Episode no. Season 3
Episode 17 Written by Rod Serling Original air date January 12, 1962 | Directed by Lamont Johnson Production code 4823 | |
Featured music Stock from "The Invaders" by Jerry Goldsmith | ||
"One More Pallbearer" is episode 82 of the American television anthology series The Twilight Zone. It originally aired on January 12, 1962.
Contents
Plot
Millionaire Paul Radin invites three people to the bomb shelter that he has built. He greets them politely but without genuine warmth as he holds a personal grudge against them all. One is a high school teacher (Mrs. Langsford) who failed him when he was caught cheating on a test and attempting to frame another student to avoid the consequences; the second is Colonel Hawthorne, who had him court-martialed when Radin endangered lives by disobeying orders; and the third is Rev. Hughes, who made a public scandal out of a woman who committed suicide over him.
Radin, with the aid of sound effects and fake radio messages, convinces the trio that an apocalyptic nuclear war will occur in just moments. He offers them refuge in the shelter if they do one thing: apologize for their actions. All three refuse his offer and leave the shelter, valuing their honor over their lives and preferring to spend a last few moments with their loved ones than to live with Radin.
Mrs. Langsford, still believing Radin will survive but be left alone, tells him to try to cope. She tells him that he has spent his life deluding himself about his own character and what is right and wrong. Radin screams hysterically that this is not true.
Suddenly, the sound of a bomb detonation shakes Radin's shelter. He takes the elevator to the surface and emerges to see the world devastated and in ruin. This twist ending is given another twist, however, when we learn that Radin, devastated by his hoax's failure, has lost his mind and is only imagining the total destruction. Radin sobs helplessly at the foot of a fountain outside his intact building while a police officer tries to aid him.