History Recap / TheTwilightZone1985S1E21

* BrownNote: The meaning of life, as everyone who it goes insane. One can only wonder what the ultimate truth of life really is when it drives anyone who hears it to madness in seconds.

* LaughingMad: The opening scene has Jack Henries begin laughing hysterically when Wiley Whitlow tells him the meaning of life, which causes insanity in anyone who hears it. Jack breaks down crying just as quickly as he started to laugh.

Colonel Ilyanov (Creator/GeorgeDzundza) of the KGB is tasked with travelling to a Siberian gulag to investigate the deaths of two high-ranking officials of the Communist Party. It is in this gulag that the Colonel meets Valentina Orlova (Victoria Tennant), a woman who claims to have been exiled 50 years ago despite her youthful apperance. Ilyanov digs deep enough to discover that Valentina and a number of others are vampires, and therefore the cause of the officials' deaths. She explains to the Colonel that she and her fellow vampires are all exiles, and they provide the townspeople with protection against wolves and thieves in exchange for santcuary. These vampires also despise Soviet rule for what it has done to Russia, and offer Ilyanov a place in their ranks so he can take them down from the inside.

* ScrewTheRulesIHaveConnections: Ilyanov's more ruthless rivals in the KGB usually wins their arguments to have convicted citizens put to death because they have powerful friends.

* VampiresSleepInCoffins: Titov, mayor of the gulag, stores the vampires' coffins in the town's abandoned church. They are empty during the winter, when there is no sunlight from October to April, but Titov and others protect the them during the summer, when the coffins are occupied during the day. In exchange, the vampires protect the townspeople from wolves and criminals

* SmallRoleBigImpact: Professor Potts appears in only one scene, but he's revealed to be the source of the insanity outbreak.

On one particular day, the residents of the small town of Loma Valley, Washington suddenly begin going insane out of the blue. To this end, the US government sends agent Edward Sayers (Creator/WilliamPetersen) to investigate the situation. Meeting up with local woman Amanda Strickland (Creator/FrancesMcDormand), Edward soon discovers that this insanity is instigated by a specific phrase, which spreads like wildfire with every new person who hears it. Edward and Amanda soon learn that the first infected subject, a local professor who claims the phrase to be the meaning of life, who dementedly insists on letting everyone on Earth know the truth.

On one particular day, the residents of the small town of Loma Valley, Washington suddenly begin going insane out of the blue. To this end, the US government sends agent Edward Sayers (Creator/WilliamPetersen) to investigate the situation. Meeting up with local woman Amanda Strickland (Creator/FrancesMcDormand), Edward soon discovers that this insanity is instigated by a specific phrase, which spreads like wildfire with every new person who hears it. Edward and Amanda soon learn that the first infected subject, a local professor who claims the phrase to be the meaning of life, dementedly insists on letting everyone on Earth know the truth.

On one particular day, the residents of the small town of Loma Valley, Washington suddenly begin going insane out of the blue. To this end, the US government sends agent Edward Sayers (Creator/WilliamPetersen) to investigate the situation. Meeting up with local woman Amanda Strickland (Creator/FrancesMcDormand), Edward soon discovers that this insanity is instigated by a specific phrase, which spreads like wildfire with every new person who hears it. Edward and Amanda soon learn that the first infected subject, a local professor who claims the phrase to be the meaning of life, and he dementedly insists on letting everyone on Earth know the truth.

On one particular day, the residents of the small town of Loma Valley, Washington suddenly begin going insane out of the blue. To this end, the US government sends agent Edward Sayers (Creator/WilliamPetersen) to investigate the situation. Meeting up with local woman Amanda Strickland, Edward soon discovers that this insanity is instigated by a specific phrase, which spreads like wildfire with every new person who hears it. Edward and Amanda soon learn that the first infected subject, Professor Jeffrey Potts, claims the phrase to be the meaning of life, and he dementedly insists on letting everyone on Earth know the truth.

Colonel Ilyanov (Creator/GeorgeDzundza) of the KGB is tasked with travelling to a Siberian gulag to investigate the deaths of two high-ranking officials of the Communist Party. It is in this gulag that the Colonel meets Valentina Orlova, a woman who claims to have been exiled 50 years ago despite her youthful apperance. Ilyanov digs deep enough to discover that Valentina and a number of others are vampires, and therefore the cause of the officials' deaths. She explains to the Colonel that she and her fellow vampires are all exiles, and they provide the townspeople with protection against wolves and thieves in exchange for santcuary. These vampires also despise Soviet rule for what it has done to Russia, and offer Ilyanov a place in their ranks so he can take them down from the inside.

A government agent (Creator/WilliamPetersen) investigates an outbreak of insanity in a small town.
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* AwfulTruth: A man returns to his small town bearing the Truth of Existence, a short phrase which drives anyone who hears it instantly insane.
* BrownNote: Anyone who hears a short phrase that reveals the meaning of life goes insane.
* GoMadFromTheRevelation: Whenever someone in Loma Valley, Washington is told the meaning of life by another resident, they instantly go insane. Then one of them gets onto a local radio talk show...
* InfectiousInsanity: Insanity is spread throughout a small town by the repeated utterance of the meaning of life.
* InsaneEqualsViolent: Mrs. Hotchkiss has gone insane after learning the meaning of life from her husband. When the government agent Edward Sayers is questioning her, she tries to attack him with the knife that she had been calmly using to cut a cake a moment earlier. Edward is stunned but manages to fight her off.
* LaughingMad: Jack Henries begins to laugh hysterically when Wiley Whitlow tells him the meaning of life, which causes insanity in anyone who hears it. Jack then breaks into tears just as quickly as he started to laugh.
* MindVirus: Edward Sayers is sent to the small town of Loma Valley, Washington to investigate a mysterious outbreak of insanity. With the help of a local woman named Amanda Strickland, he determines that the insanity is spread from person to person like a contagion. He manages to track the contagion to its source: Professor Jeffrey Potts, who has recently returned from Asia. While there, Potts learned the meaning of life. He told his brother Andrew, who was unable to keep it to himself. The meaning of life is seemingly an AwfulTruth which causes anyone who learns it to immediately go insane.
* SilentWhisper: Hearing a certain phrase causes the listener to go insane. At the very end, Wiley Whitlow whispers the phrase in Jack's ear and drives him mad.
* TakeOurWordForIt: Professor Jeffrey Potts discovered the meaning of life. Anyone he told it to instantly became batshit insane. When he broadcasts his message on a local radio station, Jack Henries manages to turn off the radio just before it is announced. When he finally hears it, it's whispered in his ear.
* WeaponsGradeVocabulary: There is a phrase that encapsulates the whole meaning of existence in a few words. Anyone who hears the phrase goes completely insane.
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A KGB colonel (Creator/GeorgeDzundza) investigates a series of deaths in a Siberian town.
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* AlwaysNight: The episode takes place in a part of the Arctic Circle that only gets any light during the summer, and it won't be summer for months.
* BaitAndSwitchComment: Ilyanov tells the locals that the Romani music they are playing is banned in Moscow and that they are on notice to stop playing it... the next time they go to Moscow.
* DeceasedFallGuyGambit: After a wolf kills Mayor Titov, Ilyanov says Titov was the killer to allow the the vampire exiles to remain safe.
* DetectiveMole: Local party official Polvin accompanies Ilyanov during his investigation and has assembled lots of evidence for him, but is one of the vampires who killed the local communists.
* DirtyCommunists: The vampires in the Siberian gulag hate the Soviet Union and everything that it stands for. They believe that Communism has brought nothing but pain, suffering and death to the Russian people and seek to destroy the USSR for the sake of humans and vampires alike.
* TheGulag: KGB Colonel Ilyanov is sent to a gulag in Siberia to investigate the mysterious deaths of the local Communist Party secretary Vladimir Borisov and the first KGB investigator Major Yuri Andreev. As soon as Ilyanov arrives, he finds the conditions to be even worse than he imagined as it is wintertime and there is no sunlight from October to April. He later discovers that the townspeople have an arrangement with a group of vampires to protect them from danger and that it was the vampires who killed Borisov and Andreev.
* InternalReformist: Colonel Ilyanov has spent his entire adult life working within the Soviet system to try and save lives where he can, such as advocating exile over execution. However, for every person that he saves from execution, two more are killed. Ilyanov eventually agrees to be made a vampire so that he can create more and they can destroy the Soviet Union from the inside.
* MonsterTown: Several residents of the PenalColony are vampires who are, due to CommonalityConnection feelings about how they're all exiles, given sanctuary by the human residents in exchange for defending them from threats.
* MyGrandsonMyself: When Ilyanov picks up on how Valentina, the vampire leader, is too young to have been exiled fifty years ago, Polvin claims she's the original Valentina's daughter.
* OurVampiresAreDifferent: The vampires living in the Siberian gulag have fangs, sleep in coffins and are killed by sunlight. However, they are not evil. In exchange for protection during the summer months, they protect the townspeople from any possible source of danger. Aside from thieves and murderers, they never feed on humans. These vampires also despise the Soviet Union for all the suffering that it has caused the Russian people.
* PenalColony: The locals don't seem to be doing the kind of labor they would in TheGulag, but they or their parents were exiled to Siberia due to being out of the government's favor.
* SavageWolves: One of the suspicious deaths is blamed on the local wolves, and while the wolves are innocent of that, the locals fear them for being ruthless predators and one of the wolves kills Titov near the end.
* ScrewTheRulesIHaveConnections: Ilyanov's more ruthless KGB rival usually wins their arguments because he has powerful friends.
* ThisBearWasFramed: The vampires unsuccessfully claim that one of their victims died in a wolf attack, but the Soviet government is unconvinced.
* VampiresSleepInCoffins: Titov, the mayor of the small Siberian town which has become a gulag, stores the vampires' coffins in the town's disused, boarded-up church. They are empty during the winter months when there is no sunlight from October to April, but Titov and others protect the vampires during the summer months when the coffins are occupied during the day. In exchange, the vampires protect the townspeople from dangerous criminals and animals.
* VampireVannabe: The Communist Party secretary Ivan Povin agreed to become a vampire shortly after arriving in the Siberian gulag because he knew that it would be difficult to survive the harsh conditions otherwise. Although he is initially disgusted by the vampires and fears that they intend to feed on him, KGB Colonel Ilyanov later agrees to be made a vampire himself. Valentina Orlova convinces him that the best way to defeat the Soviet Union is to create further vampires and take it down from the inside.
* VegetarianVampire: Downplayed. The vampires get along well with the locals at the PenalColony and only drink the blood of SavageWolves as long as wolves are available. When they aren't, the vampires drain dangerous criminals and DirtyCommies serving the government's agenda.
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!! Red Snow

A KGB colonel (Creator/GeorgeDzundza) investigates a series of deaths in a Siberian town.

[[folder:Red Snow]]

* ThisBearWasFramed: The vampires unsuccessfully claim one of their victims died in a wolf attack but the Soviet government is unconvinced.

[[/folder]]

* BaitAndSwitchComment: Ilyanov tells the locals that the Romani music they are playing is banned in Moscow and that they are on notice to stop playing it...the next time they go to Moscow.

A KGB colonel (Creator/GeorgeDzundza) investigates a series of deaths in a Siberian town.

A government agent investigates an outbreak of insanity in a small town.

A KGB colonel investigates a series of deaths in a Siberian town.