Jordan Peele’s 2019 reboot of The Twilight Zone couldn’t quite muster the power of the classic Rod Serling original. It was ultimately canceled after just two seasons, roughly matching the fate of earlier Twilight Zone reboots from 1985 and 2002. The first series from 1959 truly captured lightning in a bottle, and replicating that energy, while possible, has been fitful at best for Serling’s various successors. Yet, the Jordan Peele incarnation, like the two before it, still finds its high points, which capture a bit of Serling’s spark amid an interesting story or creative concept.
Season 2, Episode 2, “Downtime,” has earned praise for both its central context and exploring ideas of simulation and reality. It also led to a strong lead performance from Morena Baccarin. Jordan Peele himself wrote the script for the episode, and it reflects his penchant for interesting ideas that fit the series ethics. The ending, however, can be a little ambiguous, and has led to some questions among fans. The answer isn’t necessarily difficult, but the episode’s uneven approach to the ending gives it a cryptic angle that isn’t necessarily intended.
The Twilight Zone’s “Downtime” Is About the Nature of Reality
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Episode Name |
Season |
Episode |
Writer |
Director |
|---|---|---|---|---|
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Downtime |
2 |
2 |
Jordan Peele |
J.D. Dillard |
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“Downtime” focuses on Baccarin’s Michelle Weaver, a hard-working hotel manager who has just scored a huge promotion as the episode opens. She calls her husband on her break to celebrate, only to experience a sudden, inexplicable headache. When she recovers, she witnesses what at first appears to be a horrifying incursion from outer space. An otherworldly globe hangs suspended in the sky, and everyone around her stares frozen at it. Another woman asks her casually about “downtime” before she joins the rest of the population as a human statue. Only Michelle remains seemingly unaffected by the phenomenon.
The set-up is a familiar one for the franchise, in which the protagonist’s seemingly ordinary world is overcome by something that only they are aware of. In this case, her world is a virtual simulation run by a large tech company that allows “real” people to live the lives they’ve always wanted in their sleep while they dream. She herself is the construct of an unhappy man who overdosed on sleeping pills before plugging into the simulation one final time. That sets up one of The Twilight Zone’s signature moral quandaries.
The episode starts with some routine sci-fi satire, as a group of young skateboarders show up at her door claiming to be “from maintenance” to solve the problem. They soon realize that something is dreadfully wrong. As a VR avatar, Michelle shouldn’t still be conscious, but with her controller occupying her as he slipped into a coma, some part of his consciousness remained behind in her. Michelle has, in effect, become a sentient AI, living inside a game world and unable to leave. Her big raise and happy marriage (which she remembers vividly) are a programmed part of her personality, and the entire nature of her reality is an unchanging fiction.
The End of The Twilight Zone’s “Downtime” Is Ambiguous
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“Downtime” uses an interesting narrative wrinkle to enlighten Michelle about the nature of her world. The technicians essentially view her as a glitch and want to pull the plug, but they’re prevented from doing so by the user’s wife, Ellen, who enters the VR in a last-ditch effort to bring her husband out of his coma. She convinces Michelle of her true nature, and Michelle decides that she would rather wake up in an unhappy man’s life than live a happy lie in the game. At least in the real world, there’s a real person who loves her. Unfortunately, she is unable to wake up as her user dies before “downtime” ends. After signing a waiver from the company, she’s left behind to go back to her “perfect” life in a world that doesn’t really exist.
“Downtime” takes care to note the irony with a cute word play about dreams and reality, but it also crafts its VR world to really twist the knife. Everyone except for Michelle is a hollow avatar in an MMO, played by real people who are expected to stay in character, but who know full well that none of it is real. Michelle still has her dream job, but does it amid phantoms and ghosts, while her husband is played by someone she knows nothing about, but who fully expects conjugal intimacy with her. It posits the eternal question of a gilded cage, where everything is great and nothing is truthful. Michelle is trapped there, with parts of her real-world user keeping her self-aware, but otherwise there is no recourse but to keep living a lie until the game is finally shut down for good.
As an exploration of perception and fact, the episode carries enough energy to sell its Matrix-like concept. It even has a few clever Easter eggs for the sharp-eyed viewer, like Michelle’s house has a painting of a green diamond reminiscent of The Sims computer game, and the prominently featured Busy Bee Diner is a tip of the cap to the original series’ classic episode “Nick of Time.” But amid the dark chuckles of Peele’s unseen narrator, a silver lining appears. Ellen checks into the hotel, and gives Michelle a quiet look after asking for a room for a few weeks. Michelle looks back and smiles. Considering the otherwise somber tone and expected twist, the connection feels a little out of place.
“Downtime” Is About Taking Meaning Where One Can Find It
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In terms of pure dramatics, it would probably be more impactful to simply leave Michelle trapped in her dream world and forced to make the best of it. Earlier incarnations of The Twilight Zone have seen bad things happen to good people, such as Burgess Meredith’s hapless reader who drops his glasses in the classic original episode “Time Enough at Last.” That said, the bit of optimism at the end feels earned. Baccarin plays up her character’s sympathetic side, creating a heroine the audience can easily root for who perhaps deserves a little more than fate has given her. That’s where Ellen’s arrival plays such an important role in the story.
The two previously made a connection when trying to resurrect Michelle’s real-world user, and at least a small part of him lives on in her. Michelle realizes as much when she chooses to abandon her false perfection in favor of returning to her wife. Ellen is clearly aware of that, and — after mourning her husband — has returned to the game to connect with Michelle and allow their relationship to live on in a new form. Michelle, for her part, would have a “real” person to talk to in her world of shadows and even establish some manner of relationship with. It wouldn’t be a perfect life, but it would prevent the existential loneliness that might otherwise crush her.
The pair have children as well, who would presumably be able to enter the simulation when they come of age and provide further connection with the world beyond her own. That runs against the much colder reading of simply trapping an artificial consciousness in a false world. It also asks a more resonant question of how one can find meaning in the opportunities that come along, and live a life of value in an increasingly unreal world. Peele’s narrator lingers on the Serling-esque symmetry of Michelle’s dreams becoming realty only for reality itself to become a dream. With Ellen’s arrival, her existence becomes something more — something worth fighting for and even helping her enjoy the perks of her VR world.
It isn’t guaranteed to last, but nothing ever is, and with that uncertainty comes the risk — and meaning — that Michelle needs to be happy in her gilded cage. In other words, Ellen is giving her the reality she hungers for, and she’s giving Ellen a facet of the love she’s lost. Together, they both might find something meaningful on their terms, and that’s as real as anyone could possibly hope for. It’s still a tad cryptic, but it helps “Downtime” linger in the mind and render it one of the better outings of the Peele version of The Twilight Zone.
The Twilight Zone (2019) is currently streaming on Amazon Prime.
The Twilight Zone
An updated version of the classic anthology series featuring various tales of science fiction, mystery, and horror.
- Release Date
- April 1, 2019
- Seasons
- 2 Seasons
- Creator
- Simon Kinberg, Jordan Peele, Marco Ramirez
- Producer
- Whit Anderson, John Forrest Niss, Alex Kim
- Production Company
- CBS Television Studios, Genre Films, Monkeypaw Productions
- Number of Episodes
- 156
- Main Cast
- Jordan Peele, David Epstein, Kelly Ann Woods
