6 Things I Like
6. Dan’s Meticulousness
This is something I enjoyed about Dan from the first episode, when we get a good look at his process restoring old, damaged tapes.
We see it a few other times, like when he maps out all the cameras in the compound so he knows where he has privacy and where he doesn’t.
That’s why it works so well when he goes crazy trying to bust into the locked room with the Wellspring records, and when he pushes over the shelves of the old video cassettes. It’s in such stark contrast to his nature.
5. The Circle and the Cursed Haul
A forbidden movie — a snuff film, at that — lies at the center of a secret society. Very few people have heard of the movie, and even fewer know if it exists.
And this all leads to the creation of a TV show that never made it to air, and that again, the people who have heard of it don’t know if it’s real.
Everything about William Crest, and how entwined he is with the central mystery of the cult, works for me.
I also like that, when Dan’s ex-gf, Jill, gets a haul at auction that includes the original film, she says it’s rumored to be cursed. The whole forbidden nature of all of it is pretty cool.
4. Jess Is a Star
It’s rare that the best performance in a cast is given by a kid or teen. But that’s what happens here.
I didn’t recognize the actress, Ariana Neal, but she’s a star. When she’s bubbly and effervescent, she jumps off the screen. But she easily bounces to scared or confused, which makes her easy to feel for.
Even when the show felt like it started to go off the rails, I always liked most of the cast (including Dan and Melody as the leads) …
But more than anything, I was always rooting for Jess to escape the cult, and for nothing bad to happen to her. Not just because she’s a kid, and these psychos are grooming her for a sacrifice — but because she won me over, like she wins over Melody.
3. The Séance
This is the best scene of the season — and probably when the season peaks.
Everything about it is unnerving — from the way Melody gets roped in… to the way Cassandra begins to show her true colors by pushing Beatriz to keep going… and of course, to the way Beatriz is driven past the brink of madness and literally claws pieces of her own face off.
2. Creepy Settings Everywhere
There shouldn’t be anything inherently creepy about the Visser or the compound. But one is in the middle of nowhere, with severely limited cell service and cameras everywhere. Plus, it feels labyrinthine.
The other is old and dingy, it’s filled with toxic mold that causes people to go crazy, Melody constantly hears that awful chanting, and there’s an entire floor that’s forbidden and practically inaccessible.
For a good portion of the season, it’s hard to feel comfortable no matter whose storyline we’re following, because they’re both in locations that give off such weird vibes.
1. Investigating the Cult
I was always worried for Melody throughout the season. I live in an apartment building with none of the creepy vibes of the Visser, and I still wouldn’t go snooping around at night — especially if I heard the things she hears.
But her investigations early in the season cause nearly unbearable tension. Whether it’s stumbling upon the cult in the middle of one of their rituals in the common room, and then having to hide while Samuel and Tamara have sex, or snooping around the sixth floor when she finally gains access and finds the junkies, it’s always tense.
Even the scene when she breaks into the dead priest’s office and goes through his stuff, and then has to hide when Samuel shows up, has great drama. These are the scenes when the show is at its best.
2 Things I’m Mixed About
2. Witchcraft
Melody arriving at the Visser to look for her mother, with some indication she had lived there at some point, is all part of Samuel’s master plan to use Melody to open the door to the Otherworld and bring in Kaelego.
Oh, and one of the other keys to making this happen — the literal key, in this case — is a tuning fork that has to play the right frequency, but somehow only a Baldung witch can make it work
I like the idea of Melody secretly being a witch, and how that explains why her mother gave her up as a baby. I also like the idea of witches and this cult being mortal enemies for generations. But it gets so convoluted so quickly.
1. Dan and Melody Through Time and Space
The interactions between Dan and Melody prior to the finale are fun, because they put the two protagonists together after keeping them apart for a few episodes. But they’re also confusing as hell.
They kind of explain them at the end. But it takes away from the episodes when they’re happening. And for a show that starts out feeling grounded in reality, the idea that these two people from different periods in time are seeing or hearing each other took me out of it.
3 Things I Don’t Like
3. What’s Jill’s Deal?
This might be a small thing to most, but it’s one of the show’s biggest missed opportunities.
We hear about Jill a few times, including early in the first episode, before she makes her one appearance. She manages to get the cursed haul for Dan. But we never see her and Dan interact. We have no idea what their dynamic is like.
We DO see her interact with Mark, and the disdain she has for him is palpable. But we have no idea why. And they never explore it further.
It’s possible she was slated for a bigger role in Season Two, and now we’ll never see that. But I have a lot of questions about her and the two guys that go unanswered. There’s a lot of meat left on this bone.
2. Kaelego Comes to Life
Kaelego is scary as an entity lurking in the static of TV and computer screens.
But when he starts to come out of those screens in the flesh, it’s silly. Not to mention, if he’s tucked away in the Otherworld, how does this even make sense?
1. Vos Society
I was really down on the penultimate episode. It was so late in the season to bring in these new characters for a flashback-heavy episode. And adding all this lore to the cult felt unnecessary as we were ramping up to the finale.
I do like the idea of getting into this history eventually. But it comes at such an inopportune time. In a perfect world, all that flashback and revelation about their history would’ve been a midpoint of Season Two episode. You couldn’t include it too early into the series, but right before the Season One finale killed all their momentum.
Tim Matassa
