The Twilight Zone Season 2, Episode 3 recap: How does Harry’s body-swapping journey end?

The Twilight Zone Season 2, Episode 3 recap: “The Who of You”

In the third episode of The Twilight Zone Season 2, the show tackles body-swapping. Ethan Embry and Daniel Sunjata star in this tense story of a cat-and-mouse game between a detective and a bank robber with the ability to jump from host to host with a simple look.

Embry’s character, Harry, is a struggling actor who can’t afford to keep his girlfriend Morena (Carmel Amit) happy. Harry forgetting to pay the power bill appears to be the last straw in their relationship.

Desperate, Harry tries to commit armed robbery at a bank. In the process, he inadvertently swaps bodies with Jill, the bank teller. As Jill, Harry manages to run off with the bag of cash while poor Jill gets trapped inside the real Harry’s body.

Jill-as-Harry is arrested. However, Harry-as-Jill has no clue what is going on or how to act, so it doesn’t take long for Jill’s co-worker Belinda to realize something is amiss. Harry suddenly body-swaps with a nearby cop named Luntz, allowing him to escape from the bank.

Unlike other renditions of this story, Harry does not leave a trail of body-swapped people in his wake, when he swaps from one person to the next, the person he trades with returns to his original body rather than the one he exited. So when he jumps from Jill to Luntz, Jill returns to herself while Luntz gets trapped inside Harry.

Got all that? It’s a little confusing.

The Twilight Zone Season 2, Episode 3: Ending explained

Throughout the hour, Sunjata’s character Detective Reece begins to understand that something out of the ordinary is occurring. He uses Harry, and whichever victim is currently trapped inside of him to track down the real Harry as he jumps from person to person all over the city.

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Honestly, Harry isn’t all that clever, considering he keeps the bag of money with him the entire time rather than switching it to something less conspicuous.

At the end of the episode, Harry swaps bodies with a little boy named Miles. With the original Miles’ help, Reece manages to track Harry down and corner him once and for all. As you might have predicted, Harry tricks Reece into letting his guard down and force swaps with the detective.

The cops arrive and find Harry (who is now Reece) holding a gun. He refuses to drop it, and they shoot him, seemingly killing Harry’s body and Reece’s soul, while Harry escapes in Reece’s actual body.

The ultimate irony of “The Who is You” is, of course, that Harry has spent the entire escapade learning how to be the perfect actor. As Reece, he performs an incredible audition, landing a lead role on a hit television series.

Even better? His girlfriend Morena was having an affair the entire time — with Reece! So Harry gets the best of both worlds since she wants to dump Harry for the detective.

Overall, The Twilight Zone Season 2, Episode 3 was my least favorite episode of the bunch thus far. For starters, the Morena/Reece twist at the end was a little too far-fetched for my taste.

That said, as Chris Longo of Den of Geek pointed out, Harry gets the girl, but not the way he wanted. Perhaps it will be something of a punishment for him to live his life knowing that the real him was never enough for Morena.

Plus, Harry’s happy ending feels completely undeserved. Why was he rewarded for being a terrible person? As far as the ending “twist” goes, this one felt weak and too predictable. Billy Porter should have had a more significant part to play, too.

However, I will admit that the performances in this episode elevated the material, particularly Embry’s, who did a fantastic job of embodying the nuances of all the different characters he body-swapped with throughout the hour.

What did you think about The Twilight Zone Season 2, Episode 3? Were you satisfied with the ending, or do you think Harry’s ending was too happy? 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.