Shelter Skelter
"Shelter Skelter" is the second segment of the thirty-third episode and the ninth episode of the second season (1986–87) of the television series The Twilight Zone.
| "Shelter Skelter" | |
|---|---|
| The New Twilight Zone episode | |
| Episode no. | Season 2 Episode 33b |
| Directed by | Martha Coolidge |
| Written by | Ron Cobb Robin Love |
| Original air date | May 21, 1987 |
| Guest appearance(s) | |
Joe Mantegna: Harry Dobbs | |
Plot
Harry Dobbs is a family man obsessed with surviving a nuclear war, and he has even built himself a fallout shelter in his basement. One afternoon, his wife Sally makes plans to visit her sister in Kansas City and to take their two kids with her. Harry and their son Jason are downstairs in the shelter teaching him to shoot a gun when Sally decides to leave. Harry and Sally argue about her leaving and him teaching a seven-year-old to shoot. He becomes frantic when he thinks Sally might have revealed the shelter's existence to her sister, as he wants it to remain secret.
Nick, who runs Harry's gun and ammo store, comes by that evening and talks about the escalating tension in the Middle East. He is afraid that it could lead to nuclear war. They learn from the news that the President has left the White House to stay in an undisclosed location. Harry then talks about how he wishes the bomb would come so the world could be rid of pimps, cowards, rock stars, hair-dressers and bureaucrats (i.e. the scum of the world according to Harry). He talks about how he and his son would start over in a "purified" world (somehow leaving out his wife and daughter). While drunk, Harry reveals the existence of his shelter to Nick and shows him the whole operation while mentioning that nobody knows about it. Harry also shows Nick the fallout shelter's communications which includes a hydraulic system that can raise and lower an antenna through tons of rubble, so he could tentatively communicate with other survivors after a nuclear attack.
Harry then turns on his communication system and raises its antenna while turning on the TV. On the news, Harry and Nick learn that World War III could be imminent. Harry frantically tries to get Sally to come home but she refuses saying that Harry "cries wolf" far too often. Without warning, a massive explosion occurs and Harry runs back to the shelter with Nick and shuts the door. The blast, however, destroys the raised antenna cutting off all information about what is happening outside. Believing that a nuclear weapon has hit the local air force base and that World War III has begun, Harry and Nick believe they are the only ones left alive.
Six weeks later, Nick hears something moving above and Harry surmises it to be the walking dead or scavengers. Nick tries to get whatever is moving above to come down into the shelter and Harry goes ballistic. After ten months, the radiation has not gone down at all and Nick is going stir crazy. Harry decides to kill him but Nick leaves the shelter. After a while, Nick returns to tell Harry of what it is like outside. Everything is gone, there is no more daylight and it is freezing outside. Harry refuses to let Nick back in as he is afraid he'll contaminate him. Sometime after Nick dies, Harry's paranoia gets worse, and he prepares for battle in the event of outsiders attacking.
Things are quite different from what Nick and Harry believed as the explosion was not a nuclear attack, but the result of a Broken Arrow incident in which a bomb accidentally detonated at the local Air Force base destroying the entire town. The accident actually shocked the world from the brink of war. The blast crater has been contained under a radiation proof dome memorial - The Peace Dome - which has sealed the debris and radiation inside of it and proved to the world the folly of war. The memorial was built on top of the Dobbs' house. The episode ends when Sally and the kids place flower on the memorial. Jason asks Sally if that's where his daddy is buried and she says yes and smiles, knowing he is basically buried alive.