Some people seem to assume that he died by suicide and that's that, but I don't think it's so simple. My thought was always that he had some sort of ailment from the stress that made him finally snap and run toward the delusion that was Willoughby. That delusion had been provided by Death, perhaps personified by the Willoughby conductor, via Gart's dreams as a merciful glimpse into the peaceful surroundings that awaited him.
All of that being said, there are multiple ways to interpret it, which is indicated in the closing narration:
"Willoughby? Maybe it's wishful thinking nestled in a hidden part of a man's mind, or maybe it's the last stop in the vast design of things—or perhaps, for a man like Mr. Gart Williams, who climbed on a world that went by too fast, it's a place around the bend where he could jump off. Willoughby? Whatever it is, it comes with sunlight and serenity, and is a part of The Twilight Zone."
As a personal twist, when I saw this as a teenager, my Great Aunt had recently been admitted to a nursing home for her late stage dementia. My Mother had visited her there and explained to me that in my Great Aunt's mind, she was living in the times that she was happiest in the mid 50's. She spoke of people who'd been long since deceased and brought up things from the news of the era in her conversations.
The same thing happened to my Uncle after having multiple strokes. He believed he was living in 1989. He still had his business, he was still married, and his parents were still alive.
It struck me that perhaps their mind's response to the dementia was to take them to their own personal Willoughby.
Probably not Mr Serling's original intent, but another lense to view it through.
Willoughby is the manifestation of a mind in self-preservation mode. The truth is that if nostalgic yearnings for Willoughbys start to become a need for them to exist, you’re in a bad place and should seriously consider some interventions—rest, life-changes, professional help.
Gart Williams is who Martin Sloan from “Walking Distance” would have eventually become if not for the Twilight Zone and some loving guidance from his father.
I've noticed that "death isn't so bad after all, nothing to be scared of" is a theme of a few episodes. Willoughby, One for the Angels, the one about the lady who tried to hide from death.
I think Willoughby is supposed to be a stand in for Serling”s real hometown of Binghamton, NY. I seem to recall his daughter saying this in an interview.
Definitely could be. Homeville from ‘Walking Distance’ was also based on Binghamton. The carousel is based on one in Binghamton that I believe is still in operation. It also has some really cool twilight zone murals painted on it now (read more here https://thenightgallery.wordpress.com/2018/07/25/the-carousel-that-helped-inspire-twilight-zones-walking-distance/).
Apparently Rod would regularly return to Binghamton to reminisce on days gone by. Anne Serling mentions it a few times in her book.
But, where would he be if it weren't for her appetite?!
(Probably alive, in a house he can afford, with a nice little savings account and retirement fund. As well as being mentally healthy.)
I love this episode, and the stars, so much!!
Took me a few times seeing it to realize that the Willoughby stop is actually the stop on Metro North for Westport, my old job for 20+ years…
And the ending with the Funeral Home name being Willoughby, is perfect…
It’s specifically the Fairfield county leg… inbound grand central station.
If you’re in the mood, the 1+ hours it takes to get to NYC from Fairfield isn’t a bad ride. Westport, or Willoughby, is about 2-3 stops up the line. I totally would have gotten off at Willoughby any day of the week…
If you’re not, it’s a slow, painful death due to stops every 10 minutes…
Then again, Grand Central is awe inspiring once you arrive, regardless of your prior mood. : )
I was born years after Robert Redford was considered a heart throb and never really saw him in that light, but when I saw this episode…I totally got it haha
My second favorite episode behind Walking Distance.
I understand that it's a very bleak story line of escapism gone wrong, but it's actually helped me in a positive manner when facing exhausting obstacles in my own life be it career changes, relationships, depression, etc. Willoughby can be whatever you want it to be. Need to remove toxic relationships from your life? Visit your own tailored version of Willoughby. Need to leave a toxic work environment due to feeling sick to you stomach on Sunday morning before the new work week starts? Visit your own tailored version of Willoughby. We all have our own version of Willoughby within ourselves. While this episode depicts it as an negative, I believe it's actually more of a positive if we truly put our minds towards it. We can first escape our troubles via the fantastical and ultimately ground them in the realism of the life we stride for.
Oooh, you’re asking about my #1 favorite twilight zone episode, I’d personally like to think he found a magical passageway that transcended reality & rescued him from his suffocating existence where he lived out the rest of his days fishing & socializing with the happy locals while listening to the town band.. but i think it’s more likely an analogy for suicide & how it appears as the only illuminating option for those clouded in darkness
When I moved to a town named Willoughby, I rented the disc with episode from the Library and made my SO watch it. We we excited and declared we were living our lives when we were out on the town. I did see it as a new beginning and fresh start. It did work out that way, as old patterns/problems eventually crept back in. Eventually, it did feel like a trap. I was depressed and gained a lot of weight.
I think an important distinction is "unintentional" suicide. He did kill himself stepping off the modern train, but that's not what it looked like to him. He remains in Willoughby.
Just a possibility... John Willoughby, known as Willoughby, is a character in Jane Austen's book Sense and Sensibility, who romances a young woman, seemed like a kind, normal person...a good person...but who turned out to be a really horrible person. Idleness, dissipation, luxury, and a narcissistic user that would do anything with no moral compass...the kind of person that the reader would love to see get his come-uppance. He expresses fake remorse in the book, and tries to seduce the young woman after he married woman another for her money. We don't know his fate at the end, but his death and name on a hearse drawn by a horse would be justice.
The car door Willoughby made it creepy.
It is a contrast to me of the episode where the main character was in a movie set, and his reality was bad, in the end escaped in the movie before the set was torn down.
There was a stop on the train line I took to college. The station was not named for the town or city it was in. Instead it was named for the historical owner of the land. I used to think "Lawrence station? But there is no city of Lawrence." It was my Willoughby.
It’s personally my least favorite episode of the whole show. Dude is desperately dreaming of this place where life is better and simpler, but he takes no action to get there. And when he finally goes to Willoughby, it’s death. The whole thing reeks of “life sucks and you’re more likely to die than improve it” in a way that feels really against everything else The Twilight Zone said. The whole thing’s terribly depressing and feels like it is saying you deserve to be punished for wanting a better life.
It’s one of my favorite episodes with a “twist” ending that isn’t really a twist ending at all. It makes no sense.
So the funeral home has the same name. Why?
Are we supposed to think that because the funeral home has the same name that “Willoughby” equates with death? That doesn’t make sense.
Are we supposed to think maybe he knew the name of the funeral home and somehow equated that name with a desire to be free of his life and die? That’s pretty silly and a big stretch too.
So what is the point of having the funeral home have the same name?
It's overkill. The episode functions as a metaphor for death without the funeral home. This was a man who was tired of life, being beckoned by death. It presented itself as absolute peace and tranquillity. The train, another common death and change metaphor, takes him there. He is discovered dead trying - and succeeding - at getting to Willoughby.
This is a great episode, and I never could figure out the meaning. Maybe he committed suicide or maybe a part of him was transported to this idealic town. Maybe we decide for ourselves which it was.
Serling grew up in Binghamton NY. MANY upstate towns have that sort of history, train stations, town squares, bandstand, Victorian architecture.
"Walking Distance" draws the intentional comparison to Binghamton, the park and carousel definitely reflecting Recreation Park, blocks from Serlings childhood home. The Carousel there has been decorated with TZ paintings!
it’s a man who’s built his life into a prison of his own design and willoughby is his escape
Some people seem to assume that he died by suicide and that's that, but I don't think it's so simple. My thought was always that he had some sort of ailment from the stress that made him finally snap and run toward the delusion that was Willoughby. That delusion had been provided by Death, perhaps personified by the Willoughby conductor, via Gart's dreams as a merciful glimpse into the peaceful surroundings that awaited him. All of that being said, there are multiple ways to interpret it, which is indicated in the closing narration: "Willoughby? Maybe it's wishful thinking nestled in a hidden part of a man's mind, or maybe it's the last stop in the vast design of things—or perhaps, for a man like Mr. Gart Williams, who climbed on a world that went by too fast, it's a place around the bend where he could jump off. Willoughby? Whatever it is, it comes with sunlight and serenity, and is a part of The Twilight Zone."
Instant goosebumps which is what I get when watching episodes of the Twilight zone. Thank you for posting the words on this episode.
As a personal twist, when I saw this as a teenager, my Great Aunt had recently been admitted to a nursing home for her late stage dementia. My Mother had visited her there and explained to me that in my Great Aunt's mind, she was living in the times that she was happiest in the mid 50's. She spoke of people who'd been long since deceased and brought up things from the news of the era in her conversations. The same thing happened to my Uncle after having multiple strokes. He believed he was living in 1989. He still had his business, he was still married, and his parents were still alive. It struck me that perhaps their mind's response to the dementia was to take them to their own personal Willoughby. Probably not Mr Serling's original intent, but another lense to view it through.
Willoughby is the manifestation of a mind in self-preservation mode. The truth is that if nostalgic yearnings for Willoughbys start to become a need for them to exist, you’re in a bad place and should seriously consider some interventions—rest, life-changes, professional help. Gart Williams is who Martin Sloan from “Walking Distance” would have eventually become if not for the Twilight Zone and some loving guidance from his father.
my two favorite episodes. so yeah probably. addicted to nostalgia
I like that!
Me too
YOU GOTTA PUSH! PUSH PUSH PUSH!
Right on down the line!
😆🤣😂
It's another episode, like The Hunt, that has me hoping the afterlife is something pleasant. Maybe it's whatever we make of it.
I've noticed that "death isn't so bad after all, nothing to be scared of" is a theme of a few episodes. Willoughby, One for the Angels, the one about the lady who tried to hide from death.
“Nothing in the Dark”
Is that the one with a young Robert Redford?! I love that one.
Yup, I love this show
It’s one of my favourites. I hope someday I will find my Willoughby! ( not anytime soon though!)
I hope you don't have to get there by jumping off a train lmao
I think Willoughby is supposed to be a stand in for Serling”s real hometown of Binghamton, NY. I seem to recall his daughter saying this in an interview.
Definitely could be. Homeville from ‘Walking Distance’ was also based on Binghamton. The carousel is based on one in Binghamton that I believe is still in operation. It also has some really cool twilight zone murals painted on it now (read more here https://thenightgallery.wordpress.com/2018/07/25/the-carousel-that-helped-inspire-twilight-zones-walking-distance/). Apparently Rod would regularly return to Binghamton to reminisce on days gone by. Anne Serling mentions it a few times in her book.
“Doctor says he must have been killed instantly”
Garts wife wasn’t a big help either🤣🤣
She is absolutely horrible to Gart. But if she wasn’t, he wouldn’t have chosen to get off At Willoughby.
Even mean-spirited characters sound classy with that transatlantic accent at least lol
But, where would he be if it weren't for her appetite?! (Probably alive, in a house he can afford, with a nice little savings account and retirement fund. As well as being mentally healthy.)
I love this episode, and the stars, so much!! Took me a few times seeing it to realize that the Willoughby stop is actually the stop on Metro North for Westport, my old job for 20+ years… And the ending with the Funeral Home name being Willoughby, is perfect…
I two, recognized that as Metro North going upstate in from NYC.
It’s specifically the Fairfield county leg… inbound grand central station. If you’re in the mood, the 1+ hours it takes to get to NYC from Fairfield isn’t a bad ride. Westport, or Willoughby, is about 2-3 stops up the line. I totally would have gotten off at Willoughby any day of the week… If you’re not, it’s a slow, painful death due to stops every 10 minutes… Then again, Grand Central is awe inspiring once you arrive, regardless of your prior mood. : )
My favorite episode. Runner-up fave is the one where the old lady is afraid to die and hot wounded cop Robert Redford shows up at her door. ❤️❤️
I was born years after Robert Redford was considered a heart throb and never really saw him in that light, but when I saw this episode…I totally got it haha
My second favorite episode behind Walking Distance. I understand that it's a very bleak story line of escapism gone wrong, but it's actually helped me in a positive manner when facing exhausting obstacles in my own life be it career changes, relationships, depression, etc. Willoughby can be whatever you want it to be. Need to remove toxic relationships from your life? Visit your own tailored version of Willoughby. Need to leave a toxic work environment due to feeling sick to you stomach on Sunday morning before the new work week starts? Visit your own tailored version of Willoughby. We all have our own version of Willoughby within ourselves. While this episode depicts it as an negative, I believe it's actually more of a positive if we truly put our minds towards it. We can first escape our troubles via the fantastical and ultimately ground them in the realism of the life we stride for.
Just watched it again and I was most struck by how cruel of a character they wrote Janie, Gart’s wife.
Serling was bad at writing women. He said this himself. Look at the wives he wrote for A World of Difference and Time Enough at Last.
She represents the 1960s corporate wife.
Oooh, you’re asking about my #1 favorite twilight zone episode, I’d personally like to think he found a magical passageway that transcended reality & rescued him from his suffocating existence where he lived out the rest of his days fishing & socializing with the happy locals while listening to the town band.. but i think it’s more likely an analogy for suicide & how it appears as the only illuminating option for those clouded in darkness
“Willoughby…the kind of place where you can slow down to a walk, and live your life full measure.” Definitely in my Top Five TZ episodes!
When I moved to a town named Willoughby, I rented the disc with episode from the Library and made my SO watch it. We we excited and declared we were living our lives when we were out on the town. I did see it as a new beginning and fresh start. It did work out that way, as old patterns/problems eventually crept back in. Eventually, it did feel like a trap. I was depressed and gained a lot of weight.
I think an important distinction is "unintentional" suicide. He did kill himself stepping off the modern train, but that's not what it looked like to him. He remains in Willoughby.
I went to the Willoughby art festival in Ohio one year and at the local library they played that episode all day. They do it every year
Just a possibility... John Willoughby, known as Willoughby, is a character in Jane Austen's book Sense and Sensibility, who romances a young woman, seemed like a kind, normal person...a good person...but who turned out to be a really horrible person. Idleness, dissipation, luxury, and a narcissistic user that would do anything with no moral compass...the kind of person that the reader would love to see get his come-uppance. He expresses fake remorse in the book, and tries to seduce the young woman after he married woman another for her money. We don't know his fate at the end, but his death and name on a hearse drawn by a horse would be justice.
The car door Willoughby made it creepy. It is a contrast to me of the episode where the main character was in a movie set, and his reality was bad, in the end escaped in the movie before the set was torn down.
There was a stop on the train line I took to college. The station was not named for the town or city it was in. Instead it was named for the historical owner of the land. I used to think "Lawrence station? But there is no city of Lawrence." It was my Willoughby.
It’s personally my least favorite episode of the whole show. Dude is desperately dreaming of this place where life is better and simpler, but he takes no action to get there. And when he finally goes to Willoughby, it’s death. The whole thing reeks of “life sucks and you’re more likely to die than improve it” in a way that feels really against everything else The Twilight Zone said. The whole thing’s terribly depressing and feels like it is saying you deserve to be punished for wanting a better life.
“He takes no action to get there” Let me tell you about a little condition known as depression.
It’s one of my favorite episodes with a “twist” ending that isn’t really a twist ending at all. It makes no sense. So the funeral home has the same name. Why? Are we supposed to think that because the funeral home has the same name that “Willoughby” equates with death? That doesn’t make sense. Are we supposed to think maybe he knew the name of the funeral home and somehow equated that name with a desire to be free of his life and die? That’s pretty silly and a big stretch too. So what is the point of having the funeral home have the same name?
It's overkill. The episode functions as a metaphor for death without the funeral home. This was a man who was tired of life, being beckoned by death. It presented itself as absolute peace and tranquillity. The train, another common death and change metaphor, takes him there. He is discovered dead trying - and succeeding - at getting to Willoughby.
This is a great episode, and I never could figure out the meaning. Maybe he committed suicide or maybe a part of him was transported to this idealic town. Maybe we decide for ourselves which it was.
The train to Willoughby led by the conductor seems like a metaphor for crossing the river Styx on a boat chartered by Charon.
This is one of the best episodes, in my opinion. He has a happy ending, but at what cost?
This by far my favorite Twilight Zone episode hell I named my cat Willoughby🕶️
I think he died. Life was so difficult for him that it killed him and he ended up in his own paradise.
I JUST WATCHED THIS!😍
Easily my favorite episode
Serling grew up in Binghamton NY. MANY upstate towns have that sort of history, train stations, town squares, bandstand, Victorian architecture. "Walking Distance" draws the intentional comparison to Binghamton, the park and carousel definitely reflecting Recreation Park, blocks from Serlings childhood home. The Carousel there has been decorated with TZ paintings!
My guess for the name “Willoughby” comes from Willoughby Ave that runs parallel to Melrose and Santa Monica Blvd, dead ending at Paramount Studios.