How would you feel if your dearest grandmother passed away? She was sick for quite some time and is now at peace. You are devastated; you were very closer with your grandmother. Your parents try to comfort you, but you can find solace in nothing. You suddenly remember the birthday gift grandma gave you a day before she passed: a telephone. You remember grandma saying that when she is away, you can use this phone to talk to her. You pick up the phone one afternoon…and hear grandma’s voice of the other end! Welcome to the Twilight Zone.

The Twilight Zone: the fifth dimension of imagination, sight, sound, and mind; a place where the inconceivable happens. A place where a five year old boy is able to talk to his deceased grandmother through a toy phone. “Long Distance Call” (episode 22 in season 2), begins with Billy, the little boy, and his family celebrating his fifth birthday. Billy’s father brings down his mother, Billy’s grandmother, from upstairs to join in on celebrating. After everyone is finished eating cake, Grandma Bayles calls Billy over, gives him a toy phone, and tells him he can use it to call her when she goes away. Billy, not really understanding that this is the last time he will see his grandmother, takes the phone without hesitation. The next day Grandma Bayles dies, but later in the evening Billy picks up the phone and talks to his grandmother. His parents find no fault in Billy’s “pretending”, until it becomes all he ever does.  Billy goes as far as to run in front of a car, because “someone told him to.”

The Twilight Zone is known for being cryptic and dealing with the natural and supernatural. I am used to getting a little uncomfortable and scratching my head, trying to understand an episode, but this time I was really spooked. My mind is finite and understands death to be the end of communication with the life on earth; the idea of communicating with someone dead is hard to fathom, and the fact that the communication is happening via a toy phone was unsettling.  Is Grandma Bayles really on the other end? Or has Billy gone delusional? If Grandma Bayles is really dead, is she trying to bring Billy to her? Will my questions be answered by the end of this episode?

This episode cunningly plays with death as the “an omnipresent player to the third and final act of every life”, and uses a little boy to be the connection between it and life. After watching the episode, I realized that it is one of the darkest and thought-provoking episodes of TZ, and everyone should watch it. I realized that my inquiries do not have to be answered. Why? Because it is the Twilight Zone; the impossible is possible.