Kuchenko gets the drop on Vasslioff.
Rod Serling: The cast of characters: a cat and a mouse. This is the latter, the intended victim who may or may not know that he is to die, be it by butchery or ballet. His name is Major Ivan Kuchenko. He has, if events go according to certain plans, perhaps three or four more hours of living. But an ignorance shared by both himself and his executioner is the fact that both of them have taken a first step into the Twilight Zone.
Air date: April 17, 1964
Trying to defect, former KGB Major Ivan Kuchenko (Martin Landau) is trapped inside a hotel room. A hitman named Commissar Vassiloff (John van Dreelen) and his assistant Boris (Robert Kelljan) are watching him from a room across the street.
Vassiloff is an artistic killer who has tricked Kuchenko into drinking a sleeping potion in the hotel room after pretending to surrender to Kuchenko. Kuchenko awakens to learn that Vassiloff has planted a bomb in the room: Ivan must find it within three hours or he will be shot by Vassiloff and Boris, who have a gun trained on him at all times. Vassiloff tells Boris he has hidden the bomb in the room's telephone, where it will be triggered by picking up an incoming call.
Ivan manages to escape and avoid being shot. Later, Vassiloff and Boris enter the room and try to figure out what went wrong. The phone rings and Boris, without thinking, picks it up; Vassiloff barely has time to realize this and shout to Boris before the bomb goes off. On the other end of the phone line is Ivan Kuchenko at the airport. When the operator notifies him of the bad connection, he reassures her that the message was indeed delivered. The loudspeaker then announces that his plane is about to take off and he walks off to his freedom. The scene then cuts to Vassiloff and Boris's charred corpses.
The Jeopardy Tropes:
- Acquired Poison Immunity: Commissar Vassiloff tricks Major Kuchenko into drinking drugged wine by drinking first. Vassiloff built up an immunity to the drug by repeatedly taking increasing doses over time.
- A-Team Firing: When Kurchenko opens the door and runs out of the room, Boris (who had been earlier established as a crack shot) might as well have been firing with his eyes shut.
- Big "NO!": Vassiloff says this when Boris absentmindedly answers the booby trapped phone.
- Bond One-Liner: After Boris causes the booby trapped phone to go off, the operator informs Kuchenko that she is unable to reach the intended party.Kuchenko: It's all right, operator. I-I have reached them.
- Bond Villain Stupidity: Kuchenko is clearly at the mercy of Vassiloff and Boris, yet manages to escape.
- But for Me, It Was Tuesday: Averted. Kuchenko remembers Vassiloff being there for his interrogations and immediately recognizes him at the door, hence why he keeps a gun aimed at him. Vassiloff is amused that Kuchenko remembers faces and pleased that they can cut to the chase rather than engage in the formality of supposed strangers feeling each other out.
- Character Filibuster: Vassiloff in the beginning indulges into the one about the bourgeois gulping their wine instead of sipping etc.
- Chromosome Casting: This episode does not feature any women on screen.
- Cold Sniper: Boris, Vassiloff's assistant, is a pragmatic sniper who would prefer to just shoot Kuchenko.
- Deadly Game: Vassiloff frames his Death Trap this way, claiming that if Kuchenko can find and defuse the bomb in time, he will allow him to live.
- Death Trap: Vassiloff traps Kuchenko inside a hotel room with a hidden explosive booby trap. If Kuchenko finds the bomb within the time limit, he lives. If not, he dies. Kuchenko figures out the truth and brilliantly turns the tables.
- The Dog Bites Back: The entirety of the ending is about Kuchenko tricking Boris into setting off the bomb and showing Vassiloff that people are not prey to toy with in his sadistic mind games.
- Earn Your Happy Ending: As Serling pointed out, Kuchenko truly earned his freedom.
- Evil Laugh: Vassiloff does an epic one after he explains his "game" to Kuchenko.
- Explosive Stupidity: The bad guys are killed in the end when Boris absentmindedly answers the phone that his boss Vassiloff turned into a bomb.
- Expo Speak:
- The first part of the conversation between Kuchenko and Vassiloff is exactly that. They both know the things about which they talk. The viewer does not.
- Also, it is mentioned that Kuchenko spent twelve years in a camp to make him more sympathetic than an ordinary defector.
- Faux Affably Evil: Vassiloff claims to be "a friend" to Kuchenko, but is in reality a cruel sadist who wants to watch him squirm in his Death Trap before killing him.
- Formula-Breaking Episode: One of the very few Twilight Zone episodes to contain no sci-fi or fantastic elements whatsoever.
- Good Morning, Crono: Kuchenko is woken up in a hotel room by the ringing of the phone.
- Good Smoking, Evil Smoking: On the page describing the trope it is said that male users of cigarette holders are almost always Evil. This is certainly the case with Vassiloff.
- Hell Hotel: Kuchenko's hotel room is fairly shabby-looking at the beginning of the episode, but it descends into true hellishness after Vassiloff has set up his Deadly Game, with a hidden bomb somewhere in the room and a sniper outside the window.
- Hoist by His Own Petard: Vassiloff and Boris's fate, with Boris being tricked into setting off the very same bomb that was meant to kill Kuchenko.
- I Warned You: After Kuchenko escapes, Boris reminds Vassiloff that his quick and efficient approach to killing would've gotten the desired results.
- Mad Artist: Vassiloff compares the way he's about to kill Kuchenko to a subtle, sophisticated ballet.
- Mask of Sanity: Vassiloff presents himself as an Affably Evil gentleman, but his Evil Laugh on the tape recording, and his sadistic pleasure at watching Kuchenko squirm makes it clear there's something wrong with his head.
- Minimalist Cast: This episode features only three credited actors: Martin Landau, John van Dreelen and Robert Kelljan. The voices of two uncredited actresses are heard in the final scene.
- Oh, Crap!: After Kuchenko escapes, Boris and Vassiloff enter the room to clean up. The booby trapped phone rings, and Boris, forgetting that it is rigged to explode, picks it up, causing Vassiloff to scream, "NO, BORIS!" before both of them are blown up.
- Professional Killer: Both Vassiloff and Boris are professional assassins. Vassiloff, who claims to have killed 800 people, likes to kill his victims with artistry and subtlety to prevent himself from becoming bored. He considers himself the last of the imaginative executioners. On the other hand, Boris prefers to kill as quickly and efficiently as possible. As such, he simply wants to shoot Kuchenko in the head at the earliest opportunity. Vassiloff regards this less imaginative approach as the impatience of the bourgeois.
- Sadist: Vassiloff very much so. For all his talk about wanting to deal with Kuchenko for the sake of their nation's well-being, he simply enjoys stalking and finishing his prey. Rather than simply shoot a target dead, he sets up elaborate, ingenious traps that make those caught in them squirm and panic before finally dying. As he tells Kuchenko, he's an imaginative executioner that has done stuff like this 800 times. Kuchenko also recalls Vassiloff overseeing his brutal interrogations, smiling and nodding in entertainment the entire time.
- Self-Poisoning Gambit: Vassiloff uses this to drug Kuchenko. The two share a drink, and it seems like it would be safe because Vassiloff is drinking the same thing, but the drink in question has a sleeping agent that Vassiloff has a tolerance for. Kuchenko, who doesn't have that tolerance, is quickly knocked out.
- Talk to the Fist: Kuchenko breaks the tape recorder with Vassiloff's voice on it when the recording stops explaining the "rules" of the "game" and lets out an impressive Evil Laugh.
- Too Dumb to Live: After Kuchenko escapes, Vassiloff enters a room that he knows still has a live bomb in it. The same goes for Boris who foolishly forgets about the phone bomb.
- Why Don't Ya Just Shoot Him?: Boris outright suggests this, but Vassiloff would rather turn it into some kind of sadistic game. This comes back to bite them both.
- Wicked Cultured: How Vassiloff presents himself: a refined gentleman, who converses amicably with his intended victim, smokes fine cigarettes, drinks well-aged wine, and treats murder like some kind of art form.
- Worthy Opponent: Vassiloff tells Kuchenko that they are "worthy adversaries".
Rod Serling: Major Ivan Kuchenko, on his way west, on his way to freedom – a freedom bought and paid for by a most stunning ingenuity. And exit one Commissar Vassiloff, who forgot that there are two sides to an argument and two parties on the line. This has been... The Twilight Zone.
