The Twilight Zone Season 2 premiere recap: Was Phil hearing voices or not?

The Twilight Zone Season 2 premiere recap: “Meet in the Middle”

For our recaps of The Twilight Zone Season 2, we’ll be keeping things relatively short and sweet with a primary focus on the “twist” endings since, let’s be honest, that’s what most people want to know for a show like this one!

If you’ve yet to dive into Jordan Peele’s reimagined Twilight Zone successor series, now you’ve got two whole seasons awaiting you as CBS All Access opted to drop The Twilight Zone Season 2 all at once instead of spreading it out as they did for the debut season.

“Meet in the Middle” co-stars Jimmi Simpson as Phil, a bachelor searching for his ideal woman and Gillian Jacobs as Annie, a woman he connects with through a strange, unexplainable psychic connection.

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Despite Annie and Phil communicating throughout the entire episode, Simpson has to do most of the heavy-lifting in the episode since Jacobs is off-screen for the majority.

The problem with Phil is that his standards are astronomical, but as the episode continues, it becomes evident that he might have some issues with women.

He gets irritated because his date shows up with curly hair despite her profile picture showing her with straight, he subtly tries to impress upon Annie that her tastes in movies and music are not quite up to par with his and he’d like to “teach” her to do better.

"I think the AV Club reviewer said it best when they wrote, “He’ll meet a woman in the middle, sure… so he can drag her to his side.”"

However, despite all of this, he and Annie seem to forge a genuine connection through their mental bond — spending hours upon hours chatting through their secret mental wavelength.

The Twilight Zone Season 2 premiere recap: How did the episode end?

As one might expect from a show of this nature, Phil and Annie’s eventual meet-up does not go as planned. They agree to “meet in the middle,” as the episode title suggests. Then, on the train ride there, Annie feigns being kidnapped and sends Phil into a panic.

She lures him to a house and identifies her “kidnapper” as a burly bearded man in flannel. Upon coming face-to-face with him, Phil beats him to a pulp before ultimately killing him. Cue Annie’s daughter arriving just in time to see a bloody Phil standing over her dead father, with Annie right behind her.

Annie is shocked by the carnage and shows no indication of recognizing Phil or knowing what he’s talking, referring to when he prattles on about their weeks of conversation and getting to know each other.

The police happen to show up seconds later to arrest Phil. In the police car, Annie contacts him one final time to thank him for serving his purpose. It would see Annie used Phil to murder her abusive husband, granting her and her daughter a fresh start.

Or, Phil is crazy and possibly has dissociative identity disorder, as was suggested by his therapist earlier in the episode.

Personally, I’m leaning toward the former option because it’s a more interesting plot twist, and it would explain why the cops arrived so quickly. If Annie purposefully manipulated Phil into killing her husband, she may have called the police the moment she heard him enter, setting her plan into motion. Otherwise, how would they have known to come at that exact moment?

What did you think about The Twilight Zone Season 2 premiere? Do you think Phil was crazy or that Annie really tricked him? Let us know your thoughts in the comments below.

The Twilight Zone Season 2 is currently available to stream in full on CBS All Access.