re: Below - Netflix Horror Series (Josh Hartnett)

Finished this up last night.

I actually did enjoy the series, but man the last two episodes went off the rails stupid and it went out with a whimper. All of this buildup and basically zero payoff.

I actually liked the idea that the squid was secreting some shite that, when ingested, made people crazy enough to the point of killing themselves trying to satiate their thirst. I didn't even mind the supernatural angle of it ("deep sea creature," the hag, etc.).

But why do all of that and set it all up for four episodes just to abandon it and just be like "well the sickness disappears after a couple days, and the squid is just trying to have babies in peace." Aaaaaaaand scene.

It's like they went from something cool, like the Kracken, to something harmless and family friend, like Flipper, in a single episode.

And the episode (E5) on the island was almost completely useless. What the frick was the point of that at all? And were they saying that the Maggie chick was actually the old hag that was fricking with Wade during his delirium episodes? Because that makes absolutely no sense at all. And how did she end up with ole boy's engagement ring that she gave to Wade?

Are we to believe that the "old hag" scenes at the Penney household weren't actually the hag, but was Maggie breaking and entering to frick with Wade and get his bed all wet (and not in the cool way) and steal a ring? I feel like I either missed something fairly obvious, or that just made no sense whatsoever.

It was just so weird to lean SO HEAVILY on the supernatural angles, only to pivot away from it completely.

It was also weird how nonchalant Jay was about the two dudes literally threatening and trying to kill him every time they saw him. They were serious and obviously worked for even more serious people, and Jay is just like "What's up, bros. I'll have the money in a couple months, just trust me bro. Hey let's go fishing." And then even weirder that the black dude went from literally trying to shoot Jay in the head to best friends with him ("I'm with you..") in five minutes. I know Jay helped him out of the car and saved him from the squid, but come on, man.

It was hilarious that they expected us to buy that tiny gingerbeard dude as some sort of badass though.


I don't know, all in all I felt like there was enough here to make a cool show, and it felt like they were heading in that direction, and then they just dropped the ball. But that being said, I am a big fan of if you're gonna do a show like this, make it a contained miniseries with limited episodes. Not everything has to have multiple seasons and whatnot. So I appreciate the effort, it just fell flat for me. Yet at the same time, I'm not mad that I watched it.