Steven Yeun’s ‘Twilight Zone’ Episode Turns Christmas Into a Mind-Bending Paranoid Thriller

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Despite its reputation for dark twists, The Twilight Zone is no stranger to Christmas; “The Night of the Meek” from the original 1960s series was a rare example of a genuinely uplifting episode and was even remade for the 1980s revival. In his 2019 iteration of the sci-fi series, Jordan Peele also gets onboard the Christmas train in the fourth episode, “A Traveler.” But while the holiday may be central to the plot, that doesn’t mean it’s a feel-good story. The episode has two strong performances, Steven Yeun and Greg Kinnear, and there’s a strong sense of dread underneath the carols and twinkling lights.

But these trappings of the holiday aren’t just set dressing for this Twilight Zone episode. Instead, they are integral to the themes of the plot, as episode director Ana Lily Amirpour shows that, sometimes, not even the holiday spirit can make up for our darker sides.

“A Traveler” Uses Christmastime to Call Out Hypocrisy

Steven Yeun singing Christmas karaoke in "A Traveler" (Twilight Zone 2019)
Image via Prime Video

In “A Traveler,” Yeun plays a man who suddenly appears inside a locked jail cell in the small Alaskan town of Iglaak on Christmas Eve. The town’s police sergeant, Yuka (Marika Sila), is suspicious of how the stranger, who refers to himself as “A. Traveler,” got there and why. Unfortunately, Yuka is the only one who finds the situation strange, as police captain, Pendleton (Kinnear) is charmed by the stranger’s flattery. The visitor strokes Pendleton’s ego by claiming that the captain’s yearly tradition of pardoning someone is famous among “agro-travelers,” and he traveled all the way to Iglaak just to experience it. Yuka isn’t convinced, since Pendleton’s tradition isn’t as wholesome as it seems; Pendleton is dismissive of Yuka’s own Inuit culture in favor of the Christianity-centered winter traditions, and he makes Yuka bring her own brother to the station lock-up simply because he needs someone whom he can pardon.

This-Is-the-Best-Christmas-Episode-of-Any-Horror-Series

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Despite Yuka’s protests that Mr. Traveler knows the information to which he couldn’t possibly have access and is lying about why he’s in Iglaak, Pendleton and the rest of the people at his Christmas party are delighted with the visitor. But then, in a turn reminiscent of the classic OG episode, “The Monsters Are Due On Maple Street,” when the stranger begins revealing personal information about the other guests, it leads to arguing and even violence. Whether or not this information is actually true doesn’t really matter: A. Traveler is insinuating some very unchristian behavior, and yet everyone other than Yuka is more than ready to believe it, showing how hypocritical and unpleasant people can be even when they’re preaching “goodwill towards men.”

Steven Yeun and Greg Kinnear Give Stand-Out Performances in “A Traveler”

Yeun never drops his smarmy façade throughout “A Traveler,” but it’s the perfect attitude for facing off against the town of Iglaak. A. Traveler is disingenuous in his eagerness to be there, and yet Pendleton and the others fall for it anyway. Their prejudices and sense of entitlement make them blind to the traveler’s true intentions, so although he’s up to no good, it’s hard not to appreciate the way the traveler manipulates these rather unlikeable people. Even when he calls out Yuka for only believing him when he says the things she wants to hear, therefore making her just as vulnerable as the rest of Iglaak, Yeun plays the scene with the same mildly pleasant calm he has the entire episode, making it extra chilling. Kinnear, meanwhile, displays a pretty radical change in demeanour throughout the episode that’s equally exciting to watch. He’s borderline insufferable in the first half as he comes across as affable but almost willfully ignorant towards other cultures. He’s also so quick to fall for A. Traveler’s spiel about how Pendleton’s annual pardoning is so famous and admired by others. But by the end of the episode, after realizing that A. Traveler was feeding them BS for his nefarious purposes, Kinnear convincingly plays the captain as exhausted and defeated.

Episodes of the 2019 Twilight Zone series often ran a little too long, but “A Traveler” works despite that because it has a strong mystery and performances. The familiar trappings of Christmas make it an easy modern addition to slip into the holiday rotation.

Both seasons of Jordan Peele’s The Twilight Zone are available to stream in the U.S. on Prime Video.

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