This The Twilight Zone review contains spoilers.
The Twilight Zone Season 2 Episode 5
Remember the opening of Ghostbusters? After that poor librarian got her socks knocked-off by the library ghost, we meet Peter Venkman (Bill Murray), and he’s testing two people for psychic powers. Venkman was using something called Zener cards, known mostly for their use in testing psychic abilities. In the opening of Ghostbusters, the Zener cards are a punchline: Venkman is faking the results to make the “wavy line” guy look bad and to flirt with a woman. But what if the Zener cards weren’t a joke? What if the opening of Ghostbusters suggested a totally different type of story: A young woman pretends not to know the answer to every Zener card, even though she totally does.
“Among the Undtrodden,” is a standout in the second season for the new Jordan Peele-produced Twilight Zone. Written by Heather Anne Campbell, this episode inverts a classic trope of super-powered creepy children. In the 1961 original Twilight Zone episode “It’s a Good Life,” Bill Mumy played a kid who could “wish you to the cornfield,” if you crossed him. He was a dorky, outwardly awkward kid, who had a dark secret. But, in “Among the Untrodden,” the notion of an awkward or dorky kid getting mind-powers is made much, much smarter. This episode isn’t about the more conventionally nerdy Irene (Sophia Macy) finding that her mind powers will help her fight back against bullies. No. The first five minutes might make you think that, but the true premise is this: What if one of the popular kids had mind-powers? What would happen then?
From the moment the viewer realizes that the person with the mind-powers is pushy, stuck-up, mean-girl Madison (Abbie Hern), the episode gets tense and stays that way for the rest of its 40-minute runtime. Not only are you worried that Madison is going to crush Irene’s innocent spirit, but you’re also super-worried what this Queen Bee is going to do with her newfound psychic powers. For the most part, she’s just about as awful as you might expect. Telepathic blackmail is totally the kind of power a teenager would actually leverage, and if you teach kids, have kids, or are otherwise afraid of kids, this episode plays into a common nightmare: If kids — especially teenagers — knew your secrets, how fast would they use that information to get what they want?
