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<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Mr. Fenton is a WW II veteran of the Pacific Theater who is in his attic throwing away junk.\u00a0 Taro (Arthur) Takamori is a young Japanese American who stopped by to ask if he could add Fenton\u2019s yard to his lawn mowing route.\u00a0 Fenton asks him to come up to the attic to help him clean up the junk and to share a beer.<\/p>\n
During the conversation we discover that Fenton has a lot of hostility toward the Japanese from his time in the war.\u00a0 He shows Arthur the samurai sword he took from a Japanese officer whom he says was trying to kill him with it.\u00a0 Fenton claims he\u2019s tried repeatedly to get rid of the sword by giving it away, selling it and throwing it in the trash but each time it\u2019s been returned.<\/p>\n
When Fenton leaves the attic to get a beer Arthur picks up the sword and says, \u201cI\u2019m going to kill him.\u201d\u00a0 Then he immediately asks himself \u201cWhy?\u201d<\/p>\n
Fenton continues to interlace insults with his conversation with Arthur and Arthur is clearly becoming angry.\u00a0 Fenton becomes more and more agitated and begins describing just how dangerous a trained soldier like himself is.\u00a0 At this point Arthur grabs the sword and seems to be preparing to attack Fenton with it.\u00a0 Fenton arms himself with a small knife and attempts to disarm Arthur but Arthur ends up with the sword against Fenton\u2019s throat.\u00a0 Fenton placates Arthur by saying he was just describing his war training not threatening Arthur.\u00a0 Arthur puts the sword down and they begin fencing with words again.\u00a0 When Fenton says that he killed the officer in self defense Arthur calls him a liar and says the officer had put the sword down when Fenton killed him.\u00a0 Fenton admits it but says that on Okinawa the standing order was take no prisoners.<\/p>\n
Next we learn a little about why Arthur is so angry.\u00a0 His father was construction contractor for the US Navy in Pearl Harbor and had built a dock for the Navy.\u00a0 Initially Arthur tells Fenton that his father was a war hero who had warned the sailors about the approaching planes but later he breaks down and admits that his father had betrayed the Americans and had guided the planes to their targets.\u00a0 He was a traitor and Arthur was consumed by the blood guilt.<\/p>\n
When Arthur tries to leave the attic, he finds that the door is inexplicably stuck.\u00a0 They continue to talk and we learn that Fenton has lost his job and his wife over his drinking and the anger that he harbored over the war.\u00a0 Once again Fenton and Arthur become involved in a fight with Arthur wielding the sword.\u00a0 After a prolonged struggle Fenton manages to pry the sword out of Arthur\u2019s hands and tosses it aside.\u00a0 But the sword was caught between some of the furniture in the attic with the blade protruding up.\u00a0 And when Fenton attempts to get up off the floor where he had been wrestling with Arthur, the young man grabs Fenton\u2019s feet out from under him and Fenton impales himself on the blade and dies.\u00a0 Arthur grabs the sword with an anguished look on his face, yells banzai! And hurls himself through the attic window to his death below.\u00a0 Finally, the door to the outside opens on its own.<\/p>\n
Rod Serling returns to one of his fascinations.\u00a0 Serling served in the Pacific and it scarred his mind.\u00a0 Fenton to some extent symbolizes the barbarity of the war but typically for Serling, he faults the American soldier and makes the Japanese officer the noble victim.\u00a0 To be somewhat even handed he gives Arthur a guilt complex over his father\u2019s treason.\u00a0 But it\u2019s pretty clear where our sympathies are supposed to lie.\u00a0 I would give this episode a B but George Takei plays Arthur.\u00a0 George and I do not share political sympathies.\u00a0 I think he\u2019s a jerk.\u00a0 So, I\u2019m giving it a B- because I\u2019m as vindictive as they come.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Mr. Fenton is a WW II veteran of the Pacific Theater who is in his attic throwing away junk.\u00a0 Taro (Arthur) Takamori is a young<\/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":[2132,38,1355,1194,44,309,265,1691,2131,154,1692,838],"class_list":["post-8489","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-reviews","category-sff","category-sff-tv-reviews","category-tv-reviews","category-twilight-zone","tag-george-takei","tag-review","tag-reviews","tag-rod-serling","tag-sci-fi","tag-sci-fi-tv-review","tag-science-fiction","tag-sff-tv-show-reviews","tag-the-encounter","tag-tv-review","tag-tv-reviews","tag-twilight-zone"],"yoast_head":"\n