Song of the Younger World
"Meet Tanner Smith, circa 1916, disciple of a young writer named Jack London. Tanner Smith, now consigned to what is affectionately known by the Bowery Boys as "The Ref", a grim sojourn into solitude, despair, pain, and sooner than he knows, a curious corner — in The Twilight Zone."
In 1916, Tanner Smith (Peter Kowanko), a young pickpocket housed in the House of Refuge Reformatory for Wayward Boys, seeks the affections of a young lady named Amy Hawkline (Jennifer Rubin). During one of their forbidden late-night meetings, Amy and Tanner are caught by Amy's father Mordecai (Roberts Blossom), the superintendent of the home and a religious zealot who intends to mold Amy into his picture of a proper woman. Meeting with the incarcerated Tanner, Amy shows him a book she found, which houses a special ritual that details how, with the help of Amy's special I Ching pendant, one can release their soul and let it inhabit a better world. Growing fond of the idea, Tanner and Amy plan to use this ritual to escape to another world, but they must do so before Mordecai has Tanner killed.
Tropes
- Abusive Parents: Amy's father Mordecai is an emotionally abusive zealot who is determined to use Scripture to turn her into a proper young woman, no matter the cost. He even slaps her after finding her in a passionate embrace with Tanner, an inmate of the boys' home he runs.
- Alternate Universe: Amy and Tanner are able to transfer their souls into the bodies of a pair of wolves in a parallel universe through the ritual they read about.
- Anti-Hero: Tanner, a pickpocket in a boys' home who falls in love with the nice and gentle Amy and seeks to escape with her. Tanner later tells Amy that he was only a pickpocket because he had no other way to procure money while he was living on the streets.
- Astral Projection: Tanner and Amy use the I Ching to transfer their souls into a pair of wolves in a younger world, so they can be freed of the abusive Mordecai forever.
- The Bard on Board: The episode is based on Romeo and Juliet, as it involves a pair of teenagers with different backgrounds who fall madly in love over the objections of Mordecai. Amy uses the I Ching to make her soul leave her body and take possession of a wolf in an alternate universe. As she appears dead, Tanner is devastated and assumes that she committed suicide because of her father. Unlike Friar Laurence's messenger in the play, however, Hoakie manages to tell Tanner that Amy is still alive. Tanner then uses the same spell to transfer his own soul to the younger world before Mordecai can kill him.
- Boarding School of Horrors: The House of Refuge Reformatory for Wayward Boys. Its superintendent Mordecai beats Tanner severely when he finds him in a passionate embrace with Amy, who he later tells that Tanner and other boys are beasts who must be caged away from decent society. After Tanner tries to kill him when he thinks Amy is dead, Mordecai has his men put him in a cell called "The Hole" and bind him in a full body straitjacket.
- Driven to Suicide: Amy tells Hoakie through tear-stained eyes that her father's abuse and her threats to kill Tanner have made her crave death.
- Earn Your Happy Ending: After being smacked around by the abusive Mordecai for their "forbidden" love, Tanner and Amy manage to possess a pair of wolves in another world so they can escape him and be happy together forever.
- Five-Finger Discount: Tanner was forced to pick people's pockets so he could use their money for food. As a result, he was sent to the boys' home Mordecai runs.
- The Fundamentalist: Mordecai is a fanatical Christian who attempts to use Scripture to force his daughter into becoming his idea of the perfect woman, as well as a justification to try and murder her lover.
- Hate Sink: Mordecai, a maniacal religious fanatic who smacks his daughter around while using Scripture to mold her into his vision of a perfect woman, while also treating Tanner and the other boys as degenerate animals and attempts to kill him for falling in love with his daughter.
- Heroic Sacrifice: Hoakie takes a bullet for Tanner and buys him time to join Amy in the alternate world, dying in the process.
- Homeless Hero: Hoakie, an old bum who lives around the boys' home, who works with Amy and Tanner on separate occasions to ensure that they can escape together.
- I Did What I Had to Do: Tanner tells Amy that he didn't want to be a pickpocket, but there are such little options for money and food when a young man is living on the streets.
- Love at First Sight: Amy and Tanner fall madly in love immediately after their first meeting, which involved only a very brief conversation.
- Murder Is the Best Solution: Mordecai threatens to arrange for Tanner to be killed if Amy ever sees him again. He later tries to shoot him in cold blood. Although he is unsuccessful in doing this, he kills Hoakie, who tried to stop him, without a second thought.
- Nice Guy: Hoakie the homeless man, who helps Amy and Tanner escape from Moredcai's clutches, even sacrificing his life so the young lovers can stay together.
- P.O.V. Cam: The camera briefly cuts to Tanner's point of view as Mordecai wallops him with his cane.
- Star-Crossed Lovers: Mordecai forbids Amy from ever seeing Tanner again, as he is an inmate of the boys' home of which he is the superintendent. Amy and Tanner manage to escape Mordecai's grasp by transferring their souls into the bodies of wolves in a younger world, where they're free to live happily ever after.
- Whole-Plot Reference: As mentioned above, one to Romeo and Juliet.
- Wisdom from the Gutter: Hoakie may be a homeless man who lives near the boy's home and has nothing to his name, but he certainly has common sense. When Amy mourns over her situation and decides it's better to be dead, Hoakie talks her out of it, reminding her that she still has hope and that it would be shameful to throw her life away while she's still young and in love. Amy expresses genuine appreciation towards him for helping her see things in a different light.
"A song of the younger world. A tale told on wintery nights when the moon is full, of living with wolves and learning to howl, of love that transcends worldly pain, and running free — in the Twilight Zone."
The Girl I Married
Corporate lawyer Ira Richman (James Whitmore Jr.) and his aerobics instructor wife Valerie (Linda Kelsey) find that they just can't stop reminiscing about the 1960s, where they were a pair of hippies who drove a van everywhere in the hopes of changing the world through peace and love. As he drives to a meeting one day, Ira spots Valerie's 1960s self frolicking in a park. While he initially thinks her to be dressed in a costume, a phone call to Valerie's work reveals that the woman is another Valerie who manifested from a picture Ira has been carrying around. While he tries to carry on living in the spirit of peace with the younger Valerie, Ira later discovers that Valerie has been doing the same thing with the 1960s version of him, leading to a squabble between the young and the old.
Tropes
- An Aesop: Reminiscing about the past is often enjoyable, but you shouldn't try revolving your whole life around trying to stay in the past or bring it back, since you still have a life to live in the present.
- Aw, Look! They Really Do Love Each Other: The Richmans' separate escapades with the hippie versions of their respective spouse tests their marriage, as does their overwhelming nostalgia, but once both versions sit down and observe how irritating the other is, Ira and Valerie decide that their lives aren't over, and decide to make the world a better place in their own way.
- Bookends: The episode can be seen as one for the second season of the 80s remake, as both this one and season premiere "The Once and Future King" focus on a protagonist who is enthusiastic about the past, only to get more than what he expected when the past itself confronts him.
- Breather Episode: The previous episode was a gripping tale of romance and tragedy, but this one mellows the audience out again with a married couple who come across rather irritating hippie versions of themselves.
- Future Me Scares Me: Ira and Valerie are visited by the spirits of their '60s hippie selves in 1987. The younger counterparts are very disturbed that their older selves have become corporate sellouts, thinking that they betrayed their ideals of peace, love, and brotherhood to make money. Hippie!Valerie tells the older Ira that she thinks he's a "stone drag", reminding him that they used to laugh at people like him, while Hippie!Ira thinks that they've wasted their lives.
- Good-Times Montage: Ira and Hippie!Valerie engage in a series of nostalgic 60s activities in such a montage, filmed in a psychedelic style with splitscreens and kaleidoscope effects.
- Granola Girl: Valerie was the archetypal hippie chick back in the '60s. When her 60s self appears to Ira in 1987, she suggests that they unwind with a little LSD. Although Ira turns down the idea, she takes him to a double bill of Easy Rider and Woodstock, then invites him to a meditation session.
- Hippie Van: Valerie and Ira reminisce about when they were hippies back in the 1960s, where they drove such a van all around the country in the means of changing the world by spreading peace and love.
- Hypocritical Humor: Once he finds Valerie and his hippie self getting intimate on the couch, Ira argues about how she could do such a thing, even though he's been doing the exact same thing with the hippie version of Valerie.
- I Hate Past Me: Ira is confronted with the hippie version of his wife from the 60s, and spends several days with her watching 60s movies, handing out flowers, meditating, and playing frisbee. When Ira returns home with her, he learns that the present Valerie has been doing the exact same thing with the hippie version of him. As soon as all four are in the same room, the older Ira and Valerie realize that they find their former selves and their mellow attitudes extremely irritating. Ira in particular tells them that they have no idea what real love is, saying that it's a matter of commitment. After the hippies disappear, Valerie has a hard time believing that they were ever that arrogant, naive, and pompous.
- I Was Quite a Fashion Victim: Valerie is embarrassed by the photograph of her as a hippie that Ira carries around with him, thinking that she looks like a bag lady.
- Just One Second Out of Sync: The first part of the montage features the same scenes through five different angles, each one slightly out of sync after another, as a means of providing a psychedelic feel for the audience.
- Large Ham: The hippie versions of Ira and Valerie, though their 80s selves also get into it near the end.
- Lighter and Softer: The peaceful hippie aesthetic of the episode allows for the viewers to just relax and unwind. When it's not being peaceful, the hippie versions of Ira and Valerie provide for a bit of good comedy.
- Lotus Position: Ira and Valerie's hippie self are seen at a yoga session during the montage, with many others performing the position. While Hippie!Valerie has no trouble with it, Ira, being out of touch with the art of meditation, struggles to retain the position and falls over.
- Nostalgia Filter: Ira and Valerie grow concerned that they've sold out and abandoned the dreams and ideals that they had as hippies. Each of them wish that the other was still the person that they married, but after they are visited by the spirits of their hippie selves, they realize that they still love each other and their lives are far from over... that, and they also find their younger selves more than a little irritating. Although they have matured from wielding peace signs, dropping LSD, and driving around in a van, Ira and Valerie still want to make the world a better place, content to do it in their own way.
- Shout-Out: There are quite a few 60s references throughout the episode, given its nature.
- Notably, Hippie!Valerie takes Ira to a double feature of Woodstock and Easy Rider at a 60s revival theater during the montage scene.
- The montage itself is filmed with multiple different splitscreens showing the scenes from different perspectives, all of them just out of sync with one another, similar to the techniques used in The Thomas Crown Affair.
- Valerie reads the noted counterculture book Siddhartha when Ira comes home one night. He sits down to glimpse through it with her, reminiscing on when he thought the truth of existence itself was in said book.
- Strange Minds Think Alike: Ira discovers the hippie version of Valerie in the park and sneaks out of the house to do 60s activities with her behind the modern Valerie's back. We learn towards the end of the episode that Valerie had been doing the exact same thing with the hippie version of Ira.
- Take That!: As she tires of having the 60s version of Ira around, Valerie remarks that his dialogue is starting to sound like something out of a rerun of The Mod Squad.
- Title Drop: After a romp in the sack, Hippie!Valerie clarifies to Ira that she's "the girl [[he]] married."
- Totally Radical: The hippie versions of Ira and Valerie inevitably spout tired 60s slang in their dialogue.
- Your Mind Makes It Real: The overwhelming obsession Ira and Valerie share about the 60s prompts their past selves to emerge from photographs and manifest in the real world.
"It has been said the '80s are just the '60s, twenty years later. The costumes may change, but the cast remains: the arrogant, the radical, the naive, and the cynical; the misplaced and the spaced. Each a stage in the growth of a generation, as it treads the tail-end of the twentieth century, on a long journey — through the Twilight Zone."
