Steven Yeun dazzles (and sings!) in The Twilight Zone
Steven Yeun’s debut in Jordan Peele’s reboot of The Twilight Zone was appropriately chilling, creepy and fun. And there was singing!
Steven Yeun entered The Twilight Zone in this week’s all-new episode “A Traveler”. Though his character is something of a mystery, Yeun delivers a chilling yet entertaining performance as a man who arrives on Christmas Eve with a sleigh full of secrets.
“A Traveler” is a delightful romp into the unknown as a mysterious traveler shows up in a small Alaskan town on Christmas Eve. Yeun plays Los Angeles YouTuber A Traveler. That’s right, he changed his name to A Traveler because that’s what gets views, and he’s in Iglaak, Alaska, on Christmas Eve to receive one of Captain Lane Pendleton’s famous pardons. Pendleton (Greg Kinnear) loves to hand out a pardon every year, much to the chagrin of Sergeant Yuka Mongoyak (Marika Sila), who thinks her boss’s showboating for the small town is in poor taste.
When Yuka goes to fetch her brother from the jail cells, she finds a man locked in one of the cells. The problem is that no one put him there and no one knows who he is. But the smooth talking mystery man plays Pendleton like a fiddle, revealing that his name is A Traveler and he’s a travel enthusiast who came to Iglaak for one of the famous pardons. Everyone knows about his famous pardons, he says. Pendleton invites Mr. Traveler to the party, but instead of party favors he comes bearing secrets that have the power to unravel the town.
Oh, and he’s much more than a traveler. But I’ll leave that one a secret so you can see it for yourself.
Yeun’s character draws a great deal of inspiration from many original episodes of The Twilight Zone. Mysterious visitors, as fans of the classic series know, aren’t always well-received. Yuka’s hesitation, it turns out, is well founded. The problem is that there’s nothing that can stop Pendleton from eating up what the visitor is selling.
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Yeun shines in this role because he’s so charming, and this character wields charm like a weapon in this episode. For The Walking Dead fans who miss seeing Glenn on the show, seeing him in this episode is a real treat because he has a spark in his eye that wouldn’t fit in the middle of the apocalypse. Like a cat who ate the canary, A Traveler delights in unleashing chaos in Iglaak and in doing so he sets something bigger into motion.
The Twilight Zone is available exclusively on CBS All-Access, with new episodes every Thursday.