The first five seconds of this episode are just wrong and wronger . . . no, the ones after tattoo-boy‘s introduction. But we’ll get back to that.
As well as I can make out on the crummy YouTube presentation, the camera is winding through a dark junky area . . . an alley, a construction site, a warehouse, a post-apocalyptic city? A woman is calling out in a whisper for Sergei. A man and a very sick woman join the search. The woman fires up a lighter and they pass some sad souls . . . homeless, refugees? One is eating a rat. A drop of blood falls on the woman and they see Segei’s bloody corpse above them.
The camera pulls back through a hole to reveal that this has all taken place in a shipping container. The problem is that the very first shot of the episode is an exterior of the ship, and the second shot is the exterior of the shipping container on-board. This could have been a very cool reveal, but it is not just telegraphed — it is HD-transmitted to ruin the impact.
Crewman Mark Stevens is inspecting the area and hears the screams from the container. He finds the Captain [1] and First Mate Taforner and tells them he thinks they might have stowaways because he hears “whispers, moans and screams” in the cargo hold of the ship, and they don’t sound like Kate Winslet. Also, the rat problem has subsided. Taforner is suspiciously defensive and dismissive of Stevens’ concern.
Back in the titular cargo container, they discover that two more of their comrades — they all have eastern European or Russki accents, BTW — have been similarly killed. Stevens is inspecting the hold again when he finds finds higher than normal carbon dioxide levels indicating stowaways.[2] Taforner is again angry, but Stevens tells him they have been at sea for weeks and the people could be starving — the only people ever to lose weight on a cruise. After Taforner leaves, the woman calls to Stevens.
Through the world’s highest glory hole, she begs Stevens not to tell the Captain because he might kill them. She does want to be let out, though, because something inside is killing them. And the smell! My God, the smell! Stevens finds an acetylene torch and a crowbar. As another person is being attacked, he begins cutting into the container. For some reason he only cuts out a section about one foot square — why, you could only fit a human head through there!
Turns out the Captain and Taforner are in cahoots. They tell Stevens the things inside are not human. The Czars used them to terrorize the serfs. The Russian mob uses them as assassins. And as they get hungry, they feed on their own.
The Captain and Taforner [3] force Stevens’ head into the hole and the things chew it off. In another scene graphic for TV, his headless body does a little dance before collapsing. The camera pulls back to reveal this container is being shipped to New York.
Like many of the episodes I’ve watched, I think this would have been really good if it just had a better transfer.
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- [1] Philip Baker Hall — he is usually so good that miscasting him seems impossible. They pulled it off here, though.
- [2] This is so dumb I don’t even know where to start. Micro-changes in air density is sounding more plausible.
- [3] C’mon, you were thinkin’ it, too. Dayum, I don’t care how corny it is, that song is awesome.
- The IMDb lists a character called Dad From the Past. I have no idea what that is about. Even if there were a cut scene, I see nowhere to insert daddy-issues for any of the characters.
Sheriff Jeff rides out to the Tom & Ben’s shack in the desert. The town council is concerned about the two old coots living with no visible means of support. They claim to be homesteaders but can provide no evidence of being farmers or prospectors.
The Sheriff is on their side and just needs some evidence, any evidence that they are really homesteaders — say, growing a single crop or mining enough gold to sustain them. The absurd plot-point is that they finally agree that if the geezers can grow a single rose bush that flowers, they can can technically be considered farmers. Are we sure these guys aren’t making campaign contributions? That kind of sleazy technicality is the essence of politics.
One month later, the Sheriff comes by again looking for Killer. He doesn’t find Killer, but the boys do show him a thriving rose bush on top of a burial plot-shaped mound of dirt.
William Benteen is in charge of 187 people on a distant rock. They left the earth 30 years ago, according to Serling, “In search of a new millennium.” The year is 1991, so the joke’s on them — they could have stuck around and it would have soon come to them. After three decades, the earth has become a distant memory for many and a legend for the young. Now they have finally received a signal that a rescue ship will arrive in one month.
Like the meteor shower, the close-up of the ship is like nothing seen before in TZ. In fact, many of the sets for this episode are the best in the show’s run. The cavernous . . er, cavern, the shanty town, the bleak landscape, the number of extras — all are on a scale never seen before.
Later on the ship Benteen tells Sloan that he expects his group to stay together after the return to earth — under his watchful eye. He has not asked their opinion on this. He regards them as children — he must decide what is best for them. Fearing he is losing his grip on his flock, he gets the group together in the cave. As they ask about different parts of the US, he tells them they will all stay together and he magnanimously agrees to continue as their leader.
Serling: “William Benteen — once a god, now a population of one.”
The long-threatened western.
The three gringos — despite one being shot and another being Ernest Borgnine — escape the pursing cops. They stop at an adobe ranch house where a man introduces himself as Jim Caulder — I don’t like his odds. Not surprisingly, he is dispatched within seconds and the gang goes inside to find the titular Hannie Caulder. Over a static shot of the house we hear her screams as she is raped. Nothing funny about that, although there is an odd bit of business with one of the men being thrown out the front door . . . twice. Or maybe they were different men; they were indistinguishable from the distance. No idea what they were going for there.
Up rides bounty hunter Thomas Price (
It is obvious this was filmed in the early days of Hollywood’s new freedom. A few son-of-a-bitches and asses are thrown around, but they come off as being spoken by a 10 year-old who just discovered them. There is no weight to them — to be fair, a lesson 
It takes two cops to bring Duane “Eater” Mellor into the station. They install him in the kind of cage that we need more of — unpainted, crumbling walls, exposed bricks, a metal toilet.
As Dani reads the file, she imagines the scene where Eater cuts off a captive woman’s tongue and fries it up. Despite not being very bloody, this is admirably horrific for network television. When he goes back for seconds and raises the tin-snips to her nose, I was genuinely disgusted. Kudos to everyone involved.
That is both the appeal and the curse of the episode. Mattingley and Steinwitz as themselves were obnoxious jerks of Trumpian proportions. When possessed by Eater, they become even worse — fidgety, sweaty and grotesque. As the last half of the episode consists of each them alternately alone with Dani as she figures out what they really are, they wear out there welcome very quickly.
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