Joseph Mazzola

On I Saw The TV Glow, Temporality, and Abundance

[Spoilers for I Saw The TV Glow]

At the end of Act 2 in Jane Schoenbrun’s 2024 feature film I Saw The TV Glow, a shot dissolves from lead character Owen working at a movie theater to a suburban road. Chalk-drawn swirls and ghosts cover the asphalt with the text “there is still time” in bold lettering in the foreground. Literally, this is a message for Owen to tell him there is still time to make a crucial decision. The film follows Owen and his friend from high school, Maddy, the latter of whom claims to have entered the fictional world of The Pink Opaque, a television show they both watched as teenagers. Maddy tells Owen that they are actually the protagonists of the show, Isabel and Tara, two teenagers who fight the supernatural. Maddy says that she and Owen are supposed to be there, in The Pink Opaque. The season 5 finale of the show ends with Isabel and Tara captured, drugged, and buried underground. Maddy tells Owen that they must return to The Pink Opaque (by burying themselves, of course) to continue the show.

At the end of Act 2, Owen refuses to join her.

This is supposed to be final. Owen decides not to join Maddy, and he never sees her again. The assertion that “there is still time” gives Owen room. There is at least a potential, a window, for Owen to (re)turn to The Pink Opaque—to what is real and true, should he take Maddy’s word as such. Or, as Owen put it, return to some place and become someone “beautiful and powerful . . . very far away on the other side of a television screen.”

“There is still time” is not a commandment; it is information. The chalk message only proclaims that there is still time for Owen. It tells Owen what he has, not what he ought to do. The only reason to read this as a suggestion instead of a decision is because Maddy told Owen they need to return to The Pink Opaque. This decision is ultimately what the film’s plot hinges upon.

The imperative to return comes from Maddy. She tells Owen that time felt like it was moving too fast in this world. What’s more crucial for Maddy is that, if she and Owen do not return to The Pink Opaque, they will suffocate and die—a fate the protagonists are already suffering. Staying in this world—what Maddy refers to as “The Midnight Realm,” the mythical place in The Pink Opaque where Isabel and Tara were sent after their kidnapping and drugging; and what Owen refers to as “just suburbs”—means suffocation. For Maddy, who says they are Isabel and Tara, there is an imperative to move-move-bury-bury-return-to-the-soil. Remember that time is moving too fast. So, for Maddy, staying in “The Midnight Realm” means risking actual death.

But not yet.

Taken in isolation, “there is still time” is remarkably open. It suggests abundance. An abundance of time, always more time to become something or someone, or to go some place, to decide differently is allotted to Owen. If the viewer takes Maddy’s word as truth, there may be an imperative that Owen does this. Nothing in the phrase “there is still time,” however, necessitates that Owen decide to return now.

“Decide” comes from the Latin “decidere.” “De-” meaning “off” or “remove,” “caedere” meaning “to cut”—literally meaning “to cut off.” To decide means to cut off or remove the possibility of one outcome for the reality of another. This initially implies finality. “To decide” conclusively sets what will be and what will not be as two separate worlds. Schoenbrun pushes the limits of that notion.

Owen’s decision to stay in The Midnight Realm is not absolute, binding, or ultimate. This is a decision that can be revoked, reworked, re-evaluated, or taken back—provided Owen takes the proper steps to (re)turn to The Pink Opaque. If “there is still time,” there necessarily must be time for Owen to decide differently. Perhaps an abundance of time. Perhaps not enough time, or perhaps not more time than is needed. Perhaps too little time. But there is time still, perhaps an abundance of it—the chalk does not indicate that this is or is not the case—waiting for Owen. There is still time to change something, to move to a new world, to become someone new, should Owen decide to act on that. This assertion of time’s apparent availability is not only a reassurance for Owen; it is an affirmation that what Is Now does not Need To Be Then.