A town in desperate need of an outlet mall.
Rod Serling: There was a village. Built of crumbling clay and rotting wood. And it squatted ugly under a broiling sun like a sick and mangy animal wanting to die. This village had a virus, shared by its people. It was the germ of squalor, of hopelessness, of a loss of faith. With the faithless, the hopeless, the misery-laden, there is time, ample time, to engage in one of the other pursuits of men. They began to destroy themselves.
Air date: January 6, 1961
In a particularly ratty-looking village "built of crumbling clay and rotting wood" in the Wild West, Sykes (Thomas Gomez), a particularly nasty, mean-spirited merchant and peddler of goods, rides in. The town is hosting a public hanging on this day for Luís Gallegos (Vladimir Sokoloff), who got drunk, went out for a ride in his wagon, and struck a little girl. The whole town has turned out for the execution. After Sykes cruelly taunts the condemned man, he does something even more cruel. After Gallegos' father begs the townspeople for mercy, Sykes offers to sell him some "magic dust"—actually just sand Sykes scooped up from the ground—which will supposedly turn hate into love, and bring the spirit of forgiveness to the sad little town. What Sykes doesn't realize that he's more on the nose than he thinks.
Dust Tropes:
- The Atoner: Luís spends all his screentime remorseful and heartbroken after killing a little girl in a drunken accident. When his noose breaks via an apparent act of God, the parents of the deceased girl opt to let him off the hook, deciding that his guilt has made him suffer enough.
- Big "NO!": Gallegos Sr. gives one in the climax, just as the noose drops.
- Blatant Lies: Part of what drives the plot is how Sykes exploits Gallegos Sr.'s gullible nature by selling him ordinary sand that he calls "magic dust" which will save his condemned son.
- Divine Intervention: Mr. Canfield theorizes that an act of God was what caused the hanging noose to break like nothing. The apparently-divine act is what convinces him and his wife to spare Luís' life.
- Drowning My Sorrows: It's implied that Luís' accident occurred because he was drunk, having been drinking to try and forget the dismal state of poverty he found himself in.
- Dying Town: Serling's narration describes the episode's setting as a town that's "waiting to die". Even for a Wild West town, the place looks particularly dilapidated, as though an extended drought has basically ruined everyone. Even one of the horses is underweight.
- Establishing Character Moment: Sykes makes it pretty clear how mean-spirited he is when he sadistically taunts the convicted Luís for running over a child, even if it was an accident.
- Failed Execution, No Sentence: Luís survives his execution by hanging because the rope breaks at the precise moment that he falls. This is the moment that everybody in town decides (on top of everything else that has happened throughout the episode that was making them undecided about whether following through with this whole charade was actually a good idea) to let him go.
- Friend to All Children: Gallegos Sr. implies that his son Luís has a soft spot for kids.
- Harmful to Minors: Sheriff Koch lampshades how questionable it is to deliberately let children watch an execution to "teach" them the concept of justice.
- Heel–Face Turn: In the end, after witnessing the botched execution, Sykes has a change of heart and gives the gold coins he swindled from Gallegos Sr. to the village children.
- Humans Are Flawed: A major theme of the episode, culminating in a Humans Are Good moral.
- Humans Are Good: Part of the episode's moral.
- Jerkass: Sykes, at least until the ending proves he was wrong about the dust not being magical.
- Maybe Magic, Maybe Mundane: Was Sykes' special dust really magical all along? Or is the human heart much deeper than we give credit?
- Pet the Dog: Two instances towards the end. First, the parents of the child Luís accidentally ran over decide in the end to forgo the execution when the noose breaks, seeing that Gallegos Sr. loves his son just as much as they loved their daughter. Second, Sykes gives his gold coins to some poor children, no strings attached, after having a change of heart from the execution.
- Posthumous Character: The nameless deceased little girl is a major catalyst, pervading over the story. Luís accidentally ran her over while drunk and is now facing execution, and the story also takes place during her funeral.
- The Punishment Is the Crime: Mrs. Canfield, the mother of the child Luís killed, insists on letting him go after his failed execution. Her husband John reminds her that Luís killed their child, only for her to respond that through running over an innocent child, Luís has killed part of himself, and the overwhelming guilt has made him suffer enough.
- The Sheriff: Sheriff Koch is sympathetic to Luís, chastizing Sykes for taunting him and protecting his father from the angry crowd. Koch is also depressed by the thought of Gallegos being hanged for an accident and clearly believes that he does not deserve to die in such a way, but he's still forced to complete his duty as laid down by the law.
- This Cannot Be!: When the noose tied around Luís' neck inexplicably breaks, Sykes—the man who sold the rope—is shocked, as he can vouch it was supposed to be unbreakable.
- The Wild West: A "misery-laden village" somewhere out in the Wild West, where people still travel in wagons and conduct public hangings, is the setting.
Rod Serling: It was a very small, misery-laden village. On the day of a hanging. And of little historical consequence. And if there's any moral to it at all, let's say that in any quest for magic, and any search for sorcery, witchery, legerdemain, first check the human heart. For inside this deep place is a wizardry that costs far more than a few pieces of gold. Tonight's case in point - in the Twilight Zone.
