"Kentucky Rye" is an episode of the first Twilight Zone revival series, "The New Twilight Zone". It stars Jeffrey DeMunn.
Plot[]
When a loud, obnoxious salesman, Bob Spindler, is celebrating his first big sale he drinks too much and attempts to drive home that night. He is almost run off the road by another driver, right next to a bar called the "Kentucky Rye." He decides to go in and calm his nerves, and finds everyone there is his friend. There is a woman who just stares at him, but he thinks she's attracted to him. The bar owner tells him that the bar is for sale, when Bob says that it's a great place and must rake in the money. When the bar owner says the price is $1,500, Bob is sure the guy is kidding but is assured he's dead serious. Bob remembers that he has most of his commission left, but still lacks $100. A stranger steps forward and says he'll loan it to him. Bob takes the money, and the bar is his. The bar owner starts to laugh in a demoniacal way, and everyone disappears except for the stranger, and the bar is now dark, silent and cobweb-shrouded.
Bob shakes his head to clear it, and remembers that the stranger was the man who almost ran him off the road. He says this to the stranger, but the stranger stops him, and tells Bob that he is the one who ran the stranger off the road, killing him, because Bob was driving drunk. The stranger points out the window, where police cars and ambulances are loading up the dead from the accident. The woman who had been staring at him in the bar is out there; the stranger says that it's his wife, who is now a widow. Then the stranger vanishes. Bob watches as they lift the stranger's lifeless form into the ambulance, and is stunned when he sees his own dead body being loaded up. He instinctively reaches for a drink, but all bottles are empty. He hears the devil's laughter again, realizes he's also dead, and now trapped in his own silent hell within the "Kentucky Rye."
Closing Narration[]
"Bob Spindler, new owner and sole customer of the "Kentucky Rye." A hell of a tavern, where last call goes on forever...in the Twilight Zone."
| v • e The Twilight Zone (1985) episodes | |
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| Season 1 | "Shatterday" • "A Little Peace and Quiet" • "Wordplay" • "Dreams For Sale" • "Chameleon" • "Healer" • "Children's Zoo" • "Kentucky Rye" • "Little Boy Lost" • "Wish Bank" • "Nightcrawlers" • "If She Dies" • "Ye Gods" • "Examination Day" • "A Message From Charity" • "Teacher's Aide" • "Paladin of the Lost Hour" • "Act Break" • "The Burning Man" • "Dealer's Choice" • "Dead Woman's Shoes" • "Wong's Lost and Found Emporium" • "The Shadow Man" • "The Uncle Devil Show" • "Opening Day" • "The Beacon" • "One Life, Furnished in Early Poverty" • "Her Pilgrim Soul" • "I of Newton" • "Night of the Meek" • "But Can She Type?" • "The Star" • "Still Life" • "The Little People of Killany Woods" • "The Misfortune Cookie" • "Monsters!" • "A Small Talent for War" • "A Matter of Minutes" • "The Elevator" • "To See the Invisible Man" • "Tooth and Consequences" • "Welcome to Winfield" • "Quarantine" • "Gramma" • "Personal Demons" • "Cold Reading" • "The Leprechaun Artist" • "Dead Run" • "Profile in Silver" • "Button, Button" • "Need to Know" • "Red Snow" • "Take My Life...Please!" • "Devil's Alphabet" • "The Library" • "Shadow Play" • "Grace Note" • "A Day in Beaumont" • "The Last Defender of Camelot" |
| Season 2 | "The Once and Future King" • "A Saucer of Loneliness" • "What Are Friends For?" • "Aqua Vita" • "The Storyteller" • "Nightsong" • "The After Hours" • "Lost and Found" • "The World Next Door" • "The Toys of Caliban" • "The Convict's Piano" • "The Road Less Traveled" • "The Card" • "The Junction" • "Joy Ride" • "Shelter Skelter" • "Private Channel" • "Time and Teresa Golowitz" • "Voices in the Earth" • "Song of the Younger World" • "The Girl I Married" |
| Season 3 | "The Curious Case of Edgar Witherspoon" • "Extra Innings" • "The Crossing" • "The Hunters" • "Dream Me a Life" • "Memories" • "The Hellgramite Method" • "Our Selena is Dying" • "The Call" • "The Trance" • "Acts of Terror" • "20/20 Vision" • "There Was an Old Woman" • "The Trunk" • "Appointment on Route 17" • "The Cold Equations" • "Stranger in Possum Meadows" • "Street of Shadows" • "Something in the Walls" • "A Game of Pool" • "The Wall" • "Room 2426" • "The Mind of Simon Foster" • "Cat and Mouse" • "Many, Many Monkeys" • "Rendezvous in a Dark Place" • "Special Service" • "Love is Blind" • "Crazy as a Soup Sandwich" • "Father and Son Game"
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