Love is Blind
"The man behind the wheel is Jack Haines, a long-haul trucker. On any other night, he'd be on the lookout for a good time, but that's changed. A lot has changed for Jack, because of one overheard telephone conversation. He learned that tonight, his wife is meeting another man here, at the Mustang Bar, his name unknown. The only thing Jack Haines knows for certain, is that tonight, there's going to be murder at the Mustang, a little place ten miles from town and deep in the heart — of the Twilight Zone."
Trucker Jack Haines (Ben Murphy) drives his rig to the Mustang, a rowdy bar packed with rowdy patrons, where he learns that his wife Elaine (Cindy Girling) has planned to meet another man. Since Elaine hasn't arrived yet, Jack enters the Mustang and waits for her, carrying a concealed pistol he intends to shoot her lover with. A blind singer (Sneezy Waters) entertaining the crowd begins singing a song with suspiciously similar details to Jack's situation. After being unnerved by his musical number, the singer tells him that he became blind after he was shot in the head by a man whose wife was having a good time with him. His blindness has given him the ability to see the future and know the pain of the people around him, which he expresses by uttering warnings in the form of songs. Knowing what Jack is up to, the singer tries to get him to stop his plans before he murders who may or may not be an innocent man.
Tropes
- Anti-Hero: Jack is a trucker who's cheated on his wife at least twice and was planning on gunning down the man he believes she's having an affair with. When the singer shares his visions of the future with him, he becomes dissuaded from carrying out his plot.
- Bad Future: In the vision the blind singer shares with Jack, Elaine steps in front of the man who she comes to the bar with, his best friend Taylor, to protect him, and is unfortunately killed in the crossfire. As Jack flees from the police, he witnesses Taylor telling them that he and Elaine were waiting to surprise him with new tires for his rig as an anniversary gift. When the vision ends, Jack lets Elaine and Taylor leave, spared at what the future might've held for him.
- Blank White Eyes: The blind singer whips off his shades to reveal completely blank eyes, as a means of proving to Jack that his blindness isn't some ruse.
- Blind Musician: The folk singer at the Mustang, after having a bullet go right through his head.
- Blind Seer: The blind musician has the ability to see the future and sense the emotions of people around him. As such, he's able to tell that Jack came to the Mustang to kill the man who his wife Elaine is seemingly having an affair with. After confronting Jack, the musician explains that he's drawn to a place by the feelings of those around him, and comes up with a prophetic song on the spot once he's close to its subject. He can also share his visions of the future with someone if he chooses, which he does to Jack in order to dissuade him from committing murder.
- Bottle Episode: The whole episode takes place in and around the Mustang.
- Dead All Along: The blind folk singer is a strongly-implied case, as he refuses to answer Jack's question of how he could've survived getting shot in the head, and he later disappears from Jack's passenger seat when offered a ride down the road.
- Disability Superpower: The folk singer at the Mustang became blind after he was shot in the head by the jealous husband of a woman he was entertaining. While he presumably lost his life in the process, he gained the ability to see the future and sense other peoples' emotions, which he expresses with a fully-written song that just pops right into his mind.
- Driven to Suicide: The folk singer tells Jack that the man who made him blind by shooting him killed his wife in the crossfire. As a result, he hung himself in jail a week later.
- Hypocrite: Jack is furious at the thought of Elaine cheating on him, but the blind singer reminds him that he's cheated on her at least twice while he was on the road. Jack immediately becomes defensive and claims that this is different.
- Mistaken for Cheating: Jack thinks that Elaine is cheating on him by meeting a lover at the Mustang. His vision of the future shared by the blind musician reveals they were actually intending to surprise him with an anniversary present.
- Murder Ballad: The blind musician can see the future, and he can explain what his visions are about by instantly creating songs that describe them in his mind, which he sings to an audience. In Jack's case, he sings a song about a man killing his wife's lover as soon as he enters the Mustang, and it doesn't take Jack long to realize that the musician is describing exactly what he intends to do.
- Murder Is the Best Solution: Jack overheard Elaine talking to a man over the phone before the episode began, arranging to meet him at the Mustang. Assuming that she's cheating on him, Jack drives to the Mustang and intends to shoot her lover as soon as he sees him. It turns out that Elaine was actually meeting Jack's best friend Taylor so that they could pick out new tires for his truck as an anniversary surprise.
- Nasty Party: The singer's vision of Jack's future, which he shares with him, has him accidentally killing Elaine, who was actually meeting his best friend Taylor at the Mustang to surprise him with a present for their anniversary. He thankfully changes his mind when he glimpses it and lets them leave not knowing he was there.
- No Name Given: The future-seeing blind musician who instigates the plot has no spoken name.
- Shout-Out to Shakespeare: The episode's title is a reference to a line from The Merchant of Venice, Act II, Scene VI.
"No comment necessary, except to note the necessity of caution when the hands show midnight in the dark hour of the human soul. A song of warning and hope, written in somber red, and copyrighted — by the Twilight Zone."
