The Twilight Zone “Ovation”

Nice cast for this one.  Jurnee Smolett as an aspiring singer.  Tawny Newsome, who I know more from her voice on Star Trek: Lower Decks, as her sister.  Paul F. Tompkins as a talk show host.  Thomas Lennon as a producer.

See?  Nice cast.

Basic Premise:  A street performer gets more fame than she wanted.

Writers:  Story by David Weil, teleplay by Emily C. Chang and Sara Amini

Commentary:  Oh boy…

Jasmine (Smollett) is a street performer who, through sheer chance, meets HUGE STAR Fiji while playing on the street.  Fiji asks what Jasmine wants, Jasmine says she wants what Fiji has after a little thought.  Fiji tosses her a medallion, and just as the crowd shows up, Fiji kills herself by jumping into traffic.  Jasmine, shocked, goes home to overhear her responsible sister Zara (Newsome), a woman who gave up her own dreams of a music career to become a heart surgeon, complain that Jasmine needs to get a real job.

However, when Jasmine goes to play a tribute song by the spot where Fiji dies, she gets applauded by the crowd, an offer from a producer to perform on a singing competition show, Ovation.  Jasmine wins.  People love her.  She gets so much applause people don’t even listen to her talk on talk shows.  She doesn’t even need to play a song.  Zara is trying to be supportive, but Jasmine suspects the medallion.  So, when she loses it, she goes off to hide in a cabin, only coming back when some other pop star has taken her place.

I mean, literally, no one remembers her, even the man who discovered her.  Jasmine sees no other option than to murder the new pop star.

Why?  The fame is eerie.  She even goes to see Zara just before Zara goes to perform surgery, and not only does the surgical team in the next room start applauding her, so does the anesthetized guy with his chest open on the operating table.  Anyway, she stabs the new singer.

The Twist:  The new singer is Zara, and Jasmine didn’t recognize her until it was too late.  Zara found the medallion, and now the crowds are applauding her dying.

What about Jordan?  Actually, this may be my favorite ending monologue because Peele doesn’t give one.  Instead, he’s off to the side while Zara’s dying, and he, sheepishly and self-aware, starts applauding too.