I did individual episode reviews for each addition to the first season of Jordan Peele's newly rebooted "Twilight Zone". Mostly those were a catalogue of disappointment, but here we are again, for the second season and this first episode was actually alright.
Whilst on a date that isn't going very well Phil Hayes (Jimmi Simpson) starts to hear a voice in his head. The voice isn't an inner monologue though, rather belonging to a separate personality, Annie (Gillian Jacobs) who seems equally annoyed as Phil about the situation. After coming to the belief that Annie is a real person, and not just a manifestation of a personality disorder, the pair bond and Phil falls in love, but as they plan to meet disaster strikes.
I felt that a lot of the first season's failings were because they chose to beat the message into you with a mallet. Here though, the subtlety was increased a bit and a story about not blindly trusting the messages and images people choose to present of themselves to you, was nicely done. The voice in the head was never explained, which is fine, it's just a science fiction-y cypher for social media. The story was pretty good, it sagged a little in the middle, with the "getting to know you, getting to know all about you" section running a bit long. Maybe we could have mined the dates with the shows two writers, Emily Chang and Sara Amini, a little more instead or seen the pair bond over something else, a work issue or something like that.
Jimmi Simpson has been nailing these "decent" guys with awful undertones for a while now. I liked the subtle nods to his buried racism on his first date, but he keeps the character building across the run and the ending that he gets too feels plausible, again, despite that conceptual tweak that has got him here.
Whilst it's not a classic, it's better than many of the episodes of the first season.
Whilst on a date that isn't going very well Phil Hayes (Jimmi Simpson) starts to hear a voice in his head. The voice isn't an inner monologue though, rather belonging to a separate personality, Annie (Gillian Jacobs) who seems equally annoyed as Phil about the situation. After coming to the belief that Annie is a real person, and not just a manifestation of a personality disorder, the pair bond and Phil falls in love, but as they plan to meet disaster strikes.
I felt that a lot of the first season's failings were because they chose to beat the message into you with a mallet. Here though, the subtlety was increased a bit and a story about not blindly trusting the messages and images people choose to present of themselves to you, was nicely done. The voice in the head was never explained, which is fine, it's just a science fiction-y cypher for social media. The story was pretty good, it sagged a little in the middle, with the "getting to know you, getting to know all about you" section running a bit long. Maybe we could have mined the dates with the shows two writers, Emily Chang and Sara Amini, a little more instead or seen the pair bond over something else, a work issue or something like that.
Jimmi Simpson has been nailing these "decent" guys with awful undertones for a while now. I liked the subtle nods to his buried racism on his first date, but he keeps the character building across the run and the ending that he gets too feels plausible, again, despite that conceptual tweak that has got him here.
Whilst it's not a classic, it's better than many of the episodes of the first season.