The Masks

"The Masks"
The Twilight Zone episode
Episode no. Season 5
Episode 25
Directed by Ida Lupino
Written by Rod Serling
Featured music Stock from A Thing About Machines
Production code 2601
Original air date March 20, 1964
Guest appearance(s)
Episode chronology

"The Masks" is episode 145 of the American television series The Twilight Zone. It originally aired on March 20, 1964 on CBS.

Opening narration

Mr. Jason Foster, a tired ancient who on this particular Mardi Gras evening will leave the Earth. But before departing, he has some things to do, some services to perform, some debts to pay—and some justice to mete out. This is New Orleans, Mardi Gras time. It is also the Twilight Zone.

Plot

A very wealthy old man named Jason Foster, who is dying, has just been visited by Dr. Sam Thorne on the night of Mardi Gras. Cranky and candid, Jason is not cheered by a visit from his daughter Emily Harper and her family—husband Wilfred Harper, son Wilfred Harper Jr., and daughter Paula. All four have various, terrible traits.

Moreover, it is clear that they are only there in order to claim Jason's fortune once he dies. Jason is not shy about his opinions of his family and openly insults each of them. In an act of apology, he says he has a special Mardi Gras party planned for the group that night.

After dinner, the family gathers in Jason's study where he offers them special one-of-a-kind masks. These masks, which he said are "crafted by an old Cajun", are very ugly creations. Jason informs his daughter, son-in-law and grandchildren that a Mardi Gras custom is to wear masks that are the exact opposite of a person's true personality. Thereupon, he says sarcastically that these masks are just that. Jason offers the mask of a sniveling coward to Emily, a miserable miser to Wilfred, a twisted buffoon to Wilfred Jr., and a self-obsessed narcissist to Paula. He himself dons a skull claiming that the opposite of life is death. The family is reluctant to wear the ugly masks—until Jason quotes his demands as a proviso from his will, unless all four of them don the masks and leave them on until midnight, all they will receive from his vast estate is train fare home to Boston. The foursome comply in spite of their disgust.

As the hours tick by, all four beg to be allowed to take off the masks...claiming that they are worse than uncomfortable, they are unbearable. Yet their pleas are wasted on Jason who delivers his final tirade to his family as he dies. He explains that even "without [their] masks, [they are] caricatures!" He then dies. The foursome rejoices in the fact that they are now rich, until they remove their disguises and find to their horror that their faces have conformed to the hideous shapes of the masks. When Jason's mask is removed, it appears as if nothing has changed, but his face is actually the expression of death itself—calm, peaceful, and serene. As Dr. Sam Thorne observes "This must be death. No horror, no fear...nothing but peace." As the episode ends, the butler Jeffrey (Bill Walker) looks upon the relatives' ugly faces.

Closing narration

Mardi Gras incident, the dramatis personae being four people who came to celebrate and in a sense let themselves go. This they did with a vengeance. They now wear the faces of all that was inside them—and they'll wear them for the rest of their lives, said lives now to be spent in the shadow. Tonight's tale of men, the macabre and masks, on the Twilight Zone.

Cast

Episode notes

"The Masks" was directed by Ida Lupino, who had starred in the first-season episode "The Sixteen-Millimeter Shrine". She was the only person in the history of the original Twilight Zone to have acted in one episode and directed another. She was also the only woman to direct a Twilight Zone episode.

References

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