The Twilight Zone: King Nine Will Not Return

Sometimes, I can figure out the ending of a Twilight Zone episode within the first few minutes of the show. I thought that was the case here. But for some reason, King Nine Will Not Return fooled me with a slight plot twist at the end.

The episode begins with a shot of the African Desert and Rod Serling's opening narration explaining to us that this is Africa in 1943 during World War II. As the shot widens, we see a crashed Air Force Bomber which we are told is named King Nine, a B25 bomber that has crashed here after an errant piece of flak tore a hole in one of it's wing tanks and it lost all it's fuel.

Strewn about the ground are pieces of the aircraft which lead up to a body laying face down in the sand. This is Captain James Embry, apparently a survivor of the plane crash and who is now stranded here in the desert. As he begins to awake, Captain Embry realizes his crew is missing. There is no sign of them and he has no idea what has happened. Exploring his surroundings, Embry finds he is starting to hallucinate and wonders if he will ever be able to get out of the desert -- or for that matter, is he even really there?

King Nine Will Not Return was the lead off episode for the second season of The Twilight Zone. After the huge success of the first season, expectations were high for this episode and it does not disappoint. Robert Cummings must basically play a one man show and carry the entire episode and his performance is excellent. Going into this episode, I had never heard of Cummings before but I was very impressed. For most of the half hour, Cummings is on screen by himself and he pulls off the solitary performance.

As I mentioned before, this episode also fooled me which was a nice surprise. I won't give away the ending, but I think most people will be tricked by the plot twist at the very end. You will think you've got it all figured out (as I did) but right at the end Serling masterfully pulls the rug right out from under all of us and makes you go back and rethink the entire episode.

King Nine Will Not Return may not be my favorite Twilight Zone Episode, but it is definitely high up on the list of episodes to see. Plus, this appears to be an episode that is not shown on TV too often anymore. So if you get the chance to watch it, I highly recommend you do -- especially since it will most likely be the first "new" Twilight Zone episode you've seen in years.

More Reviews of The Twilight Zone: King Nine Will Not Return

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