What You Need story
A thug tries to exploit the abilities of a peddler who can see into the future and discern just what a person will need in an emergency. Directed by: Alvin Ganzer. Story by: Lewis Padgett, Rod Serling.
9 total · 5 major · 4 minor
| Theme | Level | Motivation |
|---|---|---|
| being bitter about one's life | major | The Narrator described Fred as a man who lamented his "undistinguished, meaningless, pointless, failure-laden" life. |
| generous character vs. mean character | major | Pedott was modest, generous and benign; Fred was greedy, miserly, and mean. |
| greed for riches | major | Fred was exceptionally greedy. For example, he rudely refused to tip a hotel bell boy in the immediate aftermath of him having won thousands at the horse races. |
| poetic justice | major | Fred Renard bullied Pedott twice to help him gain "what he needed"; the third time he used further threats and got "what he needed" again, but this time it was a violent death. |
| precognition | major | The old man had an uncanny way to sense items that people would soon need. |
| coping with being washed up | minor | The washed up baseball pitcher Lefty was wallowing away in him sorrows at a bar. |
| generosity | minor | Pedott went around giving people little items they needed presumably out of the goodness of his heart. |
| kindness | minor | Pedott went around giving people little items they needed presumably out of the goodness of his heart. |
| the game of baseball | minor | There was a washed up baseball pitcher at the bar. |