Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating * * * *

Cast: Jimmi Simpson, Gillian Jacobs, Kristin Lehman, Mike Dupod, Jordan Peele, Emily Chang, Sara Amini, Lossen Chambers, Emerson Skye Coutts, Jamall Johnson, Simon Chinn, Nagin Rezaiean, Matthew Mandzij, Garth Hodsogson, Nicole Major.

Having someone to care for and having someone always on your mind are not exclusive bed fellows when it comes to dating, to love, to togetherness, and yet we somehow tie ourselves up in knots as we try to reconcile the two emotions and meld them into one large, often gut wrenching, passion in which we imagine we know what they are thinking at all times.

Try to imagine the intimacy that you would be privy too if you could just think that person’s name and be inside their head, talk to them as if they were in the room with you, get to know someone in a way that gets to the very heart of a relationship without ever once meeting them or studying their face. Such is the daunting moment of discovery for Phil Hayes as he realises he is in telepathic communication with Annie Mitchell, a woman to whom he has never met, but somehow is in his head, whispering to him, talking to him, making him fall in love, and all because of the sound of her voice.

Such desires might not be the stuff of legends as far as The Twilight Zone goes, but as ever, whether it was under the watchful gaze of original host Rod Sterling, or now its freshly delivered guise with the exceptional Jordan Peele at the helm, such star crossed love is bound to be explored, and after all who doesn’t expect true love to run smoothly?

Whilst essentially the focus of the story is poised on the superb Jimmi Simpson’s character of Phil Hayes, the point of view essentially taken from his own reactions, from initial concern and dismay that he is hearing voices, to the absolute pleasure of finally getting on a train to meet the woman in his head in the middle, the compromise his therapist had always urged to make, it is also to Gillian Jacobs as the disembodied voice of Annie which gives the tale its rounded and controlled descent into the darkness, the turn of events in which The Twilight Zone has long had special reserve in the eyes of its fans.

Meet In The Middle kicks off the second series of Jordan Peele’s tenure of The Twilight Zone with its usual degree of carnage, one to which the mind will find devastatingly insightful, one that comes at a cost of letting someone into your head. 

Ian D. Hall