One of the most anticipated Twilight Zones of this new season, “You Might Also Like” has two major selling-points. First off, it was written and directed by Osgood Perkins, a talented young horror filmmaker who’s the first person to get what could be called an “auteur credit” on this show.
While it’s true that on most TV productions the buck ultimately stops with the showrunners—no matter who’s credited as writer or director—Perkins’ stamp is evident on “You Might Also Like.” Like his films The Blackcoat’s Daughter and I Am The Pretty Thing That Lives In The House, this episode has a visual style that emphasizes the spare and pristine. And like those movies it follows a woman who’s alienated and paranoid.
Gretchen Mol gives a riveting performance as the woman, Janet Warren, who lives in an ostensibly utopian America where seemingly every person of means dresses in white, lives in a clean suburban McMansion, and looks forward to the next cutting-edge consumer product advertised by their society’s overlords. The problem for Mrs. Warren is that she recently had a stillborn baby, and in her grief she’s no longer convinced that buying something new will solve her problems… and she’s especially not sure that “The Egg” currently being pitched day and night on her TV is the answer for her.
The other reason “You Might Also Like” had such advance buzz is that it’s ostensibly a sequel to “To Serve Man,” which is generally regarded as one of the 10 or 20 best episodes of the original Twilight Zone. This connection isn’t vague or allusive (unlike some of the other episodes from this second season, which only have tangential relationships with the first version of the show). About halfway through “You Might Also Like,” the aliens from “To Serve Man” actually do appear, marveling at Janet’s iconoclasm while wondering how her leg would taste, deep-fried and served in a KFC bucket. These are definitely the same deceptively friendly antagonists from the earlier episode. The only real nod to modernity is that now these human-eaters from beyond the stars argue about which pronoun to use when they’re making decisions via hive-mind.
The gag about the pronouns exemplifies what Perkins doesn’t handle so well in “You Might Also Like.” The social satire in this episode is—to put it bluntly—too blunt. The TV advertising parodies that pop up throughout are pretty spot-on, as is the “To Serve Man”-like idea that people today might obsess about getting access to the Next Big Thing without knowing much about what it is. (When Janet asks her neighbor why she wants The Egg, she answers, “Because it’s coming out?”) But when the aliens summon Janet to their mothership and explain to her that they learned how to exploit human need by watching out commercials… that’s not exactly a “whoa, makes you think” kind of moment.
This though is where Perkins’ writing and stylistic choices, along with Mol’s strong performance (as well as Greta Lee’s as her neighbor “Mrs. Jones”), compensates greatly for the overall obviousness. Perkins doesn’t pretend he’s saying something original or profound. Instead, he leans into the over-the-top elements of this episode, with its austere set design and with its screen-filling chapter titles. (“PART THREE: THE MADWOMAN IN THE OXYGEN TOWER.”) And Mol—an actress who’s always had a tinge of the theatrical about her—thrives in Perkins’ airless artificiality. She crushes the moment when Janet demands of the aliens, “Take me to your supervisor!” And she clearly has fun with Perkins’ sometimes self-contradictory dialogue, which has her agreeing with Mrs. Jones by saying, “No. I am,” and, “No. More than anything.”
In the end, what makes this episode work isn’t its theme—which just barely has anything to do with the story it’s supposed to be a sequel to—but its wit. It’s funny when Janet tries to prevent herself from spontaneously floating into space by tethering herself to her house with a literal tetherball. It’s funny when the alien supervisor recounts the things they’ve learned from monitoring Earth’s television broadcasts, including, “1965: The Beatles defeat the son of your god.” At the least, “You Might Also Like” is downright snappy.
And there are elements to this episode that do resonate… and sometimes in ways probably even Perkins couldn’t have anticipated. In the closing sequence, Janet decides just to give in to the way of things and claim her Egg, even after the aliens have warned that the product is designed to hatch unstoppable carnivorous babies. This ending is effective—not so much because of what it has to say about Janet’s depression or about conspicuous consumption, but because of the haunting climactic image of the world in chaos in the background, while people flock eagerly to the mall. Few could’ve guessed back at the start of 2020 that this would become the most plausible part of any new alien conquest story: society collapsing, while citizens shop ‘til they drop.
Stray observations
- When Janet urgently tells her neighbor, “Something is happening here and you don’t know what it is, do you, Mrs. Jones?”… that’s too cute by half.
- On the other hand, I loved the bizarre detail that nearly all the kids mentioned in this episode have an “x” in their names: Rex, Xander, and Xerxes.
- Also cool: the Muzak version of Steely Dan’s “Dirty Work.” Not sure it had a thematic point; but even bastardized, Steely Dan is an absolute good.
- Next up: “Downtime.”
34 Comments
Oh to be a ‘talented young horror filmmaker’ at the tender age of 46!
I fully hate To Serve Man, it is one of my least favourite episodes ever. All that build up to a just a lame pun. Having said that I really enjoyed You Might Also Like, very stylish, great acting, and dark enough without being nihilistic. This review nailed what made it worked and I hope there is a season 3.
I appreciate the joke, but the linguistics make no sense. They translate the title with no context to work from, and then the pun amazingly works the same in both languages.
Well of course you “fully hated” it. It was a terrific episode which was well written & acted. And the fact that you think Peele’s reboot is any good is concrete proof of your idiocy.
To Serve Man is worth it if only for this Naked Gun 2 1/2 sight gag:
On the other hand, I loved the bizarre detail that nearly all the kids mentioned in this episode have an “x” in their names: Rex, Xander, and Xerxes.Oh, so they’re Nobodies. Neat.
When I read the short story “To Serve Man” was based on, I was disappointed to learn they changed the Kanamit’s appearance for televison. They’re supposed to look like Star Wars’s Sanggletooth in Lederhosen. I take it this still uses the bland TV design?
Looks like something from “The Banana Splits Adventure Hour”.
Not the biggest fan of this episode. More than anything, the combination of kitsch and earnestness makes me wish that Darin Morgan was writing for the series.
Oh cool they play Steely Dan in this episode.
This season is much better than the first one though still not great. ‘Ovation’ was horrid. I have a feeling another episode that will be lambasted is ‘8′ but I loved it just for the sheer audacity of it. Without spoiling anything, it would’ve been better if they just followed through with that ending and showed it actually play out.
Yes, I couldn’t even finish season 1. These episodes pretty much all failed too in season 2 but they were fleshed out a bit more than just a thesis and then no plot like the first season, and the cast really does their best.weirdly the superhero girls school I did enjoy but it didn’t feel like a twilight episode, more like an updated Goosebumps.
I would say “To Serve Man” is an iconic episode but otherwise a pretty weak shaggy dog of an episode that not many people would actually consider top tier “Zone.” It’s not close to even being in the same league as the “Lamb To The Slaughter” episode from Alfred Hitchcock’s show.It’s interesting that no one else commented on the parallel to consumerism and women obsessed with wanting babies. The idea of babies being cannibals who will swarm the planet is one of the neatest, most spot-on metaphors ever to fly under the “Zone” banner and pretty much how I view anyone having kids today.“Why do you want that?” “Because it’s coming out.”-I have honestly been having this conversation my entire life.Great to see the smart and talented Gretchen Mol. She’s always fine and god, she looks great. Women like her who age gracefully are so hot.
“Why do you want that?” “Because it’s coming out.”-I have honestly been having this conversation my entire life. There is no way you could but that vapid, materialistic and shallow is there?
She doesn’t age! She looks just as young as she did in Boardwalk Empire.
This crappy remake/rehash episode shows just how godawful this new racist sexist Twilight Zone show is. It doesn’t come close to comparing to the original. Inferior B grade television writing. Preachy preachy preachy. They beat us over the head over and over. We get it! You hate white people! Especially white men! Now stop making that the center of ever episode!!
kill yourself
Thought I was watching 3 busy Debras for a few seconds
I swear Greta Lee is suddenly everywhere – and I highly approve.
Sweet birthday baby[I tried to put a gif here but it doesn’t seem to have worked]
I was having the hardest time remembering what I knew her from (I remember faces very well, but names and where I know the face from, not well at all.) When it hit me, I said, “Sweet birthday baby!”Apparently, I know her from New Girl, too.
A lot of Hope Lange in The Ghost and Mrs Muir realness in Mol’s looks this episode.
Any idea/explanation for the one scene of Janet with her husband and sons? It doesn’t look anything like the rest of the episode. My assumption was that this was a flashback from shortly after Janet lost the baby. Is that what others think as well? And if it is a flashback, where are her husband and sons now?
“where are her husband and sons now?”This is what I was wondering. Thought I had missed something.
She called her husband at work. He was in a meeting. I assume the sons were in school.
They’re at the Immolation Center! Why would you ever want to leave that place?
Surprised you didn’t note all the Kubrick refs: the ad for iWideShut with the pw ‘fidelio’ and mask logo; the shots when she woke up and Mol and Lee in the kitchen (and many of the camera moves and set-ups throughout); the music cues; the HAL-eye on the mantelpiece camera; the sets of not-quite-twin kids.Where was the credited appearance of George Takei?
I’m assuming at least one of the aliens on the ground was Takei
“Where was the credited appearance of George Takei?”I saw that credit and was equally confused, thinking I must have missed it. Maybe there was a TV showing in the background showing an old Star Trek episode? So I rewatched the episode. Turns out Takei was the voice of one (?) of the 3 Kannamits in their group conversation.
I just want to slightly disagree here that this premise is only barely related to the original episode.In the original, the people being shipped off to the alien homeworld also think everything is going to be better and all of their dreams come true. It was still a silly premise, but it actually is the same story, but replacing “moving to the alien paradise” with “buying the egg”
I think the “barely related” argument is about how this episode can’t be an actual sequel to TSM because that episode ends with the public learning that the Kannamits are taking humans to their planet to eat them. It’s hard to explain how the world we see in this episode is taking place sixty years after that episode (or whatever year this new episode takes place in).
I did not see the episode as an attempt to satire advertising, but about the unstable and contradictory nature of happiness. The aliens tried to “serve man” tried to give people what they wanted until they ate them, but found out that our definition of happiness is incredibly unstable and every changing. Everyone likes their new kitchen until they see their neighbor’s kitchen. So I think it was more about the kind of competitive happiness that advertising produces.
More pseudo-intellectual drivel. I like Jordan Peele as the narrator but CBS needs to find a showrunner that can actually find writers that can tell a decent story.
Osgood Perkins is either unwilling to tell a story, or incapable of same. He certainly has no interest in recognizable human behavior, either. It’s maddening, because this is a fun premise with some great actors, but he can’t help but artsy-fartsy all over it. Blackcoat’s Daughter was atmospheric but convoluted and ultimately pointless. I Am the Pretty Thing was… infuriating. It’s like someone had a great idea for a movie and specifically, perversely refused to make a movie out of it, sticking us with 90 minutes of B-reel while we ponder what the movie could have been.I dunno. He seems like the kind of director who would call himself an auteur. Just solid ego and no consideration for the audience. It baffles me why people think he’s a genius. “Well, it’s so dull, off-putting and pretentious that it MUST be great!”