"Two" is an episode of the The Twilight Zone.
Episode Details[]
Opening Narration[]
"This is a jungle, a monument built by nature honoring disuse, commemorating a few years of nature being left to its own devices. But it's another kind of jungle, the kind that comes in the aftermath of man's battles against himself. Hardly an important battle, not a Gettysburg or a Marne or an Iwo Jima. More like one insignificant corner patch in the crazy quilt of combat. But it was enough to end the existence of this little city. It's been five years since a human being walked these streets. This is the first day of the sixth year - as man used to measure time. The time: perhaps a hundred years from now - or sooner. Or perhaps it's already happened two-million years ago. The place: The signposts are in English so that we may read them more easily, but the place - is The Twilight Zone."
Episode Summary[]
The setting is a small, deserted city that has not seen a human being since the end of an apocalyptic war five years before. The narration suggests the time could be hundreds of years in the future (or sooner) -- or millions of years in the past. A female soldier (Elizabeth Montgomery), wearing a tattered army uniform, stumbles into town. She looks into some of the shop windows, pausing to examine a white dress, then finds a restaurant and goes inside. She finds a can of chicken, but before she can open it, a man also wearing a military uniform (Charles Bronson) walks in. Recognizing his uniform as that of the enemy, she immediately attacks him. After attempting to subdue her without injuring her, the man knocks her out and begins to ravenously eat the chicken. The man notices a dove, which flies away. He examines a calendar with a woman in a swimsuit on the wall then turns to look back at his opponent. He wakes the woman up. Speaking in English, he announces that there is no reason to fight anymore and gives her the remains of the food. The woman is wary, but eats the chicken. She follows him into a barber shop and watches as he shaves. He tosses a towel to her, which she uses to wipe her dirty face. They wander over to a movie theater. He stares at a poster for a wartime romance film and turns to smile at her. Then they spy the skeletal remains of soldiers at the theater entrance, and they snatch nearby rifles, simultaneously aiming at each other. After a tense moment, the man turns and walks away, slinging his gun over his shoulder. The woman follows him, and the two walk along the road. They stop in front of the store with the dress in the window and she mutters pryekrasnyy (прекрасный), the Russian word for "pretty." He takes the dress off the dummy and throws it to her, indicates a doorway and tells her to put it on. She goes through the door, which turns out to be a military recruiting office. As she begins to undress, she notices the posters on the wall. The last one depicts enemy soldiers being held at gunpoint by forces from the man's country. She leaves and angrily shoots at him instead, burning part of his face. The man walks away, not understanding why she has suddenly changed. Later, the man is changing out of his uniform into a makeshift tuxedo and has found two jars of food. He sees the woman peeking from behind a car and yells at her to go away, to take her war somewhere else. She emerges from behind the car in the dress, and he realizes she has changed her attitude. He throws her one of the jars and calls her pryekrasnyy. She smiles for the first time. With their guns slung over their shoulders, they walk away side-by-side along the road.
Closing Narration[]
"This has been a love story about two lonely people who found each other, in the Twilight Zone."
Preview for Next Week's Story[]
Literature is studded with stories of ghost ships and skeleton galleons. And next week on The Twilight Zone, we take the old tale of a Flying Dutchman and give it a coat of fresh paint. This time, the haunted ship is an aircraft. It lands in a typical busy airport and rolls up to the ramp and it's at this point that you find yourselves on a passenger manifest of a flight that leads only to The Twilight Zone. It's called "The Arrival".
Themes[]
This episode revolves around a theme where humans are nearly wiped out and two enemies must learn to live with each other.
It is somewhat similar to Probe 7, Over and Out.
Release[]
Production companies[]
- Cayuga Productions
- Columbia Broadcasting System (CBS) (in association with)
Distributors[]
- Columbia Broadcasting System (CBS) (1959) (USA) (TV) (original airing)
Home media release[]
This episode is included on the Image Entertainment Vol. 4 DVD along with "Mr. Dingle, the Strong", "A Passage for Trumpet" and "The Four of Us Are Dying".
Trivia[]
- The gun that the woman fires sounds like it fires lasers, as the sound is very high pitched.
- The nations where the two characters come from are never revealed. However, the woman's sole word of dialogue (spoken when she sees the dress) is in Russian: Precassiny, which is the Russian word for 'pretty'.
External Links[]