The 20 Best Twilight Zone Twist Endings (#11-#15)

The Twilight Zone is a series known for its twist endings and it's safe to say that many of the show’s most well-known episodes are at least partially recalled due to a twist in the tale. Within the show’s output are several truly memorable and effective twist endings. We’ve narrowed these down to 20 and ranked them in order of effectiveness. We will unveil them in groups of 5 over the next four days. Let us know your favorite twist ending on the series. Please note that we have not considered episode 142, "An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge," in this list as it was not an original production of the series.  

-JP

Here’s a look at #s 15-11.

15. “Escape Clause,” season one, episode 6

          Written by Rod Serling

The story: Hypochondriac Walter Bedeker makes a deal with the Devil that he will live forever and be impervious to harm in exchange for his soul.

The twist: After the accidental death of his wife, Bedeker pleads guilty to murder in the hope of experiencing the thrill of the electric chair. His attorney gets him “off” with life in prison.

Note: “Escape Clause” is truly an episode which functions solely for its snap ending, which is a good one. The episode has little to recommend it beyond the twist ending, as it is highly derivative and staged in the most pedestrian manner.

          Read our full review here. 

14.  “The Monsters Are Due on Maple Street,” season one, episode 22

          Written by Rod Serling

The story: Neighbors on a quiet street turn upon one another in an ugly display of paranoid persecution when the electricity fails and their machines inexplicably break down.

The twist: Alien invaders have found that a unique way to conquer mankind is to take away their machines and cast them into darkness.

Note: Although the twist ending is a memorable one, it is not technically a twist ending at all, when one considers that the boy was correct in telling the adults that aliens had landed and were interfering with their homes. One wonders whether the episode had been even more effective if no cause for the interference were revealed. As it is, the science fictional ending placed on Serling’s devastating comment on the hidden ugliness of mankind seems forced and unnecessary.

Read our full review here.

13. “The Hitch-Hiker,” season one, episode 16

         Written by Rod Serling, based on the radio play by              Lucille Fletcher

The story: A young woman is pursued by a hitchhiker after getting into an accident on the highway.

The twist: The young woman did not survive the accident and the hitchhiker is there to shepherd her into the afterlife.

Note: Serling changed little in adapting Lucille Fletcher’s famous radio play to the series besides the gender of the main character. Fletcher’s radio play was originally written for Orson Welles. Though Fletcher’s story was not the first to utilize the trope that the main character is in actuality dead, it is a twist which has been utilized endlessly since. Notable examples include the 1962 film Carnival of Souls, William F. Nolan’s 1967 story “The Party,” and the 1999 film The Sixth Sense.

Read our full review here.

12. “Where is Everybody?” season one, episode 1

          Written by Rod Serling

The story: A young man with amnesia finds himself in a seemingly deserted town but cannot escape the feeling of being watched.

The twist: The man’s experience of the town is an hallucination brought about by isolation within a solitary chamber designed to emulate a trip through space.

Note: The story that sold the series remains an engaging and exceptionally staged psychological horror story. Earl Holliman turns in a great performance as the young man and the twist ending, however unbelievable, grounds the happenings in a realistic setting, something thought necessary to sell the series to the network executives and the corporate sponsors.

Read our full review here. 

11. “People Are Alike All Over,” season one, episode 25

Written by Rod Serling, story by Paul W. Fairman

The story: An astronaut named Conrad, the survivor of a crash landing on Mars, is treated kindly by the seemingly civilized inhabitants of the red planet.

The twist: Conrad is housed in a disguised prison, to be displayed as an animal in a zoo.

Note: Another episode which functions solely for its twist ending, “People Are Alike All Over” has some other interesting aspects, most notably the unabashedly science fictional production design. Roddy McDowall is also enjoyable in his only appearance on the series. The episode is based on Paul W. Fairman’s short story, “Brothers Beyond the Void,” originally published in the March, 1952 issue of Fantastic Adventures.

Read our full review here. 

"Escape Clause"

Walter Bedeker (David Wayne) contemplating an eternity behind bars.

“Escape Clause”

Season One, Episode 6
Original Air Date: November 6, 1959

Cast:
Walter Bedeker: David Wayne
Mr. Cadwallader: Thomas Gomez
Ethel Bedeker: Virginia Christine
Doctor: Raymond Bailey
Cooper: Wendell Holmes
Jack: Dick Wilson
Steve: Joe Flynn
Guard: Nesden Booth

Crew:
Writer: Rod Serling (original teleplay)
Director: Mitchell Leisen
Producer: Buck Houghton
Production Manager: Ralph W. Nelson
Director of Photography: George T. Clemens
Art Direction: George W. Davis and William Ferrari
Assistant Director: Edward Denault
Casting: Mildred Gusse
Editor: Bill Mosher
Sound: Franklin Milton and Jean Valentino
Music: Stock

Rod Serling's Opening Narration:
                "You're about to meet a hypochondriac. Witness Mr. Walter Bedeker, age forty-four, afraid of the following: death, disease, other people, germs, drafts, and everything else. He has one interest in life and that's Walter Bedeke; one preoccupation, the life and well being of Walter Bedeker; one abiding concern about society, that if Walter Bedeker should die, how will it survive without him?"

Summary:
                Walter Bedeker is a hypochondriac who refuses to leave the comfort of his bed for fear of aggravating or contracting any number of imagined illnesses. His rude manner and the impossibility of satisfying Bedeker displeases his doctor and over-burdens his wife. When Bedeker muses aloud his displeasure at having to suffer sickly through such a short life as a mortal human, a man appears in his bedroom. The man is portly and dapper, introducing himself as a man of many names but suggesting that Bedeker call him Mr. Cadwallader. Bedeker quickly realizes he is dealing with the Devil. 
                Cadwallader offers Bedeker a life of immortality free of sickness. All Bedeker need do is sign the contract in Cadwallader's hand and Bedeker can live forever with nothing able to physically harm him. At first apprehensive about having to give up the usual price for such dealings with the Devil, his soul, Bedeker reasons that living forever means he beats the devil, for he must die if Cadwallder is to get his soul. Bedeker signs the contract and Cadwallder, before parting, informs him of an escape clause in the contract. Should Bedeker ever grow tired of living forever, all he need do is call upon Cadwallder and Bedeker will be freed from his contractual obligation of immortality. Contract signed, sealed, and delivered, Cadwallader departs and Bedeker begins his life immortal. 
                It is not long after, however, that Bedeker grows tired of his newfound invulnerability. He finds no thrill in life if nothing can harm him. He jumps in front of a bus and drinks poison to no ill effects. Finally, resorting to extremes, Bedeker decides to jump off the roof of his apartment building. His wife, in attempting to stop him, falls to her death. Though he didn't truly kill her, Bedeker sees this as an opportunity to try the electric chair, something that he believes might just be the thrill he's been looking for. He confesses to his wife's murder and is found guilty at his trial. The twist in the tale, however, is that Bedeker is not sentenced to death but rather to life imprisonment. For an immortal man, this means an eternity behind bars. 
                Cadwallader appears, offering Bedeker that escape clause in the contract. Bedeker reluctantly agrees and is taken away.

Rod Serling Closing Narration:
            "There is a saying, 'Every man is put on Earth condemned to die, time and method of execution unknown.' Perhaps this is as it should be. Case in point Walter Bedeker, lately deceased, a little man with such a yen to live. Beaten by the devil, by his own boredom, and the by the scheme of things in this, the Twilight Zone."

Commentary: 

"Walter Bedeker was forty-four years old. He was afraid of the following: death, disease, other people, germs, drafts and everything else. He had one interest in life, and that was Walter Bedeker; one preoccupation, the life and well being of Walter Bedeker; one abiding concern about society, if Walter Bedeker should die, how would it survive without him. In short, he was a gnome-faced little man who clutched at disease the way most people hunger for security."
             -"Escape Clause" by Rod Serling, Stories from the Twilight Zone (1960)

Thomas Gomez as Mr. Cadwallader

        By the late 1950s, a television viewer was more likely to see a deal with the Devil story as a spoof on a situational comedy than in the form of serious drama, and the first foray into this evergreen story motif on The Twilight Zone was no different. In fact, of the many Twilight Zone episodes concerning the Devil or devil-like characters, only two, Richard Matheson's "Nick of Time" and Charles Beaumont's "The Howling Man," can be said to be entirely serious in treatment. Beaumont also tried his hand at the story type in the first season with the cruelly ironic episode, "A Nice Place to Visit." As late as the fourth season both Beaumont and Serling were still trying the story on for size with "Printer's Devil" and "Of Late I Think of Cliffordville," respectively. 
        David Wayne (1914-1995), who played the Devil himself in an adaptation of Stephen Vincent Benét’s “The Devil and Daniel Webster” for Sunday Showcase in 1960, brings a blackly humorous coarseness to the role of the hypochondriac Walter Bedeker. Wayne began appearing in films in 1940 and moved into television in the very early days of the medium, beginning on the live anthology series Actor’s Studio in 1949. Wayne appeared in one of the better, and better-known, episodes of Alfred Hitchcock Presents, “One More Mile to Go,” directed by Hitchcock, as well as The Alfred Hitchcock Hour episode “The Thirty-First of February,” scripted by Richard Matheson (as Logan Swanson) from the novel by Julian Symons. Wayne later appeared in an episode of Rod Serling’s Night Gallery, “The Diary,” scripted by Serling and starring Patty Duke. 

            Thomas Gomez (1905-1971) brings a gleeful mania to the role of Mr. Cadwallader. Gomez was a unique casting choice for the role and defied the traditional image of the Devil as attractive and refined with his unusual appearance and quite creepy performance. Gomez returned to the series in the second season episode "Dust," playing the villainous Sykes in a performance far more vicious than Mr. Cadwallader. 
             Martin Grams, Jr., in his book The Twilight Zone: Unlocking the Door to a Television Classic (OTR, 2008), notes that Serling possibly took the idea for "Escape Clause" from an episode of the horror radio show Inner Sanctum Mystery, "Elixir Number Four," which aired on February 12, 1946. Though the stories differ in treatment of the theme of immortality, it is the ending of "Elixir Number Four" which most resembles "Escape Clause." The radio episode features Richard Widmark as a man who commits murder to learn the secret of immortality only to be tried for murder and sentenced to life in prison after he has achieved immortality. 
             "Escape Clause" is a rather forgettable episode which still retains the high level of production value that characterized the series, particularly in the first season. As a half hour entertainment it's not bad but it lacks a unique concept or even a unique spin on an established concept and therefore feels a little empty and unsatisfying.
              Rod Serling chose to adapt the episode into prose for his 1960 book Stories from the Twilight Zone and it must be said that it comes off as the dullest story in that otherwise excellent volume. Typically, Serling's adaptations highlight his talent for comedy, which does not always come off well in the filmed episodes, but "Escape Clause" remains uninteresting and unfunny in prose form. 

Grade: D

Notes:
-Director Mitchell Leisen directed two additional first season episodes, "The Sixteen Millimeter Shrine" and "People Are Alike All Over."
-David Wayne also appeared in an episode of Rod Serling's Night Gallery titled "The Diary."
-Thomas Gomez also appeared in the second season episode "Dust."
-Joe Flynn also appeared in an episode of Rod Serling's Night Gallery titled "The Funeral." 
-Look for the signature of Mr. Cadwallader on a plague in the basement portion of the Walt Disney World ride Twilight Zone Tower of Terror.
-"Escape Clause" was adapted into a Twilight Zone Radio Drama starring Mike Starr. 
-Rod Serling adapted his teleplay into a short story for Stories from the Twilight Zone (Bantam Books, 1960). 
-"Escape Clause" was adapted into comic book form for the 1979 book Stories from the Twilight Zone (Bantam; a Skylark Illustrated Book) by Rod Serling, stories adapted by Horace J. Elias and illustrated by Carl Pfeufer.

--Jordan Prejean