This game of pool is a very good analogy for any ambitions of becoming the best at anything. The bulk of this episode is such a game, but the characters of Jesse Cardiff and Fats Brown keep it widely interesting. The afterlife aspect featured here from which Fats Brown is called is often criticized. However, I think it's just a spooky fun way to present a story that could elsewhere have been about calling on a retired champion to play the current number one. The afterlife that this episode is really concerned with is one of fame continuing in the memory of the living. Death, it would appear, has made Brown philosophical in contrast to the single-minded Cardiff. What sort of mind game is Brown playing? When Jonathan Winters materializes in the pool room it's classic Zone stuff. Well played by four-time TZ actor Jack Klugman too.
I will say nothing of the ending except to say there's an interesting feature on DVD where Jonathan Winters reads the alternative ending that the writer, George Clayton Johnson, wanted.
I will say nothing of the ending except to say there's an interesting feature on DVD where Jonathan Winters reads the alternative ending that the writer, George Clayton Johnson, wanted.