Jean Reed comes into the emergency room, asking to see a doctor.  In the time it takes for Dr. Peterson to show up, she goes completely blind which sounds typical.  He removes her dark glasses and sees a white film over her eyes like giant cataracts or Act III of a scene on Pornhub.

After nurse Claire Hendricks turns away an old couple for having no insurance, she is told Mrs. Reed is asking for her.  She goes to the room and says, “You wanted to see me, Mrs. Reed?” which you should never say to a blind person.  Mrs. Reed says she thinks the two of them are alike, but does not elaborate.

The next day, Claire is calling about a phone bill that is $50 higher than expected.  Dr. Peterson interrupts and says Jean Reed’s husband has come in, and he is blind also.  He doesn’t care that his wife is there, though, because she abandoned him when he went blind.

A nurse tells her she needs to go to the ER.  She finds a dozen people have come in with a similar sudden onset of blindness, although that also might be due to Pornhub.  The head of the hospital says he has never seen anything like this.  Hundreds of people in every major city are suddenly going blind.

The next day, Mrs. Reed tells Claire the others call her a “dedicated woman” because of how hard she works.  She again says the two of them are alike.  “I know what is happening, I know how it’s happening and I know why it’s happening.” She says we are like monkeys.  “See no evil, hear no evil, speak no evil.  We turn a blind eye to the pain around us.”  Although I’ve always heard that once you can no longer see evil, your ability to hear evil is enhanced.

A research group learns that just before the first case, there was an explosion at a top-secret biological research lab in Alaska.  Certain unstable forms of bacteria were released into the atmosphere.  As the doctor is reading the report to the group, he goes blind.

After the meeting, Peterson finds Claire curled up in her office crying.  Her marriage is breaking up, she has become callous toward patients, she has cut herself off from the world to avoid the pain.  She has come to agree with Mrs. Reed that the blindness epidemic is a punishment.  Then she goes blind.

This episode was a breakthrough for me as it really made me realize how easy it is it make a snap judgment, or offer a knee-jerk criticism.  The first time I watched this episode, I thought it was a bit of a mess.  The blindness was was caused by a physical layer of skin over the eye, yet it seemed to occur within seconds. The explosion in Alaska just seemed to muddle things.

Watching it again a few weeks later, I realized my error.  The episode is not about the blindness epidemic; it is about Claire.  The concept might have a few issues, and be too reminiscent of the hokey (but well intentioned) I am the Night — Color me Black.  But use that just as a backdrop for Claire’s self-examination, and suddenly the  episode becomes a pretty nice little character study.

The ending, which I will not spoil, and the adorable as hell Karen Valentine make this one of the better episodes of this TZ run.