The Encounter (The Twilight Zone)

"**The Encounter**"
"The Encounter"
The Twilight Zone episode
Episode no.	Season 5; Episode 31
Directed by	Robert Butler
Written by	Martin M. Goldsmith
Featured music	Stock and Japanese music cues
Production code	2640
Original air date	May 1, 1964
Guest appearances
	Neville Brand: Fenton ; George Takei: Arthur Takamori/Taro
Episode chronology
← Previous; "Stopover in a Quiet Town"	Next →; "Mr. Garrity and the Graves"
	The Twilight Zone (1959 TV series) (season 5)
	List of episodes

Last updated April 06, 2024

"The Encounter" is episode 151 of the American television series The Twilight Zone . First broadcast on May 1, 1964, its racial overtones caused it to be withheld from syndication in the U.S. until 2004.^[1] It is the only original episode pulled from syndication.^[2]

Opening narration

Two men alone in an attic, a young Japanese-American and a seasoned veteran of yesterday's war. It's twenty odd years since Pearl Harbor, but two ancient opponents are moving into position for a battle in an attic crammed with skeletons, souvenirs, mementos, old uniforms, and rusted medals. Ghosts from the dim reaches of the past, that will lead us into the Twilight Zone.

Plot

Digging through his attic, an American World War II veteran named Fenton finds an old katana sword. A young Japanese American named Arthur Takamori comes in looking for work, on a tip from a neighbor.^[1]^[2] Fenton is gruff yet cordial, and invites Takamori to share a beer with him in his cluttered attic. Fenton makes a remark about the incongruity between his first name and his obvious ethnicity.^[3] Arthur takes offense at first. But when it becomes apparent that Fenton meant no harm he admits that he changed his name from Taro. Fenton shows Takamori the sword and says he took it off a Japanese soldier whom he killed during the war 20 years earlier.^[1] When Fenton leaves to fetch more beer, Takamori takes hold of the sword and says to himself in an astonished way "I'm going to kill him. I'm going to kill him. Why?"^[3]

Fenton says he has repeatedly tried to sell, give away, or throw out the sword, but it always comes back. He has had the inscription on it translated: "The sword will avenge me".^[3] Seemingly despite himself, Fenton sometimes speaks in a racially offensive manner, such as addressing Takamori as "boy." But he often apologizes for it and says he was “just kidding around”.^[3] Still, Takamori grows more uneasy and more confrontational to match Fenton's increasing hostility. They have brief heated exchanges that cool but then reemerge. While recounting how he got the sword, Fenton appears to suffer a post traumatic flashback. They assume an adversarial posture, and Takamori challenges Fenton with the sword. This tension, too, subsides, though Takamori, seeming to gain some kind of supernatural insight from the sword, says Fenton killed the Japanese soldier after the soldier surrendered. Fenton challenges the accusation, but then admits to it while saying he was acting under orders to not take prisoners.^[1] Intensely uneasy now, Takamori tries to leave but the door to the attic won't open for either him or Fenton, even though it doesn't have a lock.^[3]

In response to an insult from Fenton, Takamori describes his experience as a small child at Pearl Harbor. His father was a construction foreman who helped build the harbor. Takamori watched as the planes bombed the harbor, and his father with it. He first states his father tried to alert sailors to the attack, but then confesses that his father was actually a traitor who directed where the planes should drop the bombs.^[1]^[2]^[3] Seeing Takamori's guilt, Fenton tries to offer some comfort. The sword, however, appears to be dictating the course of the conversation, and soon Takamori accuses Fenton of being a murderer because he killed an unarmed man. Fenton defends himself by saying his orders were to take no prisoners.

In a sudden depression, Fenton admits that he is unhappy with himself and what he has done. He has lost his job, his wife is leaving him, he is consumed with hostility and bigotry, and he coaxed Takamori into conversation because he does not want to be left alone.^[3] But Takamori, now thoroughly under the controlling influence of the sword, poises to kill Fenton. Fenton seizes him by his sword arm and overpowers him, and the samurai sword is dropped, wedging into the table supports, pointing upward. Going down to the floor to retrieve it, Fenton is then fatally impaled on the sword when Takamori pulls at his feet. Takamori takes the sword, shrieks "Banzai!" and jumps out the attic window, presumably to his death.^[3]

Moments later, the first floor door slowly opens on its own.

Closing narration

Two men in an attic, locked in mortal embrace. Their common bond, and their common enemy: guilt. A disease all too prevalent amongst men both in and out of The Twilight Zone.

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References

DeVoe, Bill. (2008). Trivia from The Twilight Zone. Albany, GA: Bear Manor Media. ISBN 978-1-59393-136-0
Grams, Martin. (2008). The Twilight Zone: Unlocking the Door to a Television Classic. Churchville, MD: OTR Publishing. ISBN 978-0-9703310-9-0
Zicree, Mark Scott. (1982). The Twilight Zone Companion. New York, NY: Bantam Books, Inc. ISBN 0-553-01416-1

Specific

1 2 3 4 5 Vaux, Robert and Patton, Joshua W. (26 November 2023). "Why One Twilight Zone Episode Was Banned for Decades". cbr.com. CBR. Retrieved 10 January 2024.{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: multiple names: authors list (link)
1 2 3 "George Takei discusses The Twilight Zone - EMMYTVLEGENDS.ORG". youtube.com. Emmy TV Legends. 29 August 2011. Retrieved 14 January 2024.
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 Handlen, Zack (22 November 2014). "The Twilight Zone: "The Encounter"/"Mr. Garrity And The Graves"". avclub.com. AV Club. Retrieved 13 January 2024.

External links

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Images, videos and audio are available under their respective licenses.

[cbr_the_encounter_banned-1] 1 2 3 4 5 Vaux, Robert and Patton, Joshua W. (26 November 2023). "Why One Twilight Zone Episode Was Banned for Decades". cbr.com. CBR. Retrieved 10 January 2024.{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: multiple names: authors list (link)

[George_Takei_TZ:TE-2] 1 2 3 "George Takei discusses The Twilight Zone - EMMYTVLEGENDS.ORG". youtube.com. Emmy TV Legends. 29 August 2011. Retrieved 14 January 2024.

[Twilight_Zone_TE_MGATG-3] 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 Handlen, Zack (22 November 2014). "The Twilight Zone: "The Encounter"/"Mr. Garrity And The Graves"". avclub.com. AV Club. Retrieved 13 January 2024.

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v t e The Twilight Zone (1959) episodes
Season 1	"Where Is Everybody?" "One for the Angels" "Mr. Denton on Doomsday" "The Sixteen-Millimeter Shrine" "Walking Distance" "Escape Clause" "The Lonely" "Time Enough at Last" "Perchance to Dream" "Judgment Night" "And When the Sky Was Opened" "What You Need" "The Four of Us Are Dying" "Third from the Sun" "I Shot an Arrow into the Air" "The Hitch-Hiker" "The Fever" "The Last Flight" "The Purple Testament" "Elegy" "Mirror Image" "The Monsters Are Due on Maple Street" "A World of Difference" "Long Live Walter Jameson" "People Are Alike All Over" "Execution" "The Big Tall Wish" "A Nice Place to Visit" "Nightmare as a Child" "A Stop at Willoughby" "The Chaser" "A Passage for Trumpet" "Mr. Bevis" "The After Hours" "The Mighty Casey" "A World of His Own"
Season 2	"King Nine Will Not Return" "The Man in the Bottle" "Nervous Man in a Four Dollar Room" "A Thing About Machines" "The Howling Man" "Eye of the Beholder" "Nick of Time" "The Lateness of the Hour" "The Trouble with Templeton" "A Most Unusual Camera" "The Night of the Meek" "Dust" "Back There" "The Whole Truth" "The Invaders" "A Penny for Your Thoughts" "Twenty Two" "The Odyssey of Flight 33" "Mr. Dingle, the Strong" "Static" "The Prime Mover" "Long Distance Call" "A Hundred Yards Over the Rim" "The Rip Van Winkle Caper" "The Silence" "Shadow Play" "The Mind and the Matter" "Will the Real Martian Please Stand Up?" "The Obsolete Man"
Season 3	"Two" "The Arrival" "The Shelter" "The Passersby" "A Game of Pool" "The Mirror" "The Grave" "It's a Good Life" "Deaths-Head Revisited" "The Midnight Sun" "Still Valley" "The Jungle" "Once Upon a Time" "Five Characters in Search of an Exit" "A Quality of Mercy" "Nothing in the Dark" "One More Pallbearer" "Dead Man's Shoes" "The Hunt" "Showdown with Rance McGrew" "Kick the Can" "A Piano in the House" "The Last Rites of Jeff Myrtlebank" "To Serve Man" "The Fugitive" "Little Girl Lost" "Person or Persons Unknown" "The Little People" "Four O'Clock" "Hocus-Pocus and Frisby" "The Trade-Ins" "The Gift" "The Dummy" "Young Man's Fancy" "I Sing the Body Electric" "Cavender Is Coming" "The Changing of the Guard"
Season 4	"In His Image" "The Thirty-Fathom Grave" "Valley of the Shadow" "He's Alive" "Mute" "Death Ship" "Jess-Belle" "Miniature" "Printer's Devil" "No Time Like the Past" "The Parallel" "I Dream of Genie" "The New Exhibit" "Of Late I Think of Cliffordville" "The Incredible World of Horace Ford" "On Thursday We Leave for Home" "Passage on the Lady Anne" "The Bard"
Season 5	"In Praise of Pip" "Steel" "Nightmare at 20,000 Feet" "A Kind of a Stopwatch" "The Last Night of a Jockey" "Living Doll" "The Old Man in the Cave" "Uncle Simon" "Probe 7, Over and Out" "The 7th Is Made Up of Phantoms" "A Short Drink from a Certain Fountain" "Ninety Years Without Slumbering" "Ring-a-Ding Girl" "You Drive" "The Long Morrow" "The Self-Improvement of Salvadore Ross" "Number 12 Looks Just Like You" "Black Leather Jackets" "Night Call" "From Agnes—With Love" "Spur of the Moment" "An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge" "Queen of the Nile" "What's in the Box" "The Masks" "I Am the Night—Color Me Black" "Sounds and Silences" "Caesar and Me" "The Jeopardy Room" "Stopover in a Quiet Town" "The Encounter" "Mr. Garrity and the Graves" "The Brain Center at Whipple's" "Come Wander with Me" "The Fear" "The Bewitchin' Pool"