Episode 30 – A Stop At Willoughby

Fade in to a board meeting, where one man is conspicuously absent. Gart Williams, the man in charge of the project, takes the fall. While being berated by his boss, he finally snaps and tells his boss to shut up. Williams is so stressed that he even thinks he hears his boss yelling at him while on his train commute home. Eventually, Williams falls asleep, and when he awakens, the train has come to a stop in the town of Willoughby.

Williams finds this rather surprising as it was snowing when he drifted off, and it is clearly summer outside the train now. More astonishing still, the town appears to exist in the late 1800′s, complete with bicycle with huge front wheel and tiny rear wheel. Just as Williams exits the train he is jolted awake and is back on his regular commuter train. He asks a conductor if he’s heard of Willoughby and finds it’s not even on the line.

Back home, Gart and his wife exchange barbs over his gaffe at work. Gart admits that he doesn’t want the high stress, high stakes life he has now, blaming his situation on his wife’s ambition. When Gart explains his desire to live in a place like the Willoughby of his dream, his wife derides him and storms off. Later, back on his usual commuter train, the conductor informs Williams that Willoughby doesn’t exist. Williams falls asleep again and, as you might expect, wakes up in Willoughby again.

Once again, before Williams can leave the train, he wakes up. Williams is now determined to get off the train the next time he gets to Willoughby. Back at work, Williams is quickly overwhelmed by the hectic pace and loses his shit and smashes a mirror in his executive washroom. Knowing he cannot take any more of the world he’s found himself in, Williams calls his wife looking for solace. She hangs up on him.

Once again, Williams sleeps on the train and ends up in Willoughby. He awakens excited this time, leaves his briefcase behind and heads into town. Everyone already knows him by name and he finally seems at peace. Cut back to the real world and we see Williams’ corpse laying at the base of a bridge the train was crossing. The conductor states that Williams just jumped right off the train, saying something about Willoughby. As his body is loaded into the car from the funeral home the door reads, “Willoughby and Sons Funeral Home.” Dun Dun DUNNN!

Kind of a fun episode, though I wish we would have gotten to see a little more of Willoughby. That would, of course, negate the ending so I can see why we don’t. A solid episode.