Jack Klugman plays Max Philips a small-time bookie who lives in a cheap rooming house and works for a small-time hood named Moran.\u00a0 The episode opens up with Max\u2019s son Pip being carried into a field hospital in Vietnam.\u00a0 The young soldier has been shot in the stomach while on patrol and the medic is sending him up the line to a real hospital to attempt to save his life through surgery.\u00a0 But his prognosis is bleak.<\/p>\n
We meet Max in his apartment and even though he is a crook we see the human side of him talking to his old landlady, Mrs. Feeney, and asking if any mail has come from his son Pip.\u00a0 Next we meet one of his \u201cclients,\u201d a young man named George who stole $300 from his job to bet on a horse that lost.\u00a0 He tells Max that if he can\u2019t give the money back, he\u2019ll go to jail.\u00a0 Max seems very cynical and unsympathetic about all this.<\/p>\n
In the next scene we are at Moran\u2019s apartment where Max hands over his profits to his boss.\u00a0 But Moran says that Max has stiffed him the $300 George owed.\u00a0 Apparently, Max let him off the hook.\u00a0 But Moran heard about it and sent a thug to beat the money out of George.\u00a0 Both of them enter the apartment.\u00a0 Now Max gets a phone call from his landlady telling him a telegram has arrived for him.\u00a0 Max asks her to read it to him over the phone.\u00a0 The telegram is from the Army stating that Pip was critically wounded and not expected to live.<\/p>\n
Now Max regrets his whole shabby life and all of the times he neglected Pip while he was living his life of crime and drunkenness.\u00a0 He throws George the $300 and tells him to leave but the thug blocks the door and reaches into his jacket.\u00a0 Max pulls a knife and warns Moran to call off his goon.\u00a0 But the gunman fires his gun and Max knifes both him and his boss allowing George to escape.<\/p>\n
Max staggers away from the building.\u00a0 He\u2019s been shot in the gut and he\u2019s reeling from the news that his son is dying.\u00a0 He pours out his regrets and then begs God for the chance to talk to Pip.<\/p>\n
Now we jump to the hospital where Pip is being treated.\u00a0 After his surgery the surgeon tells the nurse that if Pip can last the next hour he should survive.<\/p>\n
Walking into the deserted amusement park Max sees Pip but as the ten-year-old boy (played by Bill Mumy) who idolized him as his best friend.\u00a0 In this dream vision they relive all the fun they had together riding the rides and playing the carnival games.\u00a0 But after an hour Pip suddenly looks bleakly at Max and runs away.\u00a0 Max runs after him and follows him into the House of Mirrors.\u00a0 After frantically chasing Pip, Max hears Pip telling him the hour\u2019s up and he has to leave because he\u2019s dying.<\/p>\n
Max staggers out onto the now deserted midway and begs God for another favor.\u00a0 He asks Him to take Max\u2019s life and spare Pip.\u00a0 And then Max crumples to the ground.<\/p>\n
In the next scene Private Pip Philips in uniform and walking with a cane is accompanying Mrs. Feeney and a young female relative of hers into the amusement park.\u00a0 From the conversation we learn that Max died a few months before.\u00a0 And as Pip relives the amusement park of his youth, he demonstrates the fond memories he has of Max.<\/p>\n
This episode is a shameless and transparent attack on the audience\u2019s heartstrings.\u00a0 The whole setup is meant to elicit an emotional response using several of the oldest tropes in Hollywood; the gangster with a heart of gold, the dying child and the appeal to God.\u00a0 But it\u2019s also very effective.\u00a0 I alternate between condemning it for rank sentimentality and praising it for the effectiveness of the melodrama.\u00a0 Also, Jack Klugman and Bill Mumy?\u00a0 How can you go wrong with that?\u00a0 I\u2019ll call this an A-.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Jack Klugman plays Max Philips a small-time bookie who lives in a cheap rooming house and works for a small-time hood named Moran.\u00a0 The episode<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_mi_skip_tracking":false,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_active":false,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_note":"","_exactmetrics_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[237,4,244,240,1661],"tags":[1987,1985,1986,38,1355,1194,44,309,265,1691,154,1692,838],"class_list":["post-7724","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-reviews","category-sff","category-sff-tv-reviews","category-tv-reviews","category-twilight-zone","tag-bill-mumy","tag-in-praise-of-pip","tag-jack-klugman","tag-review","tag-reviews","tag-rod-serling","tag-sci-fi","tag-sci-fi-tv-review","tag-science-fiction","tag-sff-tv-show-reviews","tag-tv-review","tag-tv-reviews","tag-twilight-zone"],"yoast_head":"\n