I know this is years late but I just had to say I'm right there with you OP, having just seen this episode for the first time myself.
Usually I quite enjoy the storyline of most episodes but this one felt like a convoluted mess with no way for the audience to truly grasp a point and no real conclusion.
1. Is this retribution/punishment? Well if so, it fails at that making the main male character sympathetic. WE never see any need to resent or look down on him. Was he an alcoholic? Yes. Did hurt his family with his drinking? Yes. But we never hear of him beating his wife or having affairs, just drinking too much and leaving them with little to no money. Well, yeah, that's what alcoholics do and it's awful but hardly enough incentive for a Twilight Zone esque infinite loop.
2. There's nothing to prompt the appearance of this strange boy. Both in his case and the case of the man who appears in his spot right before the ending credits we never see these men fail. They don't drink, they're working hard, they're even excelling - yet out of nowhere this boy appears seemingly somewhat aware of the havoc he's wreaking on their psyches and lives.
3. We have no feelings of positivity towards their families. Petee? PB? Is a tedious self-involved teenager, the wife a fretting hen and 'Jerry' vaguely creepy. Since we start with our main character the other characters presented aren't compelling enough to
make us latch onto them. I personally did feel like, "Are the wife and kids in on this?" I couldn't view them as victims and Jerry only got more and more creepy.
Basically I felt very badly for the main character, confused by the point of the plot, unsure what the lesson was meant to be, indifferent towards the 'families' and very negative about the episode in general. A rare, but very terrible, failure.
reply
share