Hey, she looks familiar...
Rod Serling: Millicent Barnes. Age twenty-five. Young woman waiting for a bus on a rainy November night. Not a very imaginative type is Miss Barnes: not given to undue anxiety or fears or for that matter even the most temporal flights of fancy. Like most young career women she has a generic classification as a, quote: "Girl with a head on her shoulders", end of quote. All of which is mentioned now because, in just a moment, the head on Miss Barnes' shoulders will be put to a test. Circumstances will assault her sense of reality and a chain of nightmares will put her sanity on a block. Millicent Barnes, who in one minute, will wonder if she is going mad.
Air date: Feb. 26, 1960
A young woman waiting for a bus named Millicent Barnes (Vera Miles) has discovered her suitcase is mysteriously being moved around the bus terminal, and people claim to have seen her before even though she's never seen them. While she believes this to be a prank, things slowly go from bad to worse when she also sees a malevolent-looking woman who looks exactly like her in the station. She tries to evluate her situation and share her dilemma with her fellow travellers and the staff, but her manic state of mind doesn't do her any favors.
Mirror Tropes:
- Bottle Episode: The episode takes place entirely in and around the bus terminal.
- Doppelgänger: A mysterious woman who looks like Millicent is roaming around the bus station, plotting to kill her so she can continue existing in her universe.
- Downer Ending: Millicent is thought to be insane taken to a psych ward by the police, leaving her evil double to roam free. Soon after, Paul sees his own doppelgänger.
- Freak Out: Millicent's frustration and stress gives way to her sanity steadily deteriorating, turning into a full-blown breakdown by the end.
- Here We Go Again!: Paul sees his very own double at the end of the episode.
- Hollywood Law: Paul calls the police on Millicent telling them that she's crazy. Acting solely on Paul's claims and without identifying themselves, the police swoop in and grab her. It gets rather creepy, considering that they stuff her in the back of their car and one officer gets in the back with her.
- Kill and Replace: Millicent believes there really is another copy of her trying to replace her. She tries to convince Paul of this, to no avail.
- Mirror Universe: Millicent speculates that the appearance of her doppelgänger at the bus terminal is due to the normal universe converging with an alternate universe and that her doppelgänger must eliminate her in order to remain in the normal universe. Paul later learns that she is right.
- Not Helping Your Case: It's probably not wise to talk about parallel dimensions and alternate realities when you're trying to convince people that you aren't crazy. Millicent tries to explain this to Paul, and naturally it doesn't bode well for her.
- Properly Paranoid: Millicent was right all along that an evil duplicate of herself was out to get rid of her, as Paul gives chase after his own double at the end of the episode.
- Real After All: Paul dismisses Millicent as crazy and has her arrested. He's ready to settle down and relax in the terminal... until his bag goes missing and he sees his own doppelgänger
- You Have to Believe Me!: As prototypical an example as you'll ever see, replete with her getting arrested for reasons of insanity.
Rod Serling: Obscure and metaphysical explanation to cover a phenomenon. Reasons dredged out of the shadows to explain away that which cannot be explained. Call it 'parallel planes' or just 'insanity'. Whatever it is, you will find it in the Twilight Zone.
