Not All Men is the seventh episode of season 1 in The Twilight Zone series.
Synopsis[]
A meteor shower brings a mysterious outbreak that causes the men to act out in violence.
Opening Narration[]
"Meet Annie Miller. Annie has always seen the world as a place where she can maintain control if she just played by the rules. But tonight marks the beginning of a change. Both in her and the idyllic land that she's always called home. On the eve of her sister's birthday, Annie will be forced to contend with an event way out of her control in a simmering violence about to boil over into the Twilight Zone."
Plot[]
Act I[]
Annie Miller takes on many assignments at her new job in hopes of looking like "a team player". This catches the eye of her superior Dylan. He chats with her and invites her to his house that night to watch an upcoming meteor shower. While reluctant at first, she eventually says yes.
That night, Annie and Dylan drink wine and enjoy each other's company. The meteors begin to crash dangerously close to the house, one going right through a water tower. The two head into the woods behind Dylan's house to get a closer look at one of the grounded rocks. He picks it up; when she asks to hold it, he jokes that it might be radioactive and keeps it. They go back inside — Dylan plays Lionel Ritchie's "Hello" on his record player and gets cozy on the couch with Annie. He calls her hard work ethic "cute" and admits to wanting to ask her out for some time. They kiss, but Annie stops when Dylan starts groping her. She's uncomfortable, but Dylan insists sparks are flying between them after seeing the cosmic meteor shower. Annie gets up regardless; Dylan's charm begins to fade as he wonders why she won't sleep with him, even going so far as to saying "I'll do you first." Annie wants to leave but Dylan aggressively grabs her and insists he's not trying to sleep with her. Annie nervously calms him down by saying she had a great time and wants to take it slow. He lets her go and thanks her for coming over; she smiles and leaves. As she walks down the driveway, Dylan screams. She looks back and is horrified to see him furiously smashing his record player.
Act II[]
The next morning, Annie is getting ready for work when she notices a bruise on her arm where Dylan grabbed her. She spends most of the work day distracted until her boss Phil comes to her cubicle. He assigns her onto a project with Dylan and tells her working with him will help her rise in the company. While she agrees to, she is obviously panicked — leading her to notice many men acting out in small doses of rage around her.
Annie goes to the house of her older sister Martha, who's celebrating her birthday tonight. She talks with her nephew Cole, briefly mentioning her date the previous night; Cole senses it did not go well and says he wish he could beat the guy up for her. They joke about guys always wanting to beat each other up before heading inside. They along with Martha, her kind husband Mike, Phil (who's also a family friend), and Phil's wife Lydia eat dinner that night and have a great time together. Phil mentions Annie's work pairing with Dylan, which renders her quiet. A scream is heard next door; the family finds the neighbor has caught his lawnmower on a hose and it is spewing a reddish water. The town's water supply appears to be heavily contaminated.
The ladies go out for drinks later. They take notice of a group of guys at the bar drinking shots with meteor rocks in them while chanting "Shoot the stone!" Dylan is seen entering the bar, causing a panicked Annie to step outside. She finds the underage Cole and his boyfriend Steve buying beer from a truck driver; they tell her they're just going to hang out on Steve's family boat, so she promises not to rat them out. She heads back inside and watches an old classmate of hers Zeke — who was "shooting the stone" earlier — throw a drunken rampage. Annie furiously asks what's wrong with guys like him, but Martha simply chokes it up to "assholes being assholes". Zeke's anger rapidly grows as his eyes turn red. He fights another man — suddenly every man in the bar, including Dylan, start fighting each other. The horrified sisters quickly leave the bar; however they're approached by Perry, who works with Annie and Dylan. They ignore him, causing him to also grow angry.
Something's wrong with Mike
While driving home, the two try to make sense of what just happened. Annie thinks it has something to do with the meteor rocks and lets it slip that Dylan attacked her, but holds back when Martha asks her about it. While difficult for her, Annie admits fear in talking about it. Martha tells her she doesn't have to handle everything on her own. They realize Perry is following them and attempt to shake him, but he ends up stalking them all the way to Martha's house. They run inside and tell Mike what's happening. He insists he'll handle it, yelling at Martha when she questions him. He goes outside and viciously beats Perry to death. A traumatized Annie sees this from the house and tries convincing her sister to keep her husband out, as he is sick like all the other men. Martha refuses to believe this, but Mike enters through the back door anyhow. Now covered in Perry's blood, Mike fills a glass with contaminated tap water and drinks furiously. He lights Martha's birthday cake as if nothing happened — then demands she blow out the candles and make a wish, horrifying her. His anger becomes more and more irrational as his eyes turn red. He attacks Annie, forcing Martha to step in and smack him over the head with a frying pan.
The panicked sisters flee the house, gasping at the sight of Perry's corpse. As they back out of the driveway, a speeding car suddenly side-swipes them. When they gain consciousness, they find the other driver dead and the world slowly sinking into an apocalyptic state.
Act III[]
Annie and Martha walk to the docks in search of the boat Cole and Steve are on. The streets are in mass panic: men are everywhere crashing cars, beating each other up, shooting guns aimlessly, looting, and murdering. They cross paths with Phil who tries to explain he doesn't have the sickness and that it could be a hormonal reaction; they don't believe him and run away, leaving him to get beat to death.
The sisters watch the world burn
Taking refuge at a gas station, Martha think they should fight back. She grabs a stone with the hopes she'll be infected too, but feels nothing. Annie reminds her that only the men are affected. They get chased out of the station and come across several men bathing in a fountain running with contaminated water. They all continue to shovel more stones into the water and hurl obscenities at one another, loving every second of it.
Cole and Steve hang out on a boat oblivious to the chaos outside. Steve is "shooting the stone" and tries to get Cole to drink one in his beer, but he refuses. Steve kisses Cole and makes a move on him; Cole feels uncomfortable, causing Steve's eyes to turn red. He attacks Cole, who escapes by locking his boyfriend on the boat. The ladies show up and explain to the upset boy what is happening.
A very sickly Dylan shows up at the dock creepily singing "Hello". He carries a chain with a stone tied to one end of it (like a literal meteor hammer). He attacks and strangles her with the chain; Cole tries to stop him but Dylan shoves him. Before she can suffocate, Annie frees herself and beats Dylan with the meteor hammer. She pushes him into the water, and the meteor hammer drags his body down to the ocean floor. As a helicopter approaches them, Martha does everything she can to calm her son down before the rage takes over his mind. She surprisingly does and the three are rescued.
Act IV[]
Cole reveals the meteor in his pocket
At a quarantine center, Annie and Martha hear two women doctors discussing how the virus compound made its way into the town's water supply. Cole is discharged and declared fully healthy; however, he reveals he's had a stone in his back pocket the whole time. They deduce that not all men are affected, but Annie starts to think the meteors may have been a placebo the whole time. Cole agrees with this, claiming that he was able to control his rage simply because he "chose to".
A soldier asks the three for their ID's before they can leave. When he checks Annie's, he rudely suggests she smile more — saying she'd look "much cuter". She firmly replies, "NO!" and takes her ID back. As the three leave, news reports are seen covering the chaotic night as if they were simple road rage/late night crime incidents. Elsewhere, Jordan Peele picks up one of the stones and studies it as he confirms that the meteorites were like a ‘plague of conscience‘, which ‘gave men permission to ignore decency, consent, and fear' made ‘to turn men into monsters' as the episode ends.
Closing Narration[]
"Tonight, Annie Miller found herself in the center of a mysterious and violent epidemic. What she encountered was no material disease but rather a plague of conscious. One that gave men permission to ignore decency, consent, and fear. And tonight, all it took was a few an innocuous little rocks to turn men into monsters here in the Twilight Zone."
Cast[]
- Taissa Farmiga as Annie Miller
- Rhea Sheehorn as Martha
- Percy Hynes White as Cole
- Luke Kirby as Dylan
- Peter Kelamis as Phil Smith
- Ike Barinholtz as Mike
- Steph Song as Olivia
- Agape Mngomezulu as Steve
- Paul Piaskowski as Zeke
- Jeff Gladstone as Perry Sullivan
- James Ralph as Bartender
- Jill Morrison as Robyn]]
- Marion Landers as Scientist
- Sarah Ziolkowski as Medical Technician #2
- Alex Pepin as National Guardsman
- Anthony Scardera as Gas Station Guy
- Duncan Minett as Larry
- Jeremiah Oh as Guy #5
- Cooper Bibaud as Zealot Man
- Adam Beauchesne as Newscaster
- Leif Havdale as Stunt Civilian #2
Trivia[]
- Blurryman is seen standing in front of a lamp post during the peak of the man riots. Annie and Martha run past him seconds before Phil catches up to them.
- 1015 appears in the form of a post-it on Annie's desk in the episode's first scene. The post-it reads: "Call Dr Romero 10:15"
Media[]
Trailer[]
| v • e The Twilight Zone (2019) episodes | |
|---|---|
| Season 1 | "The Comedian" • "Nightmare at 30,000 Feet" • "Replay" • "A Traveler" • "The Wunderkind" • "Six Degrees of Freedom" • "Not All Men" • "Point of Origin" • "The Blue Scorpion" • "Blurryman |
| Season 2 | "Meet in the Middle" • "Downtime" • "The Who of You" • "Ovation" • "Among the Untrodden" • "8" • "A Human Face" • "A Small Town" • "Try, Try" • "You Might Also Like"
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