land, Mr. Kelly, chases them off.
Yada yada, Drew goes back home, hums a song Mrs. Nesbitt wrote, and returns to the woods. That night, her father remembers where he heard that song, then finds her bed is empty. Mr. Nesbitt attacks her in the woods. Her father heroically shows up and brains him. The cops start digging.
Which wouldn’t have been a problem if, ya know, he had not done such a half-assed job of killing her.
The last time I watched an 
The tape finds its way to reporter Judy Warren of the TV show Hot 
The General says satellites detected an EMP two days ago when Josh healed the girl. Tonight when the cabin exploded, the EMP knocked out the satellites. The General has him strapped to a gurney. When they begin torturing him, he explodes into a light show that gives each person a different vision. When they find out he is some kind of uber-man that might have some answers as to why we are here, or the key to living in peace on earth, the government decides he has to be killed.
As she approaches her hometown, local dipshit Lance pulls out onto the highway in his red ’57 Chevy [1] to harrass her. This is right before the directing credit for foreign dipshit Roger Vadim. [2] How long was Lance waiting there for her? Was he also laying in wait last year for the 20th anniversary reunion which ya might think she would have been more likely to attend? Well, I guess she RSVP’d, but that still must have been a long day just awaitin’ for her to drive by. He recklessly pulls ahead of her taking the most absurd hairpin turn in the US, speeding toward town.
Lance spins his car to a stop and offers Claudia a drink from a flask. They find an old barn where they can have a roll in the hay, and see scrawled onto the wall “CLAUDIA SUCKS” which must be pretty encouraging to Lance. They start making out and the jealous sheriff shows up. Claudia plays the celebrity edition of do-you-know-who-I-am-now? that so endears famous, rich, privileged idiots to middle America. Nice work making the low-life sheriff sympathetic, Vadim.
Lance seems threatening at that moment, but I am confused when he produces a pink dress. Where did that come from? They are at Lance’s place. Did she wear that to the prom with his dad? If so, cheers if she can still fit in it; but jeers for Lance banging his father’s prom-date.
Courtney Masterson is making out with 21 years younger Peg, perhaps as over-compensation for having a girl’s name. They are at a Lover’s Lane overlooking the city. Rudy Stickney approaches the car, pointing a flashlight and a gun in their eyes. He forces them out of the car and nabs Courtney’s 
Courtney drives back to Peg’s apartment. He had a chance to reveal Rudy to a cop stopped beside him at a light, but did not. He sees Peg to the door, realizing he’s not going to get the kind of junk in the trunk he had anticipated tonight. He drives Rudy back up to Lover’s Lane. And by the way, this is the biggest f*ing car I’ve ever seen in my life.
The ending just doesn’t seem worthy of what preceded it.[1]