The Twilight Zone
A Game of Pool
Season: 3
Episode: 5
Air date: 1961-10-13
Guest stars: Jonathan Winters,Jack Klugman
Championship pool player Fats Brown returns from the grave for one last game.
I'll be the first to admit: I'm not a self-confident guy. There's even a pride in that acknowledgement because it's part of who I am as a person, how my childhood shaped my identity. People say you can change beyond what you grew up as. People say a lot of things. They don't really do as much often.
But that's what my mindset is like going into "A Game of Pool". Three guesses whose side I was on. Because of my lack of talents, I value the act of "working hard" a lot because there's value in attaining something that's within the realm of possibility with your own sweat and blood. The American dream. A self-made man. Jesse Cardiff (played by Jack Klugman, once again in a role as someone who has dreams of success) is obsessed with being the best, and I've read all these reviews and praises of this episode how the episode is great and magnificent even though it paints Jesse as in the wrong, that he's rightfully punished for his obsession. That's kinda a disingenuous message, considering all the successful men living in our time sipping champaign and living the easy life in huge billion dollar mansions, not to mention discrediting the legends who worked their ass off to get to where they are.
And I think, more than anything that bothers me, it's that it's just not a very fair conclusion or even a properly developed one for Jesse, the man who's merely trying to prove himself the best after living a life of mockery being belittled by the world, something I could relate to a lot. His act of diligence didn't come at the cost of killing or harming anyone, merely his own squandered time trying to prove the world wrong, that he's worth something in his existence, and the heavens saw to it to punish him for it. That's a rather unsatisfying ending, if you ask me, not to mention being very un-American.
I've pursued plenty of aspirations for my own satisfaction, things no one else had any knowledge of or were there to approve me of. So what? It's my life, and I didn't hurt anyone chasing my dreams. Who are you to judge me for it? Or Jesse? I get the message of the episode, that one shouldn't obsess over success, that there's more to life than fame and fortune, but the execution just feels so insulting due to a lack of development of Jesse's life outside of pool, to show us what he's missing, or whether he has any loved ones to miss at all to begin with.
The episode is competently acted out though by Klugman and Jonathan Winters in the (literally) heated game of pool as the two men continuously exchanged taunts and quips at each other in a game that's more psychological than physical. I particularly enjoyed Klugman's performance, channeling the same depressed desperation energy that we saw some of in "A Passage for Trumpet". I also had to look up the terms of pool as I'm not familiar with the terms, but thankfully, I have ChatGPT to assist me in simple English, laying out the rules in an easily understood manner.
