YMMV / The Twilight Zone (1959) S4E5: "Mute"

• Designated Hero: The schoolteacher Miss Frank, who felt that Ilse had to be deprived of her telepathy in order to function, and accomplished this by repeatedly subjecting her to Psychic Static until she conformed. Were she more compassionate, she could have easily found a far less excruciating method to teach Ilse to communicate.
• Fridge Horror: Ilse is already two at the beginning of the episode, when her parents first commit to the experiment; well old enough to be talking. Does that mean Ilse was talking and hearing spoken language normally for the first two years of her life, and then her parents suddenly stopped talking to her? What would that even be like for a toddler? And how did they teach her to stop talking?
  • Fridge Brilliance: It's no wonder Ilse has so much difficulty handling spoken language. It's not just because of her telepathy, it's that whatever she went through to break her of spoken language left her with traumatic associations to the concept of verbal communication.
• Heartwarming Moments: This might be one of the more controversial episodes for a reason, but the sight of Ilse and Cora lovingly walking down the street together is an admittedly sweet note to end upon.
• Informed Wrongness: The Werners decide that Ilse's telepathy getting squelched was for the best, since she now has the opportunity to be truly loved. Thing is, there wasn't much indicating she absolutely needed to lose one to gain the other, since the other mediums were able to speak and function without any problems. Furthermore, the Werners deduce that Ilse survived the house fire due to her parents telepathically guiding her to safety in their last moments, meaning she would have died if not for their telepathy.
• The Woobie: Ilse, who was raised as a guinea pig until she lost her parents in a house fire, thrust into a society were normal communication pains her, and forced to conform into said society through weeks of what can charitably be described as intense "exposure therapy" until she breaks down.