Jordan Peele: You might say that Claudia King has found herself on a kind of blind date. One set up not by friend, family, or coworker. This is a match neither made in Heaven nor the Internet but in the far darker web... of the Twilight Zone.
When the quick-witted Claudia has a chance run-in with Marc at a museum, he dazzles her with his seemingly miraculous abilities. But after the true source of his charisma is revealed, the encounter takes a dark turn.
Tropes:
- All Girls Want Bad Boys: Discussed. Marc explains that women go for the bad boys instead of the Nice Guy because bad boys ooze confidence. His own attempt at invoking this trope fails miserably.
- Alone with the Psycho: Claudia realizes how uninhibited Marc has become after her rejecting him and he reacts with hostility. Marc then openly says that he could kill her since the day will just reset. By now, he's gotten her alone in a fairly isolated part of the museum they're visiting, too...
- Ambiguous Situation: It's not made clear if "Marc Wheeler" is even the villain's real name, as he has lied about many things in an attempt to get Claudia to fall in love with him. At the very least, he lied about his name being spelled "Marc" instead of "Mark" because he learned she had a secret crush on a boy named Marc when she was a kid and she thought the c in his name was sexy.
- Attempted Rape: Marc attacks Claudia with the intent to rape her at the very least when she turns down his advances.
- Badass Boast: Both Marc and Claudia deliver one when the climax approaches. Marc describes himself as the "puppeteer of the universe" due to the knowledge acquired through countless iterations, so he doesn't think Claudia stands a chance against him. Claudia, for her part, once cornered by Marc, tells him she is going to fight back and "kick his ass back into yesterday".
- Bitch in Sheep's Clothing: Marc seems like a nerdy, charming guy at first but gradually shows a very nasty side.
- Birds of a Feather: Invoked by Marc who gets Claudia to like him because of their similar interests.
- Curb-Stomp Battle: When Marc attacks Claudia, she defeats him very quickly and he doesn't even land a single hit on her.
- Damsel out of Distress: Before the security guards even arrive, Claudia fends Marc off and knocks him down herself. She threatens to do this any other time Marc tries in another loop. It deters him enough that in the next loop, he leaves Claudia alone.
- Deconstruction: The plot can be seen as one for Groundhog Day and loops like it depicts in general. Marc has concluded that no one else matters or is even truly real, since after each day that version of them simply vanishes when it's reset. Thus he's grown to feel no compunction about murder or rape. Unlike Phil in the film, he's too self-centered to change and thus, it's implied, he will be stuck in the loop forever.
- Entitled to Have You: Marc is the perfect embodiment of a "nice guy" who believes that the effort he put into acting like the perfect date entitles him to Claudia's love, not realizing how horrible all this sounds to Claudia.
- Epic Fail: Lampshaded (or, rather, rubbed in Marc's face) by Claudia. Despite cornering her and being physically larger and armed with a sword, Claudia completely wipes the floor with him when he tries to assault her, and as the cops take him away, she taunts him by asking how many loops he had gone through, only for her to kick his ass without any preparation. It's even more humiliating when you realize that not only Claudia was unarmed, she also punched him in the exact same way three times in a row, showing just how badly he absorbs new information.
- Marc again in two of the loops tries to save Claudia from the truck with disastrous consequences: in one he causes the truck to derail and hit another car, and in the other he ends up accidentally pushing her in front of the bus. The latter is particularly bad after seeing that, without his intervention, she actually avoids the truck without any issues.
- Evil Cannot Comprehend Good: Marc is a literal example of this. He claims that after reliving the same day over a thousand times, he's lost his old perspective of good and evil, and he believes that people only do good things to make themselves look good.
- Failure Montage: Showing Marc in different loops trying to find a name for a mask that elicits a positive response from Claudia.
- Foreshadowing:
- Claudia jokingly threatens to kick Marc's ass if he doesn't tell her his secret. In the climax, she does kick his ass when he attacks her.
- Marc and Claudia see a sculpture of some humans under a giant clam with a giant raven standing on top of it. Marc believes that the sculpture symbolizes power and dominance and that the raven is crushing the people beneath his feet, foreshadowing his evil, power-mad nature and belief in men dominating women. Claudia believes that the raven is instead saving and freeing the people by coaxing them to leave the clam, foreshadowing her saving herself from Marc and freeing herself from his time loop.
- God Test: Marc proves his looping ability in a scene at the museum where he predicts all things happening around them which eventually convinces Claudia.
- "Groundhog Day" Loop: The main plot of this episode. Marc has been stuck in one for over a thousand days.
- Hate Sink: Marc is a vile Psychopathic Manchild with a severe Lack of Empathy who would rape or murder a woman just to try and alleviate his boredom.
- It's All About Me: Since Marc thinks nobody else is "real", he doesn't care about anyone but himself.
- "Just Joking" Justification: When Marc gets mad at Claudia for rejecting him, he tells her "You're lucky I'm nice". Claudia then asks him what he means by that and he tries to backpedal by saying that he was "kidding".
- Lack of Empathy: Marc. After spending years living in a time loop that only affects him, he's come to believe that no one else is "real", since after each day, that version of them simply vanishes when it's reset. He doesn't even care about Claudia, who he claims to love, and is even willing to commit murder or rape.
- Meaningful Name: The man stuck going around in circles uses the name, Marc Wheeler (though it's never revealed what his real name is).
- The Perfectionist: Marc has become one, trying to make his date with Claudia perfect. When she rejects him nonetheless, it sends him over the edge.
- Perspective Flip: Of the typical "Groundhog Day" Loop storyline. Most stories are from the perspective of the person living the loop. This one comes from someone outside the loop meeting such a person trapped inside, and how unsettling that would be.
- Politically Incorrect Villain: Marc says men dominate, it's what they do, when justifying his attempted rape of Claudia.
- Psychopathic Manchild: Marc's selfishness and lack of inhibition can be likened to a spoiled child who's never had to deal with any kind of rules or hardship.
- Redemption Rejection: Claudia tries, at length, to talk sense into Marc and explain why what he's doing is wrong. Unfortunately, he's well beyond being reasoned with. He figures that any guilt he might feel over his actions will fade in a hundred loops or so.
- Sanity Slippage: It's debatable how good he was ever to start with but being trapped in an infinite time loop with no way out has caused Marc to lose whatever sanity he had, making him perfectly willing to do awful things just to break the monotony.
- Self-Inflicted Hell: The final narration implies that Marc is trapped in his time loop so that he might work to become a better person. However, his selfishness and sense of entitlement will prevent him from ever seeing that.
- The Sociopath: Due to being stuck in a time loop, Marc has come to believe that he is the only "real" person in the world since everyone else will cease to exist once the day restarts, and believes that gives him the right to do whatever he wants, including trying to rape or murder Claudia.
- Smug Snake: Once Marc's facade breaks, he's revealed to have this personality, with a condescending attitude and no respect at all for other people's feelings, not even Claudia (whom he claims to love). He is also, however, far less capable than he claims to be, as when his process is shown we learn that it takes him several tries for any detail he wants to go even decently well, and Claudia shows him he is not really able to improvise.
- Stalker with a Crush: Marc, who has a crush on Claudia, is shown to be one. He's been trying to win her over for a long time using his time loops, and she's suitably creeped out upon learning this. Worse, after she rejects him, Marc quickly gets violent.
- The Unfettered: Marc has grown to be this, since no matter what he does, things will just reset into a new day. While he admits that he'll feel bad about it for a while, he's unhesitating while attempting to rape Claudia after she's rejected him.
- We Are Not Going Through That Again: In the next time loop Marc decides not to interfere with Claudia and leaves her alone.
- Would Hit a Girl: First, Marc states his intent to rape Claudia. Then, he tries to assault her with a sword.
Jordan Peele: Claudia King will, like most of us, proceed directly to a lifetime of tomorrows, leaving Marc Wheeler to spend an eternity in a prison of his own design: the inability, no matter how many tries he's given, to see beyond himself. An endless loop of solitary confinement here... in the Twilight Zone.
