The Twilight Zone Episode 2.03 & 2.04 Recap: The Who of You, Ovation

After an audition gone bad, Harry and his girlfriend, Morena, discuss the show before the power is shut off in their apartment due to Harry not paying the power bill. Morena accuses Harry of being entitled and unwilling to work on a career or a relationship and that he sucks at communication while also not being able to support Morena’s own success. In order to bring in an income and save his relationship, Harry resorts to robbing a bank with a fake gun but his plans take a strange turn when he suddenly switches bodies with the bank teller named Jill. The woman trapped in Harry’s body is tackled and restrained while Harry takes the bag of money as the teller and makes a run for it.

The Narrator introduces Harry Pine to the viewers as a man who has failed to realize he’s not the center of the world, but he’s not entirely himself at the moment and is about to go on a journey of self-discovery. That journey continues as Jill/Harry gets stopped by a co-worker and a cop who prevents Jill from taking the bag of cash. During a struggle, Harry jumps into the cop’s body as Jill returns to hers and the officer is now in Harry’s place, handcuffed. Harry, still carrying the money, tries to call Moreno to say it’s him but she knows that’s not Harry’s voice.

Detective Frank Reece takes on the case as Harry prepares to speak with Morena in person wearing a different face and even practices some of his acting skills and the officer in his place, Luntz, fails to convince Reece that his body has been switched. Until he’s able to bring up a secret about Reece that Harry could never know and only Luntz would. Elsewhere, Harry begins switching bodies with numerous people as the cops close in on him, finding new people to trade places with as he keeps ahold of the bag of cash from the bank.

Detective Reece starts to believe something more is going on when the person now stuck in Harry’s body at the police station, a man named John, tells him he was just jogging and suddenly ended up here and how that’s not his face in the mirror. Meanwhile, Harry decides to visit a psychic named Keith, who says his secrets are safe with him. Harry, still in John’s body, admits he robbed a bank and talks about his relationship troubles before trying to explain the body-swapping phenomenon. Keith wants to know where Harry’s body is and grabs him, forcing a swap where Keith ends up with Det. Reece. Keith toys with Reece, wanting a reward for the real Harry’s capture and saying he’s at his shop on Cherry Street before he flips back to his own body, forcing poor jogger John back into Harry’s body at the police station. Reece takes John with him to act as a human GPS.

Keith, back in his body and with Harry (in John’s body), berates Harry for what he’s doing to people and how he treats his girlfriend. Keith admits to being a scam artist but says Harry is worse than him before kicking him out and locking the door behind him. After his bag of cash is stolen, Harry begins swapping bodies in search of it and to evade the police, eventually switching with a kid. Eventually, Det. Reece, along with the boy stuck in Harry’s body, and Harry end up in a room together when the detective finally tracks him down. Harry gives the kid his body back, but swaps with Reece, refusing to go to jail. Reece grabs his gun from Harry demanding his body back, but the police show up and shoot Reece in Harry’s body. Having taken over Reece’s body, Harry goes to Morena, learns that she was having an affair with Reece, decides to completely “forget Harry,” and nails his next audition as Reece. The Narrator says Harry lost his body and his soul, but finally caught his big break.

Ovation

Moments after meeting the superstar Fiji, struggling singer Jasmine witnesses Fiji’s horrific suicide after the musician gives Jasmine a coin. The next time she performs on the street, Jasmine receives a standing ovation from the crowd. The Narrator explains the applause has given Jasmine a new sense of meaning, but what happens when the applause drowns out the performance? TV host J.J. Malloy eventually approaches Jasmine and says he can make her famous and she agrees to be a contestant on his show, Ovation. Jasmine kills her performance and, of course, receives her standing ovation from the crowd while landing in the finals of the competition.

People begin noticing Jasmine on the street, with new fans asking for photos and applauding her, to which her sister finds odd. The sisters get into an argument, with Jasmine accusing her doctor sister of being jealous and Zara calling the show meaningless. Jasmine uninvites Zara to the show and ends up winning the competition after the crowd begins to applaud seconds into her performance, never ceasing and only growing stronger even while she’s messing up or not even singing.

Jasmine tells her sister that she thinks the coin Fiji gave her before she died has to be the reason why there are fans outside of their house clapping and cheering, but Zara doesn’t buy it. Over time, she only grows more popular and the constant clapping and harassment in the streets quickly grows old for both sisters. When Jasmine goes on a talk show, she becomes overwhelmed by the incessant clapping and how the crowd ignores her pleas for them to stop. After narrowly avoiding a car accident due to her own driver clapping and letting go of the wheel, Jasmine races to the hospital to find her sister. All of the doctors in the operating room, as well as the opened up unconscious patient on the table, gives Jasmine a nonstop standing ovation.

Later, out near the lake, Zara convinces Jasmine to toss the coin into the water. Jasmine worries about losing what she’s gained career-wise, but she hands the coin to her sister so Zara can throw it in the lake. Jasmine escapes to their lake house to get away from everyone, eventually receiving a magazine with a cover story about her crashing career and disappearance. She later reads about the hot new singer Mynx and snaps and heads back to the city. After being shunned by J.J. Malloy, Jasmine stabs Mynx during a red carpet, finding out too late that the singer was actually her sister, Zara, who had kept the coin. While the crowd applauds as Zara dies, The Narrator snatches up the coin before applauding as he walks off-screen.