Gart Williams is a contemporary New York City advertising executive who has grown exasperated with his career. His overbearing boss, Oliver Misrell, angered by the loss of a major account, lectures him about this "push-push-push" business. Unable to sleep properly at home, he drifts off for a short nap on the train during his daily commute through the November snow. He wakes to find the train stopped and that he is now in a 19th-century railway car, deserted except for himself. The sun is bright outside, and as he looks out the window, he discovers that the train is in a town called Willoughby. He eventually learns that it is July 1888. He learns that this is a "peaceful, restful place, where a man can slow down to a walk and live his life full measure". Being jerked awake into the real world, he asks the conductor if he has ever heard of Willoughby, but the conductor replies, "Not on this run...no Willoughby on the line." That night, he has another argument with his shrewish wife Jane. Selfish, cold and uncaring, she makes him see that he is only a money machine to her. He tells her about his dream and about Willoughby, only to have her ridicule him as being "born too late", declaring it her "miserable tragic error" to have married a man "whose big dream in life is to be Huckleberry Finn". The next week, Williams again dozes off on the train and returns to Willoughby where everything is the same as before. As he is about to get off the train carrying his briefcase, the train begins to roll, returning him to the present. Williams promises himself to get off at Willoughby next time. Experiencing a breakdown at work, he calls his wife, who abandons him in his time of need. On his way home, once again he falls asleep to find himself in Willoughby. This time, as the conductor warmly beckons him to the door, Williams intentionally leaves his briefcase on the train. Getting off the train, he is greeted by name by various inhabitants who welcome him while he tells them he's glad to be there and plans to stay and join their idyllic life. The swinging pendulum of the station clock fades into the swinging lantern of a train engineer, standing over Williams' body. The 1960 conductor explains to the engineer that Williams "shouted something about Willoughby", before jumping off the train and being killed instantly. Williams' body is loaded into a hearse. The back door of the hearse closes to reveal the name of the funeral home: Willoughby & Son.
Closing narration
Production notes
, is the only town with that name in all of the United States, however, "Willoughby Avenue" is within the greater Hollywood area, only a few miles from the Sony Pictures Studios where nearly all Twilight Zone episodes were shot. The "Stamford" and the "Westport/Saugatuck" stops called out by the conductor in the episode exist in real life—–Metro-North Railroad stops in Fairfield County, Connecticut, include Stamford, Connecticut, and the Westport station serves the town of Westport, Connecticut, where series creator Rod Serling once lived. Gart Williams' home phone number, CApital 7-9899, was also a legitimate telephone exchange in Westport. "Beautiful Dreamer", a popular song in Ohio at the time, can be heard being played by a band in the episode.
In popular culture
Willoughby, Ohio, calls its annual neighborhood festival "Last Stop: Willoughby" in honor of the episode. The 2000 TV movieFor All Time starring Mark Harmon was based on this episode. One of the last episodes of Thirtysomething clearly pays homage to this episode. It has the same title, and in it Michael experiences a crisis similar to that of Williams, though it does not end tragically. The character Willoughby in Richard Linklater's Everybody Wants Some!!, is a Twilight Zone fanatic and owns almost every episode on VHS. The British electronic music outfit Funki Porcini sampled audio portions of “A Stop At Willoughby” on the song “The Deep” from their 1995 debut CD Hed Phone Sex on Shadow Records. In the TV seriesStargate Atlantis episode, "The Real World", Dr. Elizabeth Weir awakens in the Acute Care Unit of Willoughby State Hospital, a psychiatric hospital. She is told her memories of the last two years off-world was a fantasy and that she had imagined the Stargate project. Matthew Weiner, creator of the TV series Mad Men, acknowledged the influence of The Twilight Zone on his work, and how Don Draper's life had many superficial similarities to the main character of this episode. Weiner said they paid homage in The Sopranos when he leaves behind his life in his briefcase.
