Tommy’s words brought up “fears that shouldn’t be brought up words which carried with them a strange kind of validity that came without logic but nonetheless registered and had meaning and effect.” Notes in Serling’s screenplay describe Tommy’s words as stirring the irrational. The man turns to the mob, calling out, “You’re standing here all set to crucify – all set to find a scapegoat – all desperate to point some kind of a finger at a neighbor! Well now look, friends, the only thing that’s gonna happen is that we’ll eat each other up alive.” Who is Playing the Part of Tommy? In the Twilight Zone episode, one neighbor under suspicion for having an expensive radio pleads, “Stop telling me who’s dangerous and who isn’t and who’s safe and who’s a menace.” Nantucket neighbors are eager to rat out others for perceived transgressions: “For every individual charged with disregarding public-health guidelines, there seemed to be another calling their neighbors out for their reckless behavior either on social media or privately on calls with the board of health.”Įlizabeth Harris is a “nurse working at the local hospital in Nantucket who is in charge of investigating Covid-19 cases on the island.” Harris says, “I get rat phone calls where people will be like, ‘I know that so and so is positive, and they’re at work and they’re driving around without a mask.’ And I say, you know, ‘you should call a board of health about that.'” Now cases on Nantucket are rising, and as on Maple Street, “residents are pointing the fingers at each other over who is to blame.” Some cast aspersions on the outsiders who swelled Nantucket’s population others point fingers at those they know. Early in this Covid-19 crisis, the wealthy fled to Nantucket to escape the virus. The monsters have escaped the Twilight Zone and have come to tony Nantucket Island. Conquering Earth, the aliens conclude, will be no problem at all. The strategy of the aliens was merely to interrupt everyday life, causing the townspeople to devolve from harmony to hatred, from cooperation to paranoia. The flash of light was an alien spaceship. The episode ends with the classic Rod Serling twist. As lights and car engines go on at random, a riot ensues. The mob focuses attention on homes where electricity is on. Neighbors begin to watch the homes of neighbors they suspect.įear grips individuals, and a mob forms that is primed to stampede. Is that evidence he is an alien? Accusations spread mere inconsequential human differences are taken as evidence of being a dangerous alien. The owner frequently looks at the sky at night. Neighbors start talking about the idiosyncrasies of the car’s owner. That’s why they shut everything off.” Initially, the adults dismiss Tommy’s story, but a seed has been planted. The boy tells the adults, “They don’t want us to leave.
In Tommy’s story an alien family lives among them as scouts for an invasion the outages evidence an invasion is underway.
One neighborhood boy, Tommy, remembers the plot of a science-fiction story. The residents assume they heard and saw a meteor.
Suddenly there is a shadow, a roar, and a flash of light. Children are playing on front porches, adults are talking. The story takes place during a late summer afternoon in small-town America. Many consider the 1960 episode of the Twilight Zone “The Monsters Are Due on Maple Street” one of Rod Serling’s most astute social commentaries.
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