Among the Untrodden
Episode 5 of The Twilight Zone Season 2 begins with a schoolgirl called Madison etching her name on the desk as new girl Irene arrives. She tells them all she’s doing a project on Psychic Abilities and the class scoff at her interests, relentlessly bullying her. One evening Irene approaches Madison and tells her she could have psychic abilities given she’s scoring 0 on every test. Unfortunately Maddie rejects Irene’s offer, prompting her to walk away after leaving a pack of cards outside. Each of these has a symbol on and Maddie just so happens to get every single one correct. Afterwards, she meets Irene who tells her she’s special and sets up a bunch of candles and the right ambiance to try and figure out what her “powers” are. This continues throughout the different nights as Irene methodically crosses each of the different abilities off the mirror after having Maddie test them. As things start to get heated during an evening of drinking up on the balcony, Irene falls off and lands on the floor. Maddie scrambles down to help but finds herself taken aback by Irene suddenly waking up, telling Maddie she saved her. The next day, Maddie finds herself in the bathroom alone as Irene starts to drink with Maddie’s friends. As they dance around, the camera pans over to show the Mynx record – that same vinyl from Jasmine’s episode before. Maddie encourages Irene to stop hanging out with her group of friends as they’re trouble. After Irene flunks her science project, it turns out Maddie’s friends have actually produced their own science project called “Anatomy Of A Loser”, directed at Irene. Unable to cope anymore, Irene shrieks at the top of her lungs and the three girls are taken to hospital with serious injuries. Irene confronts Maddie in the bathroom about what happened and the two talk, eventually admitting that they’re friends. As she embraces Irene, the girl turns to ash and disappears; Maddie wanted a friend all along and Irene was the conjuring effort of this. As she slumps down in the corner, we cut forward to the next day where a new girl arrives at school to presumably start the cycle again, which is where the episode ends. The Twilight Zone’s latest episode is saved from mediocrity in the wake of a nice twist at the end. There’s a decent amount of drama during the climax too and some good guesswork surrounding just who really is the one with powers. The nod toward the previous episode Ovation is a nice touch, and the foreshadowed part with the key being conjured is a nice glimpse of things to come but aside from that, this episode is pretty average and certainly takes its sweet time to get to the good stuff. Still, this is definitely one of the better segments in this second series.
