Healer (The Twilight Zone)

"**Healer**"
"Healer"
The Twilight Zone episode
	Scene from "Healer"
Episode no.	Season 1; Episode 3a
Directed by
Written by	Michael Bryant
Original air date	October 11, 1985
Guest appearances
	Eric Bogosian: Jackie Thompson ; Vincent Gardenia: Harry ; Joaquin Martinez: Duende ; Robert Costanzo: Joseph Rubello ; : Deaf Boy ; Charles Aidman: Narrator
Episode chronology
← Previous; "Chameleon"	Next →; "Children's Zoo"
	List of episodes

"Healer" is the first segment of the third episode of the first season (1985–86) of the television series The Twilight Zone. In this segment, a small-time crook acquires a stone that gives him miraculous healing powers.

Plot[]

Cat burglar Jackie Thompson breaks into a museum and steals a stone from a display case. After tripping the alarm, he is shot by a security guard, but the stolen stone heals him. Jack escapes and heads back to his apartment. Hearing a commotion in the hallway, he discovers that his friendly neighbor Harry is having a heart attack. While grasping the stone, Jackie touches Harry's chest and begs for healing. Harry makes a full recovery.

Harry tells Jackie he had an out of body experience, which he feels confirms that the stone not only healed him, but brought him back from the dead. Harry tells Jackie that they could make a fortune with that kind of power. Jackie becomes "Brother John," a healer on a TV ministry. Jackie is so heartened by the good he accomplishes that he comes to care about it more than the money, while Harry remains only interested in profits. Duende, a Native American man, visits them backstage and states that his people loaned the stone to the museum. He demands they give it back. Jackie is inclined to return the stone, since they have already earned more money than they can spend in a lifetime and he fears Duende will report his theft to the police otherwise, but Harry refuses.

Joseph Rubello, a drug lord, visits Jackie at his home and begs him to heal his terminal cancer. Because Rubello once had his thugs put Jackie in the hospital for botching a delivery, Jackie demands $2 million to heal him. However, the stone fails to work. Hoping this was a one-time failure, at the TV ministry Jackie tests the power by trying to heal a deaf boy backstage, so as not to risk embarrassing himself on live television. The power fails again. Duende arrives and explains that the stone only works when used unselfishly. His old bullet wound opens and begins bleeding profusely. Harry refuses to help Jackie, preferring to inherit his half of the profits. The deaf boy follows Jackie outside. He hands the stone to the boy, who heals him. Jackie takes the stone and cures the boy's deafness. He then gives the stone to Duende. Jackie's TV career is over, but he has a brighter outlook on life now that he has learned to care about other people.

External links[]

"Healer" at IMDb

v t The Twilight Zone (1985) episodes
Season 1	"Shatterday" "A Little Peace and Quiet" "Wordplay" "Dreams for Sale" "Chameleon" "Healer" "Children's Zoo" "Kentucky Rye" "Little Boy Lost" "Wish Bank" "Nightcrawlers" "If She Dies" "Ye Gods" "Examination Day" "A Message from Charity" "Teacher's Aide" "Paladin of the Lost Hour" "Act Break" "The Burning Man" "Dealer's Choice" "Dead Woman's Shoes" "Wong's Lost and Found Emporium" "The Shadow Man" "The Uncle Devil Show" "Opening Day" "The Beacon" "One Life, Furnished in Early Poverty" "Her Pilgrim Soul" "I of Newton" "Night of the Meek" "But Can She Type?" "The Star" "Still Life" "The Little People of Killany Woods" "The Misfortune Cookie" "Monsters!" "A Small Talent for War" "A Matter of Minutes" "The Elevator" "To See the Invisible Man" "Tooth and Consequences" "Welcome to Winfield" "Quarantine" "Gramma" "Personal Demons" "Cold Reading" "The Leprechaun-Artist" "Dead Run" "Profile in Silver" "Button, Button" "Need to Know" "Red Snow" "Take My Life...Please!" "Devil's Alphabet" "The Library" "Shadow Play" "Grace Note" "A Day in Beaumont" "The Last Defender of Camelot"
Season 2	"The Once and Future King" "A Saucer of Loneliness" "What Are Friends For?" "Aqua Vita" "The Storyteller" "Nightsong" "The After Hours" "Lost and Found" "The World Next Door" "The Toys of Caliban" "The Convict's Piano" "The Road Less Traveled" "The Card" "The Junction" "Joy Ride" "Shelter Skelter" "Private Channel" "Time and Teresa Golowitz" "Voices in the Earth" "Song of the Younger World" "The Girl I Married"
Season 3	"The Curious Case of Edgar Witherspoon" "Extra Innings" "The Crossing" "The Hunters" "Dream Me a Life" "Memories" "The Hellgramite Method" "Our Selena Is Dying" "The Call" "The Trance" "Acts of Terror" "20/20 Vision" "There Was an Old Woman" "The Trunk" "Appointment on Route 17" "The Cold Equations" "Stranger in Possum Meadows" "Street of Shadows" "Something in the Walls" "A Game of Pool" "Room 2426" "The Mind of Simon Foster" "The Wall" "Cat and Mouse" "Rendezvous in a Dark Place" "Many, Many Monkeys" "Love Is Blind" "Crazy as a Soup Sandwich" "Special Service" "Father and Son Game"