"This is the president — bomb Russia! I'm just kidding."
Jordan Peele: Meet Raff Hanks, a 'wunderkind'. Once the most successful campaign manager of his generation. Now Raff finds himself in a valley of booze and regret. One filled with bad choices and even worse polling. He's about to embark on a misguided road to redemption. And on his way back to the top, he'll have to take a dark detour through The Twilight Zone.
After failing at a reelection campaign, Raff Hanks (John Cho) finds out about and decides to back Oliver Foley (Jacob Tremblay), a child YouTube star who wants to run for president. After Oliver is successfully elected, the bratty official turns out to be too much for Raff, who regrets his decision.
Tropes for this episode include:
- A Child Shall Lead Them: The premise.
- Afraid of Doctors: Oliver hates doctors, which has repercussions for Raff at the end.
- Alcohol-Induced Idiocy: Raff made the decision to back Oliver while under the influence of alcohol when he took up another bar-goer's suggestion to endorse Oliver.
- An Aesop: Just because someone is famous, doesn't mean you should automatically vote for them. All angles should be considered to make sure they're actually worthy of a title.
- Artistic License – Economics: Somehow, President Oliver's edict for all video game companies to give away their products for free doesn't garner any backlash from shareholders or investors. One could reason Oliver generously compensated the shareholders and investors with the nation's public purse.
- Awesome, but Impractical: Oliver's ideas tend to fall into this, and his advisers largely fail to convince him of the second part.
- The Bad Guy Wins: Oliver becomes the next U.S. President, gains everybody's obedience and does away with Raff for being the only one who won't submit to him.
- Bad Influencer: Oliver Foley, the titular character, is an eleven-year-old YouTube star and influencer. A desperate campaign manager decides to back Oliver for President and successfully gets him elected through Loophole Abuse. Unfortunately, Oliver quickly reveals himself to be an impossibly spoiled brat who creates dangerous new laws that destroy both the country and individual lives, including the campaign manager's, who gets sliced to bits on the operating table after Oliver outlaws "old" doctors and replaces them with apathetic kids who don't know what they're doing.
- Bland-Name Product: Averted. Oliver name-drops YouTube, Fortnite, Minecraft, Nintendo, Sony, and Star Wars.
- Blatant Lies:
- Oliver's family saying that Homer has cancer. Yet in campaign videos, the dog is visibly healthy and happily panting and wagging his tail instead of lying down waiting and hoping for the pain to go away. Oliver later admits the cancer story is false after realizing Raff is beginning to show signs of subversion.
- Oliver shouts that Raff has a gun and the Secret Service shoots him dead, despite the fact that Raff is visibly unarmed.
- Blind Obedience: Everyone on Oliver's staff, save for Raff.
- Body Horror: Raff has a critical operation at the hands of an inexperienced ten-year-old surgeon.
- Bratty Half-Pint: Oliver. He was a spoiled brat who got everything his way in his family's household at the beginning, and now he gets everything he wants in the White House.
- The Cassandra: Larry, the senior advisor, who frets about Oliver going into his first debate with zero practice."Sorry, but this is ridiculous! He hasn't memorized anything I've asked him to, and the first primary debate is one week away. [...] He's gonna be embarrassed."
- Continuity Nod:
- A portion of a YouTube thumbnail features the disappearance of Flight 1015.
- Oliver has a cup from the Busy Bee cafe from the episode Replay.
- Chekhov's Gun: Oliver's demand for no old doctors spells bad news for Raff's medical situation.
- Create Your Own Villain:
- Raff is the one who gets Oliver elected as President.
- Oliver's parents can also fit this trope, as they spoiled him rotten and let him take over the house except unlike Raff they don't ever realize what they did wrong.
- Disproportionate Retribution: Oliver has Raff accused of treason and shot for arguing with him. Then he lies to the press that Raff tried to assassinate him.
- Does This Remind You of Anything?: A precedent-breaking outsider, who communicates primarily through social media and the internet, ends up appealing to much of the populace and surprisingly wins the presidency of the United States. Any further comparisons should be carefully thought over.
- Double-Meaning Title: The Wunderkind is not only the term for Oliver Foley, but the name of Hanks' book.
- Downer Ending: Raff eventually realizes Oliver is a monster, but fails to convince anyone of this and Oliver has him shot. Raff is taken for surgery, but Oliver has replaced the doctor with an apathetic kid who's in a rush to return to his video games. The kid proceeds to hack into Raff's chest with a knife while Raff screams in agony. And while not explicitly stated, it can be inferred that the United States is doomed to collapse from its newfound incompetent leadership neglecting to tackle any of its issues, such as foreign threats, crime, environment and economy (to say nothing of the countless deaths bound to occur as surgeons across the nation are replaced by untrained children).
- Drowning My Sorrows: Raff is implied to have become an out-of-work alcoholic in the last 2 years after his presidential campaign failed and his rival candidate won the election before running the country into the ground.
- Enfant Terrible: Oliver. His public persona is a polite, cheerful child, but behind the scenes he throws temper tantrums, cusses at his parents, and stages fake incidents to manipulate others.
- Extreme Doormat: Oliver's mother. She was willing to stand up to him while on the campaign trail, but after he is elected she capitulates on everything. Though she was probably fearful of Oliver knowing he can dispose of her (just as he would with Raff) which could be why she cowardly refused to take Raff's advice to stand up to him.
- Frame-Up: When Raff defies Oliver for the last time, Oliver yells that Raff has a gun, prompting the presidential bodyguards to shoot him. This becomes the official story, giving Raff a 0% Approval Rating with everyone.
- Girls Have Cooties: President Oliver reviews a number of "replacement dogs" for him, but immediately rejects his choice once he finds out it's a female.Oliver: "No, no, no, this one. He's perfect! My new Homer!"
Aide: "It's a female dog, sir."
Oliver: "What? EW! What were you thinking?!" - Global Warming: Climate change is brought up as one of the many topics that the last adult president was polling badly in.
- Gory Discretion Shot:
- When Raff is shot, his blood splatters onto a painting of Thomas Jefferson.
- We also don't see the kid doctor hacking into Raff's chest with a knife. All we hear are his screams.
- Hollywood Law: Numerous liberties are taken with regards to American law.
- Raff convinces Oliver to run for president even though he is only eleven years old. They get around the presidential age requirement (the US Constitution states you must be at least 35 years old to be eligible for president) by having Oliver's mother serve as his proxy — but then that would make her the President of the United States, though her constant bowing to his wishes makes it unlikely that anything would change in that situation.
- Oliver's first act after being sworn in as President is to give free video games to everyone, and he plans to get the Video Game Companies to comply by threatening a surcharge tax of one million dollars per console "and put them out of business in a day." Unfortunately, the annual budget isn't created until October of the next fiscal year...
- President Oliver tells his staff to pass a law: "no old doctors." This comes to pass somehow, even though legislation begins with Congress, not the White House.
- How We Got Here: The episode starts with Raff waking up in an operating theater.
- Informed Ability: Raff is constantly talked up as a brilliant political mover and shaker, but we only ever see him screw up, while his one actual victory (in actually getting Oliver elected) happens offscreen with no explanation of how he did it.
- Jerkass:
- Oliver. To a lesser extent, Raff Hanks as well because as Oliver's dad pointed out he's an opportunist and a manipulator.
- There were also the campaign managers of the rival presidential candidates competing against Oliver that heckled Raff when Oliver couldn't decide what to do about tax policies at the debate round.
- Kick the Dog: In his debut campaign video, Oliver jokes maybe his little sister shouldn't get "quality and freedom" despite the fact she doesn't heckle or mistreat Oliver in any way. Also comes off as hypocritical since Oliver said that "people should be nice to each other" a few seconds earlier.
- Kiddie Kid: Eleven-year-old Oliver exhibits behavior more appropriate for a younger child, such as jumping on the furniture, feet-stomping tantrums, and riding a tricycle indoors.
- Loophole Abuse: Raff is guilty of this. He knows that Oliver is too young to be elected as President, so he simply makes Oliver's mother the name on the ballot for Oliver's stand-alone political party so that Oliver can gain power.
- Mythology Gag:
- Oliver's mother is Helen Foley, who shares her name with the main character from "Nightmare As A Child" and the "It's a Good Life" segment of Twilight Zone: The Movie.
- Kanamit Lager returns from "The Comedian".
- "Whipple" is not only the news channel, but also the name of a pinball machine.
- The reveal of the child surgeon is reminiscent of the twist ending of "Eye of the Beholder", where a plastic surgery team working on an incurably ugly patient are revealed to all be hideous monsters, while the patient is a beautiful woman.
- President James Stevens is played by John Larroquette, who had a role in Twilight Zone: The Movie.
- New Media Are Evil: Oliver's rise to the Oval Office, and the subsequent destruction of society in the United States, is directly connected to the presence of YouTube, social media in general, and video games (which apparently everyone in the entire country plays).
- No Celebrities Were Harmed: Three guesses as to whom do you think Oliver is supposed to represent?
- Only Sane Man: Raff is horrified when everybody in the White House starts listening to Oliver's commands like they were the Word of God in spite of his immaturity and selfishness. We then learn that Oliver won over the electorate's support by giving them all free video games.
- Personal Arcade: Oliver fills the Oval Office with a video game console, two pinball machines, a popcorn machine, and a rope swing.
- Pet the Dog: Oliver wants his sister to have a parade in her honor on her birthday.
- Phoneaholic Teenager: The writers seem to think that everyone in the United States is one of these, adults included, as Oliver's rise to popularity stems from his social media savvy and use of video games to placate the public.
- The Reveal: Oliver confessing that Homer's incurable cancer was a lie.
- Royal Brat: Oliver quickly turns into one once he becomes president.
- Rule of Cool: Oliver wants to have a music video about world peace where he pretends to shoot the dancers because the blood would look cool.
- Screw the Rules, I Make Them!: How Oliver Foley rules, disregarding precedents and established standards, even when playing golf.Oliver: "No! I want a hole-in-one!" (empties bucket of golf balls) "There! Hole-in-one! I win!"
- Shout-Out:
- Oliver's story about his dog Homer recalls Richard Nixon saving himself from what looked like political freefall with a highly sentimental speech about his new dog Checkers.
- Oliver's "bomb Russia" joke is a reference to Ronald Reagan joking about a missile strike on Russia, not realizing he was being recorded.
- Spoiled Brat: Oliver, especially after he gets elected. He has very little interest in running the country (he doesn't have any stance on taxes or foreign policy) and cares more about video games, miniature golf, ice cream and dogs.
- Take That!: Oliver calls for fewer Star Wars movies.
- Tempting Fate: In the opening, Rafe repeatedly says how successful the election has been, even before the votes have been counted. Maura calls him out on this, and sure enough, President Stevens is not re-elected.
- We Have Reserves: On the first day of his presidency, Oliver threatens to fire and replace anyone who disagrees with him."I'm settled in, Raff, and I know what I want. And you guys are gonna get that done for me, or I'll get other people to get it done for me. There won't be a shortage of people who want to work for the new President of the United States!"
- With Us or Against Us: As President, Oliver views any disagreement as treason.
- Wounded Gazelle Gambit:
- Homer's cancer — the event which turns Oliver's fortunes around — turns out to be a lie.
- Oliver uses one to falsely blame Raff for trying to shoot him after he starts to resist Oliver's demands.
- Yes-Man: The members of Oliver's Cabinet, who only offer token resistance to his most ludicrous demands.Raff: "Don't you think the president seems like a kid? [...] Like the most spoiled kid in the history of the world, you know?"
Chairman Mitch: "He's commander-in-chief, this is the greatest country in the world. President says 'Jump,' I say 'How high?' I don't care that he's a kid." - You Have Outlived Your Usefulness: After Raff helped get Oliver elected as President, Oliver has no use for a campaign manager anymore, ignores his advisers and tries to convert Raff into just another one of his Yes Men. Raff ultimately refuses to be one, and so Oliver does away with him.
Jordan Peele: Society is a fragile ecosystem. Razzle and dazzle people with the right lies and eventually they'll go blind to the madness right in front of their faces. Raff Hanks made a living selling the American dream. But, once sold, he created a true nightmare that he couldn't buy back. Especially not here in The Twilight Zone.
