When Them released in 2021, it arrived immediately after Lovecraft Country and a number of other horror films and series that portrayed institutional racism as the “monster” that scares and kills as much as real otherworldly forces do. The first season took place in the 1950s, during the Great Migration, where racism was more overt. The second season of the anthology series takes place in 1991, one of many occasions where society was reminded that racism is still alive and well in our society.
THEM: THE SCARE: STREAM IT OR SKIP IT?
Initial shot: A quote from Aristotle: “Fear is the pain that arises from the anticipation of evil.” We heard some breathing. Then, a man with a pillowcase over his head is sitting among servo robots, with a birthday cake in front of him.
The essence: “LOS ANGELES, 1991”. LAPD Detective Dawn Reed (Deborah Ayorinde) wakes up to her alarm; Images of the beating of Rodney King are played on the television. Her mother Athena (Pam Grier) wishes her a happy birthday; her teenage son Kel (Joshua J. Williams III) is still in bed.
Dawn is called to a crime scene and what she finds is so gruesome that even veteran cops are missing their breakfasts. The body of an elderly woman is stuffed in the cupboard under the sink, her limbs uncomfortably broken. Her head is thrown back, her jaw is distended, and her eyes are wide with horror. Dawn writes all of this down on her mini-recorder while she examines the crime scene.
Meanwhile, Edmund Gaines (Luke James), who works at a Chuck E. Cheese-style restaurant, auditions for a gangbanger role in a movie, and he’s so mild-mannered that he doesn’t even come close. In fact, he’s so bad that the guy operating the camera can’t hold back a laugh. He receives support from Rhonda (Tamika Shannon), the receptionist at the casting agency. They’ve gotten to know each other a little and Edmund is so in love with Rhonda that he stays in her car all day stalking the office.
Dawn’s boss, Lieutenant Schiff (Wayne Knight), pairs her with another detective, Ronald McKinney (Jeremy Bobb), in this case, despite her objections. But, given his history, Schiff knows he needs help to keep the investigation on track. The victim was a foster mother named Bernice Mott (Cindi Davis), someone the police know from some domestic violence calls. When Malcolm (Deion Smith), one of her eldest adopted sons, is questioned, Dawn is horrified that McKinney concludes that Malcolm probably did it; McKinney continues loudly popping the joints just to get the teen’s attention.
Rhonda accepts Edmund’s invitation to take her son to his restaurant. Her attitude changes from threatening to friendly almost immediately upon seeing them. He goes and jumps on the bounce house with him, but not before Rhonda promises to mark parts of him in the scripts she sees, and they exchange numbers.
Dawn goes to visit Kia (Hattie Hoskins), Malcom’s little sister, and although she reports that living with Mrs. Mott was a terrifying experience, Mrs. Mott herself was afraid of “Him” and said that she “didn’t want to stay.” asleep.” She didn’t want us to fall asleep either.” We turn to Mrs. Mott shouting “he’s in the house!” while her wall of televisions, probably there to avoid this terrifying presence, are blaring. Then a flash of Kia seeing the cleaning supplies lined up in the hallway and the creaking and screaming of Mrs. Mott ducking under the sink.
When Dawn crawls under her own sink, listening to her own description of Mrs. Mott’s body to try to figure out how she got there, things start to go terribly wrong at her house.
What shows will it remind you of? Them: the scare It is the second season of Them horror anthology created by Little Marvin; The first season, which took place in the 1950s and also starred Ayorinde, came out in 2021.
Our opinion: Like the first season of Themthe horror in Them: the scare This is as much about institutional racism as it is about some kind of apparition or monster. As at the beginning of the first season, Little Marvin and its writers, along with director Craig William Macneill, are more determined to scare the audience through a creepy feeling than anything else, and they do so effectively in the First season. episode.
There are two sides to this story that are seemingly unrelated, at least at first glance. We see more of Dawn’s investigation into Bernice Mott’s gruesome death than of Edmund’s inherent weirdness, but she probably scared us more with Edmund’s story. That’s definitely attributable to Luke James’ ability to go from stony to childlike in the blink of an eye. When we see him in his apartment, looking at a trunk full of children’s toys, a chill definitely ran down our spines.
But Dawn’s side of the story could eventually be the scariest, due to the fact that she is working for a department that is in the middle of a scandal that will unfold in the national media and lead to the 1992 riots. It will probably be one of the few black detectives in the Los Angeles Police Department and has to do her job amidst rampant racism and sexism. All of those factors, plus what’s going on at home with her mother Athena, will likely influence how she investigates this murder. As in the first season of the show, Ayorinde is an expert at transforming her emotions in an instant, and although Dawn is supposed to be an emotional rock in her family, the way she approaches her investigations is unusual and fascinating to see.
Sex and skin: None in the first episode.
Parting Shot: Dawn hears a deep voice say, “Are you afraid?” which gets her out from under the sink. She holds her chest as she breathes in panic.
Sleeping star: We love the idea of ​​having Pam Grier and Wayne Knight in supporting roles. I’m not sure if Knight will be anything more than Dawn’s non-racist boss, but we still like seeing him there. Grier’s character, Athena, certainly has more going on than just being Dawn’s mother, and we can’t wait to see what that is.
Most pilot line: Edmund’s boss didn’t like the dance he did in costume at the restaurant. “The kids liked it,” Edmund said. “A kid just tried to swallow a Skee-Ball. They are not Siskel and Ebert,” the boss responds.
Our call: TRANSMIT IT. The first episode of Them: the scare does a good job of setting the scene and giving viewers chills from the jump.
Joel Keller@joelkeller) writes about food, entertainment, parenting and technology, but make no mistake: he’s a couch potato. His writings have appeared in the New York Times, Slate, Salon, RollingStone.com, VanityFair.comFast Company and other places.
