Twilight Zone episode review — 3.19 — The Hunt
Episode 3.19 “The Hunt”
Original air date: January 26, 1962
Writer: Earl Hamner, Jr.
Director: Harold Schuster
Rating: 9/10
“The Hunt” is an incredibly pleasant episode. It feels very nostalgic and old fashioned largely because it just takes place in the country, and has a charming, old-fashioned main character. It’s also a very simple story, essentially a fable, but one that’s told pretty well.
Hyder Simpson (Arthur Hunnicutt, The Big Sky) is an elderly, simple man who loves his dog, Rip, and his wife, Rachel (Jeanette Nolan). Rachel isn’t as big on Rip as he is, but he insists the dog is family, as he had saved his life before. He plans to go raccoon hunting with Rip, and Rachel tries to get him to stay, having a bad feeling, but he goes anyways.
Rip chases a raccoon into the water, and Hyder follows after him. The raccoon emerges.
The next day, Hyder and Rip wake up alongside the water. They hurry home, considering they’ve apparently been out late and likely have Rachel worrying. They pass a couple of gravediggers who make small talk to each other and reveal that they’re making a grave for a dog. Hyder talks to them, but they don’t respond, though he thinks that’s because they’re sad that they lost their dog.
Hyder and Rip arrive home and find Rachel dressed in black and talking to a preacher. They can’t see or hear him. They go out for a walk and meet a man who greets them and plans to take Hyder to the afterlife. He explains that Rip can’t go with Hyder, which upsets the old man, despite the mention that Rip would get to go to a special afterlife for dogs. Hyder can’t imagine enjoying an afterlife without dogs, and assumes that the dogs would also be miserable in their afterlife without people around them. They take off and continue on down the road.
They meet another man who introduces himself as an angel, and says he’s about to take both of them to Heaven. When Hyder mentions that the other man had said Rip wouldn’t be able to go, the angel tells him that that had been the gate to Hell, and the reason Rip wasn’t allowed entrance was that he’d smell the brimstone and warn Hyder. As the angel takes them further down the road, he tells them that there’s raccoon hunting and square dancing in Heaven, and that his wife will have no trouble getting past the gatekeeper of Hell.
I like this episode a lot. It’s very simple, but it’s charming. It’s not necessarily the most powerful drama in the series, but I appreciate its simple, wholesome approach to the fable.
