‘The Twilight Zone’ (2019) Recap: ‘A Traveler’

Written by John Edward Betancourt 

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The more I watch CBS/Jordan Peele’s new iteration of The Twilight Zone, the more I am coming to realize that it is more than just a mere science fiction/thriller/horror series that has something to say about our world and our species. No, instead, this particular series is quickly becoming a referendum on American life in 2019 and for proof, look no further than the episodes we’ve seen laid out for us so far. After all, this saga has explored our obsession and desire for fame in ‘The Comedian’, our need to pretend that we are the expert in ‘Nightmare at 30,000 Feet’, and modern-day race relations were explored in harrowing fashion in last week’s tale, ‘Replay’.
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Which means I was supremely curious to see where on earth (or America, rather) the series was going to go when it comes to examining our modern-day U.S. society since those ideas are fairly relevant and thorough. But the writer’s room of this series is looking at every last one of our flaws and opportunities and once again, they managed to uncover something that continues to have power over us on a regular basis; fear. Yet what was truly impressive about how ‘A Traveler’ examined this, is the sheer fact that I didn’t see it coming in this story in the slightest, and at first glance this particular tale seemed to be working toward something far more sinister. For in this story, we were transported to the remote town of Iglaak, Alaska, on Christmas Eve no less, wherein we met the lovely tight knit community of this town as they celebrated another blessed holiday at the State Trooper Station. But on this night, their usual traditions will be upended when a stranger appears in their holding cells with an agenda that will change all of their lives, forever.

Which, all of that sounds like the setup for a horror story, right? One that looks at the evils of man. I mean, the trailer and the first half of this story seemed to be moving us toward a parable about the secrets we all carry, and how some people want those secrets to remain buried at just about any cost. And in fact, A. Traveler’s machinations in the middle of the tale, where he spilled said secrets seemed to reaffirm that. But it didn’t take long for a different vibe to come over the story since we quickly came to learn that our stranger, didn’t know crap. But his ability to project his lies with incredible confidence and conviction allowed for everyone he encountered to believe them, save for Yuka, our main character, who discovered far too late that his ‘truth bombs’ were designed to distract and divide everyone in the town in order to accomplish his ultimate goal of paving a way for an invasion fleet from beyond the stars.

But all awesome twist endings aside, his lies are the key to the story because, this is what our society deals with on a regular basis right now. For there are hundreds if not thousands of websites, Facebook accounts and Twitter handles that claim to be legitimate news sites who have ‘breaking news’ that you simply must know about, when it fact, it’s all B.S. and yet, people eat it up and treat it as gospel and that, is sometimes more dangerous than the false information being spread. Because these kinds of lies are no different than our Traveler’s lies, for they engender fear, to the point where people spread the lie in the firm belief they’re doing good and that in turn leads to fights that divide us and that brings us to the moral of the tale in that…eventually this infighting and division will make us pay dearly, and there is evidence to back that up since misinformation has caused a resurgence of measles since one side believes that vaccines cause Autism. Granted, that may not be a perfect comparison since the other side of that argument is the right one since vaccines don’t cause Autism.

But, if you need more examples, just take five minutes to glance at your Facebook feed to see who is sharing the ‘gospel’ of ‘Democratic Democrats for America’ and/or ‘Right Wingers Making America Great Again’ (neither of those sites exist, but you know what I mean) to be reminded of this exhausting back and forth. Yet what was equally as impressive, is that the episode did offer up a pseudo-answer to our problem in that perhaps a dose of common sense would help, since that is what snapped Yuka out of her respective misinformation trance, but even then, that’s easier said than done and if anything, this bleak tale and its devastating ending definitely gave me pause. In part because of its brilliance, but also because it hit close to home, since I know I’m not the only one whose taken the time to share a little something from snopes.com to prove a ridiculously misinformed post, wrong, and that just lends credence to the fact that this new iteration of the show is as smart as they come and unsettling or not, I’m ready for more. Until next time. 

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