- Run Time: Around 50 Minutes per episode
- Trailer: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E3E1URhCR60
Episode 7: The Viewing
- Directed by Paños Cosmatos
- Written by Paños Cosmatos, Aaron Stewart-Ann, Guillermo Del Toro, Sofia Boutella
- Stars Peter Weller, Steve Agee, Eric Andre
It’s 1979. Charlotte gets an invitation from Lionel Lassiter to attend one of his famous “viewings.” She drives to an isolated parking garage to meet Targ, Randall, and Guy. They figure out they’ve all been guests on late-night TV talk shows. Hector tells them all to get into his van for the viewing. Hector turns on an audio tape, and the four passengers listen to strange music.
Dr. Zahra gives Lionel Lassiter an injection of something. The people in the van arrive at the mansion, and it’s a really trippy place. Targ is a know-it-all fake psychic, and he likes to prove how smart he is. After some discussion, Lionel comes in with a fifty-year-old bottle of whiskey.
Lionel says he will inspire Guy to write his greatest book. Targ is working with scientists on ESP. Charlotte wants to prove the existence of alien life in the universe. Randall is a huge musical producer, but he’s having trouble with his newest release. Kevin said Lionel seemed like a “messed up Willy Wonka.”
Randall admits that he has a void inside him, an endless abyss. He has no way to shrink that void. He wants it to stop eating everything up all the time.
Dr. Zahra tells a story about working for Gaddafi and what that was like. Lionel says he serves her. She spoons out about half a pound of cocaine for the others to split. She puts on “fairy dust” that she designed herself. Randall asks if this is some test, and Lionel admits that it is. Each of them has been precisely chosen to be part of this group tonight; Lionel has a reason.
There’s an item he wants to show them all. Before long, they’re all fairly well-baked. A door opens, and they all go to see. It’s an oddly-shaped thing that looks like rock or maybe organic. Charlotte says it’s too rough to be a meteor. Lionel says they couldn’t x-ray or anything else; it’s completely un-analyzable. Targ and Randall are fascinated; Guy thinks it’s just a rock.
The rock makes a sound in their heads; they all hear it. Then… it opens and falls to pieces. A blob-creature rises out of the remnants and grows horns as they watch. Everyone gets a nosebleed. Targ melts; Guy’s head explodes. Zahra puts her hand on it, and she melts too. Charlotte and Randall open the door and run out. The creature liquefies and absorbs Lionel.
Hector grabs his machine gun and shoots the manlike thing in the room. He shoots it full of holes, but it burns him to a crisp with electricity. The creature then wanders into the big city…
Commentary
The set and time period here is interesting; the music is awesome. The story is really talky and has no real ending. What was the thing, and what happened next? We were entertained throughout, but we wanted more.
Episode 8: The Murmuring
- Director: Jennifer Kent
- Written by: Jennifer Kent, Guillermo Del Toro
- Stars: Essie Davis, Andrew Lincoln, Greg Ellwand
It’s 1951. Nancy gives a lecture about a bird that swarms mysteriously. The swarming is called murmurations; they could even be telepathic. She’s the brains, or at least just as much brains, but the audience is mostly interested in talking to her husband because that’s how things were in 1951. Someone mentions that something bad happened to Edgar and Nancy a while back, but we don’t hear what it was.
The duo goes on a “field trip” to photograph some of the flocking birds. There’s an isolated old house on an island where they can stay.
They find the flocking birds, and they’re happy. That night, Nancy hears a baby crying— suddenly, their tape recorder switches on, waking them both up. The next day, he shoots film while she does audio recordings. Later, she hears footsteps in the house.
Edgar gets home and wants to dance, but she’s not in the mood. “You’re never in the mood,” he complains. That night, she finds a bunch of the birds roosting in the attic, something that species is not normally known for doing.
After a while, Nancy hears a child’s voice on the tapes. She thinks the birds are drawn to this house for some mysterious reason. We soon see that she’s still in mourning or shock over the loss of their child.
A child comes into their room that night. “I’m so cold,” he whispers. Edgar doesn’t hear anything, but Nancy is freaked out. She has emotional problems, and Edgar doesn’t know what she wants. When she wakes up that night, there’s an actual baby in the room with her. Then it’s gone.
She follows the crying downstairs and finds a bunch of letters marked “To my sweetheart.” It’s from a man cheating on his wife. She sees a little boy that afternoon and follows him until she sees his face is all messed up. She runs into several more ghost encounters, and before long, Edgar thinks she’s cracking up.
Nancy asks Mr. Grieves, the caretaker, about the people who lived in the house. The woman who lived there drowned her son and then killed herself thirty years ago. He doesn’t believe in ghosts.
Edgar blows up and yells that Nancy has never shed a tear over their own dead daughter. He’s tried and tried to connect with Nancy, but she drifts further and further away. The mother ghost keeps screaming, “What have you done!”
The little ghost cries, wanting to know what he did wrong, and Nancy assures him that he has done nothing wrong. She talks him into going into the light.
Nancy goes outside, and the birds swarm around her. She calls Edgar and apologizes; she wants to talk about Eva now.
Commentary
Man, that was boring! It’s a more “realistic” ghost story, without a lot of jump scares or over-the-top weirdness. Unfortunately, that makes it really slow.
We thought there would be a twist at the end where we would see that she murdered her own daughter, but that didn’t happen, she simply straightened out her thinking after helping the ghost boy. Or maybe that’s exactly what happened, and it was just being really subtle about it— She kept talking about “freedom” and being devoted to her career, so it makes a kind of sense that she might have been glad the baby died— maybe she helped it along a. Little?