Nightmare Fuel / The Twilight Zone (2019)

Spoilers Ahead!!! All spoilers for each episode are unmarked.

Trailers and TV Spots

• The Super Bowl promo. CBS IS OFF THE AIR.
  • Don't forget Jordan Peele's chilling monologue!
    Picture an empty space filled with thousands of screaming people. A man both everywhere and nowhere at the same time. Answers are new questions. The unthinkable is the expected. When truth is not the truth... what dimension are you even in?
• The horrifying structure of the trailer revealing that unlike the original and other incarnations of the series, this one has its stories connected. That adds more of the idea that the Twilight Zone isn't just a dimension, but a bigger force than expected...

The Comedian

• This episode takes canned laughter and makes it creepy.
  • Not only that, but the audience only laughs when Samir launches into a monologue about someone he knows. Whenever he tries his regular stand-up, he gets a dead room, but the second he points out someone in the audience in particular, they start up...
  • What adds to the final set Samir does (about himself), this is the only time he gets a standing ovation... and it's after he's gone.
• Samir accidentally erases his young nephew during a stand-up set as a result of gentle-natured ribbing.
• Samir's painting inexplicably appearing on the wall of comedians near the end, which presents rather horrifying implications of where he went...
• Tracy Morgan as J.C. Wheeler is truly menacing.
• The climax, in which Samir finally breaks and starts just bellowing the names and minor crimes of everyone he doesn't like on stage. The disorienting camera work zooming in on Samir's sweating face as he roars incomprehensibly while the audience howls with laughter makes a uniquely terrifying sequence. It's very terrifyingly clear that he's gone off the deep end and is in a Power High, full-blown Villainous Breakdown Freak Out and/or is Gone Mad From The Revelation.

Nightmare At 30,000 Feet

• The Downer Ending: the passengers and other people on the plane are seen walking slowly towards Justin, as Justin tries to defend himself, no one even replies, they just stare at him emotionlessly, looking and acting as if they were zombies or ghosts. They then start beating a horrified Justin to death, out of revenge for his erratic behaviour on the plane, and after an epilogue, we see more survivors coming out of nowhere and piling onto Justin as the camera pans out. The survivors later say that they do not know the whereabouts of Justin, implying that they are lying, but that makes no sense, because they would say that he was the one responsible. What makes this ending even darker is it is quite possible that Justin ended up in a hell or some sort of purgatory, or he was imagining the entire thing, and even if is the latter, it does not make the scene any less disturbing.
• Whatever happened to Joe? Some say that he is a figment of Justin's imagination, but people on the plane did see him. Why would he suddenly disappear, and if they also knew he played a role in the crash, is it possible that he was killed on the plane? You would think if the others knew he was also responsible, they would out him and lynch him as well.

Replay

• A more realistic vein than other episodes. Nina has to deal with a racist cop constantly profiling her and her son, constantly stalking them no matter what form the branching paths take, and even the slightest slip up? Nina is forced to see her son brutalized or killed for being a 'threat', with the knowledge that the country will very likely excuse his killing. The final scene even goes so far as to suggest that her son still gets killed in the end despite everything she did and what's worse is that the video camera ends up breaking right before this.
• Officer Lasky himself, naturally. His behavior goes beyond typical Racist Cop, and straight into Serial Killer Cop or even Super-Persistent Predator, especially given that he seems to single them out from the moment he sees them at the café. The fact he ALWAYS seems to find them no matter how Nina changes things in each Time Loop also implies something supernatural about him...
  • It is further amplified by his chilling serenity in most scenes. Lasky barely ever emotes when harassing Nina and Dorian, at worst going into Tranquil Fury or grimacing when he and Dorian get into a fight. Unlike most Politically Incorrect Villains in other works, he doesn't openly slurs, rages or outright insults them. As if the only thing that matters to him is causing a situation where he gets to kill Dorian (and possibly Nina). Even when exposed in front of an entire crowd and forced to back off at the end, Lasky can barely stop himself from shooting Nina in front of dozens of witnesses with cameras. Nina interprets this as him being afraid, but Lasky seems more annoyed and hesitant than anything.

A Traveler

• Steven Yeun as the titular Traveler is truly chilling. Even more so when he calls down an invasion force on the planet.
• While the situation was tense since Traveler showed up, it gets worse when Pendleton announces Yuka will release Jack. The lights flicker and Traveler's face loses its affable humor. Then he starts setting everyone against each other.
• The lights flickering as Pendleton and Yuka interrogate Traveler. By this point, the viewers probably already caught up that Traveler is doing it. It brings Klaatu to mind, but in a full-blow and chilling horror movie vibe.
  • And of course, by the end we find out that he has Mind over Matter and Voluntary Shapeshifting abilities. He opens his and Jack's cell door without even touching it, and when Jack turns his back we get to see him returning to his true towering form (out of focus, though).

The Wunderkind

• Everyone blindly obeying Oliver in spite of his obvious immaturity and selfishness, while Raff is completely bewildered and horrified when other officials say he'll be charged with treason if he continues to badmouth the President.
• Eventually, Raff gets into an argument with Oliver, which ends with Oliver screaming that Raff has a gun. The Secret Service shoots Raff without hesitation.
• Raff gets operated on by a child who is more interested in playing video games due to the President ordering "no old doctors". And he doesn't even put him under anesthesia meaning that unless he died instantly, he's forced to experience the whole thing while he's alive screaming in agony. And the "operation" starts with him stabbing Raff multiple times. It's even more chilling when you realize that the kid is considered "a very old doctor" now, and then that the assistant told Raff that he can't legally be a doctor.

Six Degrees of Freedom

• Jerry's descent into the madness over a crazy sounding hypothesis which understandably terrifies the rest of the crew. Also there's his state at the end of the episode.

Not All Men

• People who've you known for so long start acting violently due to an outside force. Then you realize the meteors weren't to blame and were just an excuse to act like monsters. Also, there's the fact that despite that their eyes turned red, bulging veins appear on their faces, and they gained extra strength all because of their innate rage they had within them.
  • Mike in particular was utterly terrifying.

Blurryman

• You can see how someone from reality (ours) react when the lines between reality and fiction (The Twilight Zone) begin to blur.
• As the episode goes on, halfway through Sophie enters the set of a fully stocked bar following jukebox music; as she reads a flipbook drawing of the titular blurryman, without warning several full liquor bottles start flying off the shelf behind the bar, causing Sophie to duck for cover as the bottles shatter against the wall. If any of those bottles had hit her she could've been seriously injured or even killed.