The Twilight Zone: 2019: Episode 5: Wunderkind: Ending Explained

Welcome To The Heavy Spoilers Show, I’m Your Host Deffinition, this is a dimension as vast as space and as timeless as infinity. It is the middle ground between not seeing the show and and seeing it, it’s the channel where we explain it so you don’t have to. This is The Twilight Zone.

The show has just dropped it’s fifth episode in the Jordan Peele reboot and Wunderkind, is a modern commentary on politics and society as a whole.

Throughout this video, I’ll be breaking down everything that you need to know about the episode and it’s ending.

This is full spoilers ahead, so if you haven’t seen it yet then I highly recommend that you turn off now.

With that out the way, thanks for clicking the video and let’s dive into my ending explained breakdown of The Wunderkind!

Wunderkind Ending Explained

The Twilight Zone reboot has been pretty heavily criticised for it’s social commentary being so heavy handed that it’s almost hitting you over the head with it and The Wunderkind is no different.

This is arguably the episode that is most steeped in politics so rather than do the typical recap I thought I’d discuss the main themes of it.

This could be a modern reboot of the original series episode titled ‘A Good Life’ in which a young boy with God Like powers ended up ruling over a town with the anger of a malevolent being. The citizens lived in fear of their leader and smiled through gritted teeth as they were forced to bow to his every beck and call.

Raff throughout this episode finds himself in the firing line of a child with immense power and the two are tied together quite heavily.

I definitely recommend that you check that episode out as it’s one of the shows best and it’s clear why they would choose to remake it.

Themes Of The Wunderkind

The Wunderkind, on the other hand, follows Raff Hanks as he awakens on an operating table to find himself at the mercy of a mysterious voice.

The episode tells the tale of how he got there and follows his career as a presidential campaign manager that is attempting to put a young youtube sensation into the oval office.

Now from the off this is a very clear commentary on Donald Trump’s Presidential run. Trump was often criticised of being childish and his twitter rants have given his critics a lot of ammunition. Peele subverts this in The Wunderkind and instead uses Youtube as Olivers outlet.

With this platform he is able to reach millions and many people just agree with what he’s saying without any backing of plans or statistics and just because it sounds good. Sound familiar?

This is basically what would happen if Justin Bieber became president and it’s easy to see how charisma goes along way for popularity.

More Everything

When Oliver starts stating things like: More Jobs, more air to breathe, he quickly becomes popular and Hanks helps to implement his campaign throughout the country.

Free Video Games for all seems to his biggest promise and this seems to be a direct retort to the political claims that games cause things like mass shootings and more. Clearly, the creative team behind this are trying to show that any aspect can be weaponised in a political campaign to fit agendas and it showcases how people get swept up in statements instead of looking at the practicality behind them.

Oliver stumbles through debates, knows little of foreign policy and yet people still love him.

So why is this?

Well perhaps it’s because there is no filter in place, as much as you can disagree with Trump, even his staunchest critics must realise that he won because he’s not a standard politician and doesn’t feel like a puppet which Oliver too begins to embody with his outbursts and groundedness.

Make America Hate Again

The episode suggests that Trump came a long at a time when people were so disillusioned with politics that anyone could’ve been plonked in front of the camera and would’ve won, people are so apathetic to the entire thing that they will just vote for whoever promises the most.

Therefore, what this episode is really suggesting is that the people need to stop being so apathetic towards politics in order to take back the country and stop us from all ending up in similar positions to the one Raff finds himself in.

Oliver, of course, gets elected and put in the Oval Office but it’s clear that he’s out of his depth and has been spoiled by the gain in power. He begins by bringing free video games to everyone and similar to Trump he tries to bypass Congress in order to fulfill his campaign promises.

There are several outbursts which are obviously comments on Trump’s personality and gradually the country falls apart.

Oliver enforces a ‘no old doctors’ policy and this, of course, leads to the position that Raff finds himself in at the end.

Wunderkind Ending Explained

After being accused of Treason, Oliver turns on him and he is shot. Raff survives it but unfortunately, he finds himself being operated on by a child who doesn’t want to do anything more than get back to playing video games and therefore gets a fate of his own doing.

Now whilst the episode may be pretty heavy-handed in it’s Trump metaphors, there is also the possibility that this could indeed be aimed at liberals who perhaps don’t have the wisdom that comes with age to properly see politics for all that they are.

On the flip side the episode could be viewed as what may happen should the decisions be handed over to those perhaps too young to see the outcome and I do appreciate that there is this duality to the episode even if I feel that it fails to really live up to it’s premise.

My Review

Overall, this is another mixed bag for the series with it getting too bogged down in it’s own ideologies to deliver an enjoyable narrative for me. If more time was spent on character development instead of setting up subtext I think this could be in a similar vein to Black Mirror but it falls short so many times.

What was so good about the original series is that it’s episodes were enjoyable whether you knew the subtext behind them or not.

Whereas Peele’s version seems like you have to be aware of several aspects of modern society in order to even scratch the surface and this makes them slightly inaccessible.

Overall as we head into the final episode of the show I’m not too excited but I guess we’ll find out if it lives up to the hype.