The Last Rites of Jeff Myrtlebank

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The Twilight Zone original series Season three (1 / 2 / 3 / 4 / 5) Fall 1961 – Summer 1962 List of The Twilight Zone episodes
Episodes: Two The Arrival The Shelter The Passersby A Game of Pool The Mirror The Grave It's a Good Life Deaths-Head Revisited The Midnight Sun Still Valley The Jungle Once Upon a Time Five Characters in Search of an Exit A Quality of Mercy Nothing in the Dark One More Pallbearer Dead Man's Shoes The Hunt Showdown With Rance McGrew Kick the Can A Piano in the House The Last Rites of Jeff Myrtlebank To Serve Man The Fugitive Little Girl Lost Person or Persons Unknown The Little People Four O'Clock Hocus-Pocus and Frisby The Trade-Ins The Gift The Dummy Young Man's Fancy I Sing the Body Electric Cavender Is Coming The Changing of the Guard

“The Last Rites of Jeff Myrtlebank” is an episode of the American television anthology series The Twilight Zone.

[edit] Details

Episode number: 88
Season: 3
Production code: 4811
Original air date: February 23, 1962
Writer: Montgomery Pittman
Director: Montgomery Pittman

[edit] Cast

Jeff Myrtlebank: James Best
Comfort Gatewood: Sherry Jackson
Orgram Gatewood: Lance Fuller
Mr. Peters: Dub Taylor
Pa Myrtlebank: Ralph Moody
Ma Myrtlebank: Ezelle Poule
Ma Gatewood: Helen Wallace
Liz Myrtlebank: Vickie Barnes

[edit] Opening narration

"Time, the mid-twenties. Place, the Midwest - the southernmost part of the Midwest. We were just witnessing a funeral, a funeral that didn't come off exactly as planned, due to a slight fallout - from the Twilight Zone."

[edit] Synopsis

Spoiler warning: Plot and/or ending details follow.

A man wakes up at his own funeral in a small rural town in the "southernmost part of the Midwest." The hillbilly mentality of the local townspeople causes them to believe that the man must be possessed by wandering demons. He seems normal enough, yet he has changed--he has suddenly become a hard worker and a good fistfighter, and now he wants to marry his long-time girlfriend, Comfort, who is unsure but loyal. In the final scene, just as his girlfriend has finally agreed to marry Jeff, a truckload of angry townspeople shows up ready for some mob action. Myrtlebank makes an inspired speech in which he tells them they have nothing to fear from him; but if he were a demon, they had better be kind or something terrible might happen to each of them. When they leave, he pulls out a match and makes it spontaneously ignite just by looking at it.

[edit] Closing narration

"Jeff and Comfort are still alive today, and their only son is a United States Senator who's noted as an uncommonly shrewd politician. And some believe he must have gotten his education in the Twilight Zone."