The Twilight Zone recap: Wunderkind ending explained

John Cho stars as a disgraced campaign manager striving for greatness in the shape of a surprising Presidential candidate on The Twilight Zone.

“Wunderkind” is perhaps the weakest entry into The Twilight Zone reboot. It’s unfortunate as it has an excellent cast with John Cho and Jacob Tremblay playing off one another.

The story revolves around Raff Hanks (Cho), an accomplished campaign manager whose legacy is tarnished when he misinterprets polling data and results in getting his Presidential-elect out of office after one, forgettable, term.

His chance to reclaim his glory comes in the form of adorable YouTube phenomenon, Oliver Foley (Tremblay). Foley is everything you could want in a President and more!

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He makes short and simple videos claiming he’ll give the people free video games, less Star Wars movies and no more war. The general public is hooked. After all, he’s not like those “other politicians” with real experience in the political field. He’s not corrupt.

Obviously, this entire episode is equitable to our current political landscape. It’s an overarching theme of the series and often, an enjoyable one. But this episode fails to connote much commentary and isn’t sharp enough to be considered satire.

Mostly, it falls flat while hitting us over the head with a blunt hammer about the obvious parallels between having a literal child in office compared to the real-life child in office. We know.

Perhaps if the focus had been different the message would have an impact. As it stands, this episode only feels like a poor retread of better episodes before it and of territory that has been well-established in the Black Mirror realm with far more nuance.

What I found most disappointing was the parallel storyline that promised a sinister discovery. Throughout Oliver’s journey to office and the gradual reveal of his true spoiled brat nature, we see flashes of Raff sequestered on an operating table in a room straight out of any high-concept sci-fi film.

I was hoping for some fascinating reveal that would remind us of the type of show we were watching. Instead, Raff winds up there as a punishment for committing treason (having doubts about Foley’s candidacy) and the big “reveal” is simply that his doctor is a child – a callback to Oliver’s earlier declaration no doctor’s should be old.

Overall, “Wunderkind” delivered excellent performances from Cho and Tremblay, though that’s to be expected, but failed to demonstrate anything else worthwhile.

A new episode of The Twilight Zone is set to debut on CBS All Access next Thursday, May 2nd.