"Zoning" Out, Volume V: Clone

"IN HIS IMAGE" - January 3, 1963

We are time traveling today, leaving season one temporarily and skipping ahead to season four. After listening to The Monsters Are Due podcast this week, wherein the season one episode "The Chaser" is rightfully skewered for being terrible in so many ways, I made note that at least George Grizzard, the star of the unfortunate episode, was given a second chance in a later Twilight Zone episode. "In His Image" is that episode, and to say it's Grizzard's best performance in the TZ world would be a massive understatement. It's a much better episode in every single possible way.

"In His Image" is unique in that it's also a footnote in Twilight Zone history; it was the very first hour-long episode. Technically, the series was cancelled by CBS after season three, but the show that replaced it was canned as well, so they decided to bring it back in this new format. Many of the crew who helped make the series what it was had moved onto other things - including Rod Serling himself, who was busy teaching at the time, and thus his involvement was not as direct as it was in the first three seasons. As such, new faces took over production and weren't used to the Twilight Zone style. Many episodes in this season - 18 were made - are still of good quality, but being stretched to an hour took away much of what made Twilight Zone tick.

That said, "In His Image" does not miss a beat and works very well in its hour time slot. Written by Charles Beaumont, it tells the tale of Alan Talbot, a man who seems to have it all. A good job, good friends and family, and a resident of a cute little town that feels like it's 20 years outdated, but aren't many small towns? Naturally, there's also a woman too, Jessica (played by Gail Kobe, who appeared in 3 different Zone episodes), who he's about to marry despite only knowing her a week. It was a different time for sure. Anyway, we meet Alan as he's attempting to get on the subway to visit Jessica, but while waiting, he is accosted and harassed by an old lady who may mean well, but when he asks her to stop, she gets more and more aggressive. Suddenly, he starts hearing weird noises, loses his mind, and grabs the old woman and tosses her on the tracks as the train rolls by. That definitely escalated quickly!

(Something I noticed watching this in preparation to write this: in the subway there is a poster on one of the walls that discusses help for mental illness, and it's in the frame in the moments before Alan goes berserk. Gotta love subtle touches)

He escapes the subway and finds another way to meet up with Jessica, apparently either none the wiser about what happened, or he just doesn't care about what happened. He's there to take her to visit family in the town of Coeurville, NY, where his beloved Aunt Mildred lives. Upon arrival, he tells Jessica stories of the town's establishments, but is given pause when noticing a building that was definitely not there when he was here a week ago. He laughs it off as a prefab building and heads home to Aunt Mildred's house, only to find his keys no longer work, and someone who is definitely not Aunt Mildred at the door when he knocks.

Eventually he decides to run over to the local cemetery, maybe to see if Aunt Mildred moved there or something. He sees a name on a grave, "Walter Ryder, Sr.", and it triggers something in him that he doesn't quite understand. Defeated and looking like a crazy person to Jessica, they set out for home. It's then that he has another mind-breaking experience, and to spare his love, he has her stop the car, runs away into the nearby forest, and... well, his insanity overcomes him and all he wants to do is kill. Overcome, he calls Jessica to help him, but with the intent to kill her with a rock he's procured. Thankfully what ever sane part of his mind left gives him the strength to yell for her to run away, and she eventually does, very confused. As you should be when you find out a man you met a week ago is a complete lunatic! When she is gone, his urge to kill subsidies and while walking back to the road, he's hit by a car. Duh. There's cars there! Anyway, the guy who hits him is apologetic but Alan really is more concerned about... well, this.

Suddenly to both himself and the audience, it makes sense. He's not human, and his violent urges are a malfunction of his creation. Now he has a new mission; to figure out who he is and where he came from. The name "Walter Ryder" keeps biting at him, and ultimately he looks him up, finds a Walter Ryder, Jr., finds his house, and comes for a visit. However, Walter has been waiting for him to return all this time. Return? Indeed. It was only a week earlier that Alan malfunctioned, stabbed Walter with scissors, and ran off. Alan is of course confused and demands to know more about what he means and where he came from, and Walter is happy to explain.

Oh! And there's one other interesting thing about this interaction:

Yes, Alan Talbot is a visual clone of Walter Ryder. The two lumps behind them? Alan #1 and Alan #2, failed copies that had to be destroyed. Walter created him to be a "perfect" version of him, with all the qualities that he lacks, but along with all the actual good qualities, specifically his genius intelligence. He got rich making a new kind of calculator - yes this is a very weird thing to get rich off of today, but I guess in 1963 it could have been a thing? - and used the money to hire scientists to help him make a synthetic version of himself. To round out Alan's mind he placed memories of Coeurville in there, just 20 years out of time, explaining why the city was not what he remembered when he was last "there." Aunt Mildred? Just a combination of all the nice old ladies Walter knew from his time there. Walter thought this current Alan was it, the perfect copy, but turns out he was insane, and Walter is not sure he possesses the skill to fix him.

Alan is naturally quite upset about this. You built me, but you can't fix me? Not only that, but you didn't think I might have feelings and emotions? I met a girl! And I want to run away with her! We're to be married! Walter explains that look, I tried this too and eventually they age, and I don't and I had to run away to assume a different identity, and whoops. That's a different Twilight Zone with a guy named Walter. Anyway. Walter Ryder explains that it just won't work with him and his future bride, as she will age and he won't, and also at some point he will break down and need to be fixed, and that will go over well. This is not even mentioning that they'll probably want children and I doubt he possesses that ability.

Alan demands Walter fix him, to make it possible for him to be with her and have a life. Walter explains again that he may not be able to, but Alan explains further - he wants Walter to assume his identity as Alan Talbot and give Jessica what he can't. After all, he should more or less be the exact same person so he should be able to slip in without her really noticing anything different. Taking aside the idea that this is super messed up, and Walter should actually get her and take her to show her Alan is not actually human, and then let her deal with this via years and years of therapy, Alan begins to give out her address and information and begins writing on a piece of paper.

In a callback to the beginning of the episode, the paper he writes on is a pamphlet given to him by the old lady on the subway, a religious tract referring to salvation. Seeing it for the first time since that incident triggers another violent episode, and after giving the paper to Walter, Alan screams for him to run away and get away from him. But it's too late, and Alan goes on the attack, again. The two engage in a brawl down in Uncle Simon's laboratory (not really but let's just imagine that it is), and abruptly are taken away from the battle, back to Jessica's apartment. Who won? What is going on? Someone knocks her the door in the dead of night, and it's, well, it's George Grizzard until further notice.

Part of me wishes they had left it ambiguous, where we're not sure who really won, and who is actually here in this nice suit trying to persuade Jessica to forget about how her fiancé lost his mind, and tried to cave her head in on the side of the road. However, after speaking with Jessica and her accepting his apology for everything, the episode goes to its final scene - that of Alan Talbot wrecked and "dead" in the laboratory. Walter should nuke the entire site from orbit, just to be sure. And maybe he does! But the scene fades to black from here, happily ever after. I guess.

Cultural weirdness aside, "In His Image" is probably the best episode of the season, or at least my favorite of the season. Grizzard is fantastic and especially nails it during the scenes where he plays the dual role. You'd think it would look hokey 60 years ago, but believe it or not, it looks pretty natural with good uses of doubles when they show from the back. While I feel like nobody would want to spend much time with a guy who appears to be crazy with weird memory gaps and an inclination to run off and suppress an urge to kill, Gail Kobe sells the character as someone who has compassion and at least seems willing to trust Alan, out of love and concern. I still feel like it's really troubling that Walter can just come in and assume the role of "Alan" without coming clean and maybe even showing her his wrecked, non-human corpse, but at least it's not Salvadore Ross at the door. Little victories... in The Twilight Zone, as well as for Gail Kobe. But we'll get to that episode some other day.