The message the screenwriters were trying to get across is a good one, but I think it got diluted by the opening scene. When the panicking John Woodrell (Hill Harper) ran up to Matt McGreevy's (Vincent Ventresca) car, what was McGreevy supposed to think? All he could relate to was a wild man attempting to get into his car. It was only as he drove away that he saw the thugs attack Woodrell and realized that he made a mistake. His initial response may have been partially motivated by the fact that Woodrell was black, but his guilt over leaving the scene afterwards pretty effectively demonstrated that he wasn't racist. The final scene closed the loop on what could have been done the first time around, thereby demonstrating that mistakes can be corrected in The Twilight Zone. What was distracting early in the story was when Matt came home and his wife (Barbara Tyson) saw that he was clearly upset, AND there was no bleeding on his forehead. When Matt went into the bathroom, a cut appeared on the right side of his forehead, but when he came out, his wife helped clean up the cut on the left side of his forehead! Apparently, it didn't occur to ask him how he got cut while in the bathroom. I guess you could chalk that up to the Twilight Zone too, since physical laws didn't apply to this episode at all!
Review of Shades of Guilt
