I was really enjoying the episode up until the last five minutes. Actually, I have some bigger issues with the show than the last five minutes, but I'll return to that later. The final twist bothered me more than it shocked me. I mean, great, we are now watching a show were literally anyone could be bad or good except clearly Kevin Bacon's character, Ryan Hardy, is good.
There's an upside and downside to having doubts about any character who enters the show. Since I'm pretty big on character development within my TV shows, the downside out ways the upside by a pretty large margin. (This is also why I am not exactly thrilled to start "24") The downside is that nothing shocks you anymore and it takes out the thrill of the show mostly. The upside is you literally do not know what will happen. It really depends on why you watch TV.
The show starts out with Joe Carroll escaping from prison. It doesn't show how really. I mean there are numerous dead guards with no explanation as to how he managed to overpower them all. Whatever. I don't have a big issue with that. If they showed that scene, it'd probably look more ridiculous than awesome anyway.
Then we meet the protagonist of the show, Ryan Hardy. What appears to be necessary ever since The Sopranos aired, Hardy is of course a flawed hero. But by golly, he is determined to get the best of Carroll. Holy cow is this ripped straight from The Wire. Jimmy McNulty is an alcoholic, don't give a fuck about authority, slightly deranged, yet ultimately good cop because he is so determined to catch Stringer Bell. I mean, that is exactly what Ryan Hardy is. Switch the names. Hell, he drinks during the job just like McNulty.
Thankfully, Bacon is playing the part or that could have been disastrous. I actually like Dominic West playing a drunk way better than Bacon, but whatever. Again, I can live with that as well.
Here's the big flaw in the episode: Carroll doesn't seem like the person who could motivate loyal followers to do his bidding. Like the whole basis for this show is that Carroll has this innate ability to convince people to be on his side. He honestly doesn't seem more interesting than your average college professor in those flashback scenes. At least, from the scenes we are shown, I can't see it.
Also, Carroll is stolen straight from John Doe in Se7en. Doe uses the seven deadly sins. Carroll uses Edgar Allen Poe's poems. They both have some sort of higher thinking that makes them better than everyone else. Anyway, it is a clear rip-off and I'm sorry Kevin Spacey blows James Purefoy out of the water as an actor. I don't think Purefoy is bad per se, but he has an extremely hard sell and he doesn't quite pull it off.
I will be tuning into episode 2 (though not writing about it), and will be quick to stop watching if the show keeps reaching these ridiculous levels. I'm not optimistic, but I like the Scream movies, so I'll give Williamson the benefit of the doubt.
Next post: Could be Sons of Anarchy Season 1 Review or I'll go over my unconventional dramas. I will not be adding The Following to that list as watching that show is sort of independent of my project.
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