Opening Day (The Twilight Zone)

"**Opening Day**"
"Opening Day"
The Twilight Zone episode
	scene from Opening Day
Episode no.	Season 1; Episode 10c
Directed by	John Milius
Written by	Gerrit Graham ;
Original air date	November 29, 1985
Guest appearances
	: Guest ; Frank McRae: Sheriff ; : Girl at Party ; : Ned ; : Joe, Jr. ; Martin Kove: Joe Farrell; Jeffrey Jones: Carl Wilkerson (as Jeff Jones) ; Molly Morgan: Kerry ; : Sally
Episode chronology
← Previous; "The Uncle Devil Show"	Next →; "The Beacon"
	List of episodes

"Opening Day" is the third and final segment of the tenth episode from the first season (1985–86) of the television series The Twilight Zone. In this segment, a man plots to kill his lover's husband so he can marry her, but steps into an altered reality where his role seems to be swapped with that of his victim.

Plot[]

During a party, a wealthy socialite named Sally Wilkerson coaxes her lover Joe Farrell to murder her husband Carl during a duck hunt planned for the next morning. Joe has reservations because he has never killed anyone before and Carl is his friend, but Sally says this is the only way they be together.

During the hunt, Carl tells Joe how much he appreciates his friendship. When Carl turns to shoot at some ducks, Joe slams his rifle butt into Carl's head, knocking him into the lake. Joe repeatedly hits Carl until he is dead. The police arrive. Joe tells them that Carl was knocked into the water by his rifle's recoil, and that he unsuccessfully tried to help him out by extending his rifle to him as a handhold.

When he returns to Sally and Carl's house, two kids enter and call Joe "Daddy." Sally, too, treats him as her husband. At first, Joe is somewhat mystified but delighted in this change to reality. However, after he sees Carl at a party, still alive, Joe begins to realize he is reliving the events leading up to the duck shoot but with his place and Carl's place swapped. He accuses Sally of having an affair with Carl, recounting the details of their own love affair from the original reality, under the assumption that the same things would have happened between her and Carl in this reality. Sally appears shocked and adamantly denies the affair, but he chalks this up to her being a good actress.

Expecting Carl to try to kill him during the duck hunt, Joe attempts to preemptively knock him into the lake, but loses his balance and falls in. Carl extends his rifle as a handhold, but still thinking Carl wants to kill him, Joe doesn't take it and drowns. The altered reality then merges back to the original reality: Carl is again Sally's husband, and Sally and Joe plotted his murder, but it ended with Joe's death instead. Carl tells Sally what happened, and she comforts Carl, concealing her disappointment at his survival.

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"

Opening Day (The Twilight Zone)

Plot[]

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