There's Nothing in The Dark That Isn't There When the Lights Turn On: Death Acceptance in the Twilight Zone
Season 3: Episode 16 of the Twilight Zone features Robert Redford as a charming young Grim Reaper.
There was an old woman who lived in a room. And, like all of us, was frightened of the dark. But who discovered in a minute last fragment of her life that there was nothing in the dark that wasn't there when the lights were on. Object lesson for the more frightened amongst us in or out, of the Twilight Zone.
It was a sick day. I had called out of high-school classes for the day after feeling a bit under the weather with a summer cold. I sat covered in blankets on my downstairs couch in front of my television making my way though TV Land’s greatest hits: The Dick Van Dyke Show, I Love Lucy, and The Twilight Zone. I had made my way through the first two iconic seasons and was rounding the corner on the third, when this little existential ditty hit my high school brain like a ton of bricks: Episode 16: Nothing in the Dark.
As a horror aficionado I appreciated the Twilight Zone for it’s creative psychological horror that often pushed the political and technical boundaries for low budget productions at the time it was produced. But I wasn’t expecting to encounter a tale that was soft-spoken and touching, with an ending that left me feeling
hopeful and optimistic about my own fears and anxieties and that ultimately would stick with me for many years to come.
Wanda Dunn, a frail elderly woman sits alone in her basement apartment, wracked with anxiety. It’s clear from the dilapidation of the walls, the boarded up windows, and her dusty and crowded belongings that she exists on the edge of society–lonely, impoverished, and condemned.
But as unpleasant as her small apartment is, we get the sense that she clings to it in desperation, as a twisted source of familiar comfort and a deep-seated agoraphobia of what lies outside in her alleyway.
As soon as the audience grasps the weight of Wanda’s neuroses, we are thrust out of her hovel into the alleyway outside her door. A young policeman named Harold Belden has just been shot, and lies dying outside of Wanda’s door pleading for help. Wanda cracks the door and gazes at the young officer through the chains of the dead bolt.
“Mister Death. I know he’s out there. He’s trying to get in. He comes to the door and knocks. He begs me to let him in. Last week, he said he came from the gas company. Oh, he-he-he’s clever. After that, he claimed to be a contractor hired by the city. I knew who he was. He said this building was condemned, that I’d have to leave. I kept the door locked. Then he went away. He knows I’m on to him.”
Fearing that this stranger is Death incarnate come to take her soul, Wanda is reluctant to help Belden to safety. We see her internal struggle with her fear and distrust of this stranger, and her kind-hearted instincts to help the desperate young man bleeding out on her doorstep.
Deep down she knows she has no choice. She can’t bring herself to let the pleading man die. She cautiously unlocks her deadbolt and scurries over to Belden to drag him inside. She flinches when she places her hands on him, expecting the world to go black. But nothing happens. It appears, Harold isn’t Death after-all. Elated, she sets him up in her bed and prepares him a cup of tea.
As the two wait for a doctor (that Wanda knows is never coming), they get to know each other a bit better. Wanda tells him the story of the first time she encountered “Mister Death” many years ago.
“At first, I couldn’t be sure. It was a long time ago. I was on a bus. There was an old woman sitting in front of me, knitting. Socks, I think. There was something about her face. I felt I knew her. Then this young man got on. There were empty seats, but he sat down beside her. He didn’t say anything but... his being there upset her. He seemed a nice young man. When she dropped her yarn, he picked it up. Right in front of me. He held it up to her. I saw their fingers touch. He got out at the next stop. When the bus reached the end of the line... she was dead.”
Belden humors her, but tries to reveal a fault in her plan: when she goes out into the world, couldn’t this “Mister Death” character find her?
Suddenly, a burly construction foreman bursts through her door, to the delight of Harold and the horror of Wanda. He tells her this condemned building is set for demolition within the hour.
Wanda desperately reaches for Belden, pleading with him to use his authority as a policeman to stop the demolition, but Belden remains still and silent, as the construction foreman looks confused, but gives his final warning and then exits the tenement. He couldn’t see Belden at all. It was Mister Death after-all.
Wanda despairs, shouting at Belden and lamenting his trickery.
“An object lesson from the twilight zone” seems to be an understatement in explaining the themes of this soft-spoken and pensive episode– whose run time is a mere 25 minutes. Could we teach the acceptance of death in 25 minutes? I mean, if anyone could do it, Rod Serling could.
Keep reading with a 7-day free trial
Subscribe to A Body That Enjoys Itself to keep reading this post and get 7 days of free access to the full post archives.