Static - Recap

At a boarding house, the elderly residents gather in the main room to watch TV. A bored Ed Lindsay is playing checkers with Professor Ackerman and easily winning, and is disgusted with everyone else's focus on the screen. He tells them it doesn't make a difference what is on the television and flips from channel to channel. He stalks off to the basement and finds a picture of a man and woman together. He removes the cloth from an old radio while a boy looks through the window and wonders what it does. Ed and the boy bring the radio upstairs and another resident, Vinnie Broun, notes that she thought Ed had thrown it away years ago.



Ed takes the radio up to the room and confirms that it works. Ed pays the boy and ushers him out, then tunes the radio to a channel playing the Tommy Dorsey Orchestra direct and featuring "I'm Getting Sentimental Over You." The signal goes bad and Ed tries to tune it in without success and gets another old broadcast. There's a knock on the door and the radio cuts out again. Ed opens the door to find Vinnie there. She invites him down to dinner and Ed reluctantly switches off the radio and comes down. He hums through supper, much to the irritation of the landlady. As they discuss the song, one of the boarders note that Tommy Dorsey is dead. Ed notes that he heard several other people playing who have died, and that someone is playing old recordings on the radio. He steps out of the room to get a portable radio to prove his point, and the landlady comments to Vinnie that she was lucky she didn't marry Ed years ago. Ed returns but can't tune in the stations, and most of the others leave to watch TV. Ackerman asks what station was mentioned and Ed invites him up to his room. Vinnie goes up with them and Ed tries to tune in the radio. When he can't, he calls Information but is informed the station no longer exists. Vinnie and Ackerman leaves and Vinnie asks Ackerman if Ed really might have heard something. Ackerman thinks that Ed believes he heard something.



In his room alone, Ed tunes in a broadcast from Franklin Roosevelt. He runs downstairs and calls Vinnie and Ackerman up to his room. However, when they come in the radio has nothing but static. Vinnie stays and tries to talk to Ed, who snaps at her and figures she thinks he's insane. She tells him to shut up and tells him what she thinks: that they were to get married, but Ed's mother was ill for years until she died, and they waited and then it was too late. Now they're both set in their ways and there's nothing they can change, but he wants it to so he's hearing their song on the radio. Furious, he tells her to get out then tunes the radio again to a 1940 broadcast.



Later, a new more enthusiastic Ed arrives with groceries and Vinnie and Ackerman offer him lemonade and a game of checkers. Ed is more interested in listening to his radio but when he goes upstairs, he discovers that it's gone. He goes downstairs and Vinnie and Ackerman explain they sold it to the junk dealer. He runs out, furious. He goes to the dealer and tries to take it away, then pays for it when the junk dealer refuses to let him take it. He brings it back to the boardinghouse and tunes in the old station. He calls out for Vinnie who runs in, her youth restored. Ed's youth is also restored, and they discover they now have a second chance to be married and find happiness together.



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