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As he gets more and more tired, he begins to hallucinate, seeing the car he was driving burst into flames with people inside. Eventually he asks God to make things right.
The ending is awful and it is an insult to the usual perception of God. It just didn't work for me. Was this review helpful? Sign in to vote. Timothy exists in the first place. Father Mark has been working day and night for the last 20 years without taking a day off to keep the church afloat.
Almost exhausted from trying to get, and getting, 2 million dollars in contributions to build a new children hospital wing to the church you would think that he would finally take some well needed and deserved time off to relax. Still going full tilt at his job managing St. Timothy Church Father Mark soon starts to hallucinate seeing this red 's model station-wagon with a young girl, Shelagh Harcourt, behind the wheel! Seeing the station-wagon make a turn and then,out of camera rage, fall down an embankment it bursts into flames with the girl still in it! As it turns out it's only Father Mark who sees all this and no one else!
After yet another incident of the station-wagon bursting into flames with only him seeing it Father Mark goes to his room at the church and checks out a number of old photos of himself, before he became a Catholic Priest, and this girl Kelly besides the station-wagon that he's been seeing.
It's there and then that Father Mark realizes what he did back then and what he has to do now to correct a terrible mistake he made some 20 years ago. It was that mistake that made Father Mark become a priest and work himself almost to death to correct it! In him knowing that this time around he'll do the right thing and end up saving both his soul and Kelly's life. The only problem is that the ending doesn't really fit "The Twilight Zone," so much as an episode of "One Step Beyond.
In this episode, tireless local priest Ted Shackleford is in the final stages of raising enough money to build a children's hospital, but becomes distracted by visions of a fiery car crash from his past. Ralph Phillips' script sets up a neat mystery as to why the priest is having these visions, and invests the character with the depth to make us want to know more -- particularly by making it clear that the priest knows the identity of the shadowy figure in the car, and that his non-stop charitable work is an outgrowth from some hidden guilt. Shackleford's low-key performance is impressive as well, giving us the portrait of a good man who doesn't believe he's as good as he really is.
Gerard Parkes also offers some good support as the kindly monsignor who tries to get Shackleford to slow down. As I noted earlier, the episode is clearly effective on its own terms, but it's not quite a "Twilight Zone. That character flaw, however, is hardly a mortal sin nor is it particularly unique , and one gets the feeling that his extensive good works since that time would have more than atoned for that single moment of weakness.
Instead, the end of the episode seems to play as though he's accepting death as a form of punishment for this flaw -- something that throws the concept of "The Twilight Zone" somewhat out of balance. That night, staring at a fire — a real one, in a fireplace — Cassidy looks through some pictures. He and the woman are in the same car, surrounded by kids.
It is never made clear what their relationship is.
Ted Shackelford: Father Mark Cassidy Gerard Parkes: Monsignor Perrault Bunty Webb: Maggie Shelagh Harcourt: Kelly. Episode chronology. The Twilight Zone (–) Mark Cassidy, a hard-working priest in need of a vacation, sees visions of a car that bursts into flame with a child inside. I enjoyed watching episode "The Crossing".
At first, I though it was his family, but the kids are never mentioned. Maybe they were camp counselors. They are wearing camp tee-shirts and Cassidy has a whistle among his keepsakes; there is a lanyard, but that is inconclusive as there is no clipboard.
Once again, he hears the crash. It is all there on that hang-dog face that cannot seem to do enough to balm the sores of an accident resulting in a death he possibly could have prevented. Cassidy spills his guts in the confessional. Notify me of follow-up comments by email. Season 3 Episode 3. What was their relationship?
Not only that, it will be named after Father Mark. He takes this news very somberly. Later the Monsignor tells him to take some time off, but he is worried about the clothing drive, the pageant, the operating costs. He is clearly driven, but it is the dullest drive I have ever seen. Worse than Alligator Alley. Cassidy spills his guts in the confessional. He describes the actual accident from his youth when he looked exactly as he does now.
He was able to hear the girl call him for help as she burned alive.
He asks why he was thrown from the car and not her. He asks if all his works have not atoned for his cowardice at not fighting the flames to rescue her. He begs forgiveness at leaving her to die while he lawyered up with the family fixers, and wearing a fake neck-brace to her funeral in a laughably transparent ploy for sympathy. No, wait, that was Ted Kennedy. The confessional is a great made-for-TV location for exposition.
Cassidy spends a couple of minutes talking to the screen partition — there is no one on the other side. I guess you could argue that he was talking to God, but that could be done anywhere. He later sees the car outside again.
This time, he gets into the car beside the woman and they drive around the bend. The screen goes black and we hear the same crash again.
If this episode were not so deadly dull and dreary, I would have thought they were going for a joke. Actually, it is a pretty good joke, though unintentional. However, the real joke is on the viewer as the episode continues at the funeral of Father Cassidy.
As his casket passes by, the woman who had appeared burning in the car places a rose on it. She watches it be loaded into the hearse, then walks away. The script was nonsensical on a Hitchhikerian level. As a full stand-alone 30 minute episode, there was no excuse for this. Was the original crash his fault? Who was the woman?