The Twilight Zone Season 2 Episode 2 recap: Did Michelle choose to stay?
By Mads Lennon
The Twilight Zone Season 2 Episode 2 recap: “Downtime”
The second episode of The Twilight Zone Season 2, titled “Downtime,” stars Morena Baccarin in the main role of Michelle Weaver. Michelle is a hard-working woman who has devoted her life to trying to reach the top of the career ladder at her hotel job.
After years of employment, she finally receives her dream promotion. It would appear her life is on track, granting her everything she could ever have wanted. The only snag is the fact that, well, Michelle’s life isn’t real.
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Despite achieving her dream, everything changes when Michelle steps outdoors and witnesses a large spherical object boring down on the city. It causes a screeching reverberation throughout the city. Even stranger, every person that looks up at the massive floating object, suddenly falls into a trance and can’t seem to say anything at all.
Similar to Black Mirror‘s “San Junipero,” Michelle exists as a character inside of a virtual reality game called Sleepaway.
She was created by a man named Phineas Lowell, who fell into a heart attack-induced coma, rendering Michelle stuck inside the game. Customer service operatives show up at her house to try and convince her to “wake up,” but she has no idea who Phineas is — until she meets his wife, Ellen (Serinda Swan).
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At the end of the episode, Michelle is approached by a “premiere” customer service executive played by Tony Hale. He tells her the truth about dear Phineas. He attempted to commit suicide, and his final act was uploading himself into the Sleepaway video game system.
His decision leaves Michelle with a choice. She can “wake up,” with nothing left for her to return to, basically ceasing to exist, or she can continue living out her existence inside the false reality — so long as she signs a consent form ensuring she cannot take action against the company.
Michelle decides to stay put, and as she takes up her mantle of the hotel manager, we see Ellen arrive to stay at the hotel. While she might not truly know who Phineas is, it appears her connection to Ellen is real, and the two might get a chance to be happy together in a different kind of reality.
One thing I appreciated about this episode, which a Den of Geek reviewer pointed out, is how it chooses a more “kind-hearted” approach to a concept we’ve seen before.
Instead of making everything sinister, “Downtime” presents the idea that maybe a fantasy can still be a good life if we choose to make it our reality.
I also thought it was amusing that Michelle seemed to have a painting of the Plumbob (the green diamond) from The Sims, which might make viewers consider what would happen if their Sims were real people trapped inside of virtual reality and merely in a trance-like state whenever you log off…
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What did you think about The Twilight Zone Season 2, Episode 2? Do you think Michelle made the right decision to stay in the game? 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.