Revisiting The Twilight Zone: S1 E2: One For the Angels

Season 1: Episode 2: One For the Angels

Yeah OK, I don’t really care how good a pitch salesman you are, you would be treading a very fine line to get me to believe that anyone could pull such a stunt on Death such that it would delay him from reaping the soul of someone he had his mark on. So part of this episode still grates at me whenever I watch it.

But there is so much here to like. The performances of Ed Wynn and Murray Hamilton are sublime, perfect in every way. It is refreshing to see Death portrayed here as… well… normal, just someone who is doing their job in a functionary and exacting way, without hysterics or crazed outcomes. It is the two major scenes with the two characters that make this episode – the first where Death informs Lou that he is finished with this world, and how Lou believes he has found a way out, and then the final scene, where the two head off together for the afterlife. There is the scene I mentioned in the opening stanza, which does feel a bit too much for me, though it is done well by both.

Rating:  A negotiated settlement.