“Kill Two by Two” is episode seventeen of season one of The Time Tunnel.
At the end of the previous episode, “The Revenge of Robin Hood”, Tony and Doug had landed on an island, Tony roughly, hurting his ankle. There are Japanese forces nearby and the island is being shelled by American ships. They are somewhere in the South Pacific during World War II. Fleeing the shelling, they come across a shack. Doug goes to investigate and is shot at by an old Japanese soldier. The gun jams and Doug disarms him.
Doug asks if there are food or medical supplies in the shack. The Japanese solider, a sergeant, is willing to help. He says the ankle is not broken, only a bad strain and offers to tape it. The sergeant says the other soldiers have left now on a ship. Doug sees the ship leaving. The sergeant is a spotter who will report the locations of American ships. Tony wants to use the radio when another solider, this one a lieutenant in what looks like a pilot’s jumpsuit, comes in and disarms Doug by putting a stick against his back. Something he finds very entertaining.
Tik-Toc watches as the lieutenant gets the sergeant to light him a cigarette. They know that Doug and Tony are roughly 700 miles southeast of Tokyo in early 1945. General Kirk has them view the fleet, and identifies two battleships, the Missouri and the Illinois. He asks Ann to find out when they were together in early 1945.
The lieutenant is talking about the sergeant; he keeps the old ways, having a touch of beauty. A flower in a bottle. Doug says they are non-combatants, scientists. They should have said they were missionaries. Tony tells the lieutenant, Nakamura, to go ahead and shoot them. Nakamura shoots the flower instead.
Nakamura has them both go outside, and gets the sergeant, Itsugi, to hold a gun on them. Tony thinks Nakamura is a psycho; Doug says that will work to their advantage. He can’t just kill them; he needs to humiliate them. Nakamura has two poles and wants the injured Tony to fight him. Nakamura wins and asks if he should kill Tony. Doug says he could have killed them inside the shack, but he needs to prove he is superior and he can’t do that by killing a man when he’s down.
Nakamura wants to play a game. There are four of them on the island. Tony is injured, Itsugi is injured. The game is war. They will fight because the Americans need to take the island before they can take Iwo Jima, and the Japanese are going to launch a massive aerial attack when the Marines arrive. They will have 1 hour to get away. No weapons; the jungle is full of things to kill a man.
Doug, when they leave, wants to head back to get some weapons, so they can warn the Marines. Tony says it’s part of history now; it’s already happened and they can’t change it. Doug says they don’t know what happened and if they did, it wouldn’t matter.
In the present, Ray thinks that Doug and Tony should just hide out instead. General Kirk says they’ve got involved, two young men who can’t back away. Ann, using a map that Nakamura drew to show the island’s position, has narrowed it down to one of two. The records are destroyed, though. Ray suggests asking survivors and Kirk is going to contact the Pentagon.
At the shack, Nakamura is waiting around the front so Doug sneaks around the back and breaks into the storeroom, where there are guns in crates. He hides when Nakamura and Itsugi enter. Both speak in English, fortunately enough. When asked by Nakamura, Itsugi says he knows who Nakamura is, and thinks he should die, but it isn’t his place to kill him.
Nakamura is described a couple of times as a psycho. Perhaps not the right term. He seems eager to die himself, rather than kill Doug or Tony.