This is one of the few Twilight Zone classics I didn't see as a small child. I only saw it in my early fifties when I got the FAN FAVORITES DVD collection from Target. Even so, at first I found it really hard to get the point. Usually in the Twilight Zone people are punished for what they do, like cruelty or racism or greed. Yet in this story the main character is punished -- this is not a spoiler -- for something he *didn't* do.
Two minutes into the story they say "the whole town" gunned down Pinto Sykes. Yet the only person who seems to get the blame is Connie Miller. Why? Why does everyone shy away from him, treating him in such a way that he's forced to rush towards his uncanny fate?
My theory is that the thing that makes Connie a marked man is not that he wanted to kill Pinto but that he's the only person in town who can't admit he's sorry about what happened. He says he was never "afraid" of Pinto Sykes, but I think there's a sense in which he is afraid. Like, he can't admit he's sad, or that he liked Pinto once, or that Pinto was his friend. Everyone else seems to have been sort of sad about the outlaw's death. They did it, but they can admit they were afraid, as well as sorry for his father and sister. Connie Miller can't show any emotion at all, and I think it's the effort of holding everything in that causes him to fall apart at the end. But that's not a spoiler because the way me meets his fate is most unexpected!
Two minutes into the story they say "the whole town" gunned down Pinto Sykes. Yet the only person who seems to get the blame is Connie Miller. Why? Why does everyone shy away from him, treating him in such a way that he's forced to rush towards his uncanny fate?
My theory is that the thing that makes Connie a marked man is not that he wanted to kill Pinto but that he's the only person in town who can't admit he's sorry about what happened. He says he was never "afraid" of Pinto Sykes, but I think there's a sense in which he is afraid. Like, he can't admit he's sad, or that he liked Pinto once, or that Pinto was his friend. Everyone else seems to have been sort of sad about the outlaw's death. They did it, but they can admit they were afraid, as well as sorry for his father and sister. Connie Miller can't show any emotion at all, and I think it's the effort of holding everything in that causes him to fall apart at the end. But that's not a spoiler because the way me meets his fate is most unexpected!
