Friday, October 12, 2018

Twilight Zone Take-Over #12 - The Monsters are Due on Maple Street



"The tools of conquest do not necessarily come with bombs and explosions and fallout. There are weapons that are simply thoughts, attitudes, prejudices – to be found only in the minds of men. For the record, prejudices can kill – and suspicion can destroy – and a thoughtless frightened search for a scapegoat has a fallout all of its own – for the children – and the children yet unborn. And the pity of it is – that these things cannot be confined – to the Twilight Zone."
Director: Ronald Winston
Writer: Rod Serling
Composer: Bernard Herrmann


This may well be the most famous episode of The Twilight Zone simply due to the fact that it is so available to people at a young age from the get-go. It's often shown in schools for whatever reason, be it the directing, acting, writing, or moral message, so a lot of young people are exposed to this early. And, if I can get personal for just a moment, this was the very first episode of The Twilight Zone that I watched, as it was free on iTunes at the time when I watched it. Instantly, I was hooked.

This is a quintessential episode of the original series and is a perfect gateway episode for anyone that may be on the fringe of watching this one. It has all the makings of a great episode: biting social commentary, an air of science fiction, tight writing, great acting, and a twist ending. Some may even argue that this is the best episode of the entire original series, and they would have an incredibly valid argument for it.

"The Monsters are Due on Maple Street" features a regular early 60s suburban block on a weekend afternoon suddenly besieged by two of man's greatest enemies: fear of the unknown, and fear of each other. The neighborhood's face of morality and reason begins to crack with each passing moment as its suspected that one among them may be an outsider, an alien, after some strange lights and sounds flash overhead, raising some suspicion. Accusations are made and alliances are, supposedly, drawn. And in the end, the monsters very much make themselves known, indeed.

This is hardly any episode made of light material, and hardly an episode that one can just scoff and say, "Well, that would never happen," because it happens all too often. This is arguably one of the more real episodes of The Twilight Zone and remains relatable even to this day. The 2003 remake version of it tries to give people more justification for their action and it entirely ruins the point of the episode.

It would be one thing for this episode to just slip into the pitfalls of insanity. To see everyone just slip all at once into all-out war and finger-pointing, but that's not the case. In fact, if it were just the strange lights overhead, it would probably be no big deal. Maybe someone people talk about later on, but, nothing to really push them.

It's when the cars stop working, when the power goes out, when the things people "rely" on go away, that they really show their own faces. Quickly things go from a "hey, neighbor!" attitude to "it's all about numero uno." Selfishness and greed and arrogance quickly dominate what was once a mask of friendliness and familiarity.

Those that want to listen to reason are, obviously, understaffed, and quite often not heard from much, because it's so easy to just assume the worst in a situation where not all the factors are readily available. Claude Akins places Mr. Brand, who refuses to believe that there are aliens lurking about and desperately wants to give everyone in the neighborhood the benefit of the doubt when it comes to the suspicions. He knows, or thinks he knows, all of these people.

But things quickly escalate to accusations. Gossip and wildly absurd observations are made, but only when it's at someone else. If you're the one being accused then suddenly everyone else has gone mad, except for when you were a part of that mob not a moment ago.

The clear antagonist, or one of the primary catalysts for the paranoia, is Charlie, played by Jack Weston. He's a jerk through and through, willing to throw anyone he can under the bus just to keep himself in the clear. He makes everyone else into a strawman and makes wild, unthinkable accusations about the others, and is the first to roll over and give up in the face of this situation that anyone with a rational mind might just think as a freak accident.

But, again, he doesn't necessarily start that way. Nobody does. It isn't until Tommy decides that it's aliens that people begin to think it may possibly be aliens.

Some may criticize the episode for this idea: that a neighborhood of rational adults would just default to the idea that aliens are the things responsible for it. But, remember: they don't at first. Mr. Brand humors Tommy just to comfort him, maybe, but it's not meant to be serious. Everyone else makes it serious because they aren't capable of coming up with their own situations. None of them want to believe this could be anything but an accident, they all want to believe that it's some malevolent force.

And really, this episode seems to come as a direct response to the McCarthy hearings that'd ended just a few years before. The Red Scare had just hit its peak and everyone, it seemed, was being accused of being a communist for whatever reason; maybe they looked at someone strange, maybe they had strange communication methods. This similar idea of taking just something someone does that wouldn't be abnormal in another situation is what makes this episode stand out so much.

Aliens landing and invading a neighborhood is a ridiculous concept until it's tied in with spotting someone staring up at the sky, maybe waiting for their mothership to return. But if you don't bring up the aliens and you just see a man staring up at the sky, you'll think it's weird, but leave him be.

So the idea that adults would fall for such a thing is reasonable when you consider that the country was in a state of mind where everyone had a skeleton in the closet and as long as nobody saw yours you were a-okay.

What makes this episode so poignant is how real it is now; except, this time, the skeletons are real. So instead of everyone being the accuser, everyone is becoming the accused. Charlie may be the most relatable character to us all whether we like it or not: for a majority of the episode he doesn't trust what he sees, he's the accuser, he's the one in the right. Then, when things turn on him, what does he do?

Begs. Grovels. Swears that he was just doing right by the neighborhood. Which means that the good of the neighborhood was accusing everyone else, right? Charlie is only in it for himself. "The Monsters are Due on Maple Street" speaks on not just what it means to instill fear and suspicion in others, but to show what happens when "strong" men are suddenly shown the spotlight and how frail and fragile they are when the spotlight is on them. Suddenly they don't like being the accused and they don't like it anymore. Almost as if having power flexed all over you isn't a great thing.

Les, played by Barry Atwater, falls to a similar pitfall, but his story is basically the inverse of Charlie's. Les is the one that is initially accused, due to his insomnia, and while one would hope that he would join Mr. Brand on his quest of instilling some sense of reason to the neighborhood, he instead decides to spearhead the mob, to make sure that he is covered and nobody accuses him, because if he is going all-in against the others, with proof that he isn't an alien, then he'll be just fine.

This may be Rod Serling's best script in terms of showing the truer sides of humanity and showing the precipice that the human race stands on whenever there's even the idea that someone may be accused of something they've tried so hard to keep locked away.

Ronald Watson's direction for the episode is solid but doesn't become home-run hitting until the final few minutes so this will be touched on again in the spoiler section.

If you've never seen "The Monsters are Due on Maple Street," do yourself and watch it. For some it may be a frightening look into the mirror, and for others, it'll be a haunting reminder about the dangers of what happens when we turn against each other without sense or reason. Rod Serling's closing narration has never seemed so real, and it remains timeless to this day.

***SPOILER SECTION***


Watson's direction as the episode hits its boiling point and the neighborhood descends into absolute chaos is hectic as all hell and works magnificently. The odd camera angles, the tight shots one everyone's face, and the panic as everyone gears up for what may as well be war. Guns are grabbed and fired: people are dying, and Watson does not stray away from making sure that the we know exactly what is happening, even if we don't see it. 

And all because the power went out in a neighborhood. Just...wow. 

The twist that there were aliens all along isn't the best twist in the world, but the real point of emphasis is how easy it was for them not only to conquer humanity, but to utterly obliterate it. All they needed to do was flip a few switches and instill a bit of fear and they were off to the races. 

And honestly, there's not much else to say that hasn't already been said about this episode. It's real, even with the aliens. It's scary because of how easily it could happen to any one neighborhood, and we just have to know to stick together in times that are tough, otherwise, we'll all end up on Maple Street. 

Because the real scary part of it is...Rod Serling never says that Maple Street is in the Twilight Zone. It isn't. It's here.


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