Summary
“You Might Also Like” pays tribute to the show’s own history in an otherwise average critique of consumerism.
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In its final episode, The Twilight Zone Season 2 calls back to its own 60s history, which seems misguided in such a pale reimagining of that iconic original iteration. Nevertheless, it’s still the best aspect of an otherwise average final episode that doubles up as a toothless critique of consumerism and to some extent contemporary politics, proving that the show at least has an awareness of such things even if it doesn’t seem to have the desire to say anything meaningful about them.
“You Might Also Like”, an obvious title if ever there was one, primarily concerns a nebulous “egg” that is coveted by everyone, including Jane Warren, a stay-at-home housewife who begins to question both the nature of the heavily-marketed product and her own reality. Perhaps the best scene of The Twilight Zone season 2, episode 10 is when she spots her neighbor rushing inside with one of these eggs, calls to cancel her order, and is given a complete run-around by the customer service. It’s certainly the most truthful.
Things get very Paranormal Activity for Jane, as she sets up a video baby monitor and captures footage of herself being pulled weightlessly across the room, presumably being abducted. Another funny joke of “You Might Also Like” is Jane’s call to an astrologer, proving that in times of crisis gullible people really will turn to any old gobbledygook. (If you recall, the medium character in the third episode was a charlatan. For all this show’s messing around with extra-terrestrials, psychic powers, and suchlike, I think its opinion on superstitious mumbo-jumbo is quite clear.)
Deciding on the strength of the previous night’s escapades to tie herself down using a medicine ball, Jane is nonetheless pulled across the room and out of the window once again, where three aliens known as the Kanamit discuss what to do with her. These nine-foot aliens are best-known for their particular appetites, which made for one of the show’s all-time best twists in the 1962 episode, “To Serve Man.” Tying both versions of the show together like this is a treat for fans, even if the reveals in this episode, particularly that the egg people desire so much contains a Kanamit who kills them once it hatches, pale in comparison.
It all, perhaps unsurprisingly, amounts to chaos, and a heavy-handed critique of blind consumerism that feels a bit uncharacteristically smug and preachy. Peele’s Narrator even addresses the matter outright in his closer, putting a lot of weight behind the word “things” – if only the finale itself had as much emphasis behind it.
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It basically shows what’s happened to the human population since “To Serve Man”
They’re fully domesticated livestock.
She had wild human thoughts. She couldn’t handle that ( the truth) and she wanted to go back to her full domestic lifestyle.
It’s an allegory for depression following a miscarriage and a woman’s struggle to just feel sane and ok again — if only temporarily.
It’s also a satire about the corporations who prey on those emotions to make a fast buck.
The episode was brilliant.