Happy Halloween, Killer Queens! While we may not have any American Horror Story to watch, we do have five brand-new episodes of American Horror Stories! The wait is finally over, the second half of season three has launched. And I, well, was a lot more excited about that before I saw Backrooms.
Spoiler warning: As the ending is one of the many things wrong with this episode, I will be talking about it. So if you haven’t seen this episode yet and you plan to, maybe save this for later.
The story
Our gory story today is about a man named David. His son, Roman, has gone missing. As David pulls himself further and further away from the world, he finds himself no clipping out of reality and into the poorly lit, all but empty back rooms.
When David eventually finds someone else who’s been to the backrooms, he makes a startling discovery. The reason why he’s ending up there might very well be his fault. And it’s probably because of what he did to Roman.
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What works
Let’s start with the positive here. I was very excited to see an episode of American Horror Stories about the backrooms. This is one of my favorite online horror stories in recent memory. I love creepypastas about it, video games that include it, and will watch just about anyone on YouTube talking about it.
And the backrooms depicted in this episode do look a lot like what we see online. I was excited to see the ugly green wallpaper and awful fluorescent lighting that anyone who’s a fan of these stories is very familiar with. I’ve been looking forward to seeing that since the episode titles were released.
I was also impressed, as I often am, with the acting in this episode. Everyone in the rather small cast is doing their best with the story they have to tell. Their reactions are believable, their emotions feel genuine. I can’t say that there were any standouts, because everyone just did as good of a job as they could have under the circumstances.
What didn’t work
Unfortunately, I can sum up my dislike of this episode in one sentence. This story doesn’t make any sense.
Let’s start with Daniel’s motivations for killing his son. They are weak at best. Daniel doesn’t want a child around to distract him from writing. So he takes his son to the park and strangles him.
Just to start with, that’s a senseless motivation. Daniel is wealthy. If he doesn’t want to deal with his son, he could hire someone to look after him. He could send him off to boarding school. Hell, he’s divorced. He could just leave Roman with his ex-wife Riva all the time. There were lots and lots of options besides killing the kid.
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It also doesn’t make sense that he would have strangled him. Strangulation is normally seen in crimes of passion, or fury. There are usually strong emotions behind that. And here, there is none of that. We are to believe that Daniel is simply irritated at the interruptions that a child brings, and so brutally strangles his son in broad daylight and then pretends that he disappeared.
There are so many better motivations. Or, even better ways to convey that Roman was causing an issue. We could have seen him pestering his dad while he was trying to write. We could have seen him messing up David’s writing office. We could have seen any number of very realistic things children do that might cause someone mentally unstable to snap and strangle them. But none of that happened. David just decided to kill him, then regretted it.
Finally, let’s talk about this ending. After being shunted into the backrooms again, David finds Roman. Instead of some horrific end, which is exactly what David deserves, he’s sent to a waiting room. It sort of looks like the waiting room for a mechanic. He has a wicked long number, and they’re only serving number one.
And that’s it. This man killed his son in cold blood, and his punishment was an eternity of being bored.
Oh, but there are some parenting magazines on the table to mock him, so I guess that works out.
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I hated this for many reasons. The most important being that it isn’t a satisfying ending. It is so tame compared to what I thought was going to happen.
It also doesn’t work with the rest of the episode. Maybe if he’d been lost in the backrooms forever, that would have been better. Maybe if he’d been hunted by his son through the backrooms, to be killed and then come back over and over. That would have been fitting. Especially if he was always just out of reach of his laptop, so he never could get back to writing.
But no. He’s just in a waiting room, with some magazines. And that just isn’t enough.
The biggest problem I’ve had with American Horror Stories is this. Some of the episodes are spectacular. And some, sadly, fall flat. Backrooms is very much one of the latter. But I still have hope for the rest of the season.
We’re back again with Goosebumps The Vanishing, episode two. A story too big for one episode, apparently.
Or, maybe this is just a nod to the fact that Stay Out Of The Basement was a two-part episode in the original 1995 show. Either way, after seeing this episode, we could have kept it to one.
The story
We begin this second episode with Anthony investigating the parasitic plant taking over his body. Rather than, I don’t know, going to the hospital, he’s decided to phone a colleague and send her some samples from the bulb he pulls out of his arm with a handheld garden trowel.
Meanwhile, Devin is having his own worries. He’s haunted by what he saw in the sewers. So, he gets CJ to go with him to investigate. What they find is more of the tendrils of the plant that dragged him down through the manhole last episode.
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I sure would have liked to see more about that.
Instead, we see Devin pivot to flirting with a newly single Frankie. Because teenage hormones I guess.
Meanwhile, Trey is having a terrible day. First, his girlfriend leaves him. Then, Anthony breaks his car window.
Needing a way to deal with his frustration, Trey decides to break into the Brewers’ basement. There, he starts wrecking up the place. Until he meets the plant creature and has an unfortunate accident.
What worked
The big difference between this episode and the last is the increased gross-out factor. This episode had some straight-up cringy moments. From the tendrils waiving from Anthony’s arm to the whole goat he brings home to feed his new pet, this episode was skin-crawling gross in the best way possible.
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The series is called Goosebumps, after all.
What didn’t work
Unfortunately, that’s where my praise ends. This episode, unlike the last, just wasn’t that great.
To start with, there was a lot of unnecessary drama between characters who are not in danger of being eaten by a plant from the inside out.
I especially disliked the focus on the Frankie/Trey/Devin love triangle.
Now, I don’t hate it. This part of the story adds extra emotional depth to the show. We can see why Trey would be especially incensed by his girlfriend falling for the son of the neighbor he’s feuding with. But it would be more enjoyable if it wasn’t so cliche and dramatic.
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I hate the way Trey tried to gaslight Frankie. It makes me dislike him when he should be a sympathetic character. I hate how whiny Devin is every time he talks to Frankie. And I hated the impassioned speech Frankie gives after Devin asks her why she was with Trey.
Listen, I understand what we’re going for here. Devin and Cece are not struggling financially. They’re doing alright, and their new friends here in Gravesend are not. We kind of got that without Frankie claiming that her socioeconomic status is why she’s dating a bully and gaslighter. It felt out of place. It felt like pandering. It certainly didn’t feel like something an eighteen-year-old would say. I hated it.
Finally, there was a moment near the end of the episode that irritated me. I don’t want to give too much detail because I wouldn’t dare ruin an R.L. Stine cliffhanger. But, well, it doesn’t make a lot of sense.
I get that we’re watching a show about a carnivorous plant that is going to wreak havoc on this family and neighborhood. I understand the suspension of disbelief. Some might even say I am a little too generous with it. So I can buy into a teenager being absorbed by a plant and turned into a monstrous version of himself.
I can’t buy into what happens at the end of this episode. It doesn’t make sense with the rules established. It certainly doesn’t make any sort of scientific or logical sense. It is a lazy moment meant to further the storyline but threatens the structural integrity of the season.
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All in all, this wasn’t the best episode of Goosebumps. But it’s only the second episode. Honestly, the season has plenty of time to go either way.
The movie monsters always approach so slowly. Their stiff joints arcing in jerky, erratic movements While the camera pans to a wide-eyed scream. It takes forever for them to catch their victims.
Their stiff joints arcing in jerky, erratic movements As they awkwardly shamble towards their quarry – It takes forever for them to catch their victims. And yet no one ever seems to get away.
As they awkwardly shamble towards their quarry – Scenes shift, plot thickens, minutes tick by endlessly… And yet no one ever seems to get away. Seriously, how long does it take to make a break for it?
Scenes shift, plot thickens, minutes tick by endlessly… While the camera pans to a wide-eyed scream. Seriously, how long does it take to make a break for it? The movie monsters always approach so slowly.
So my father used to enjoy telling the story of Thriller Nite and how he’d scare his little sister, my aunt. One time they were watching the old Universal Studios Monsters version of The Mummy, and he pursued her at a snail’s pace down the hallway in Boris Karloff fashion. Both of them had drastically different versions of this tale, but essentially it was a true Thriller Nite moment. And the inspiration for this poem.
Episode six of Dexter Original Sin brings us Dex’s third kill, making him officially a serial killer.
Yay!
The story
This episode dealt with many things. The first, and clearly most interesting, is the kidnapping of Nicky Spencer, the police captain’s son, whom we met a few episodes ago.
This loss has sent the entire police force into an uproar. They need to find the killer fast before Nicky’s found hanging from a bridge.
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Unfortunately, Harry’s still on the sidelines for this one, after horribly messing up the case against Levi Reed. He’s instead working with LaGuerta in a case regarding a dead homeless man. Despite the different victims, types of death, and the fact that they don’t appear to be related at all. Except that Dexter believes they are. They are, in fact, the first murderers of a blossoming serial killer. Just like him.
Before Dex can lean into this investigation, though, he’s drug along on a double date with Deb, Sophia and Gio. And here, we see the first shadows of danger from Gio. Shadows that will almost certainly turn into a monster.
What worked
I would first like to acknowledge that, despite my irritations, Gellar did well in this episode. She didn’t have Whedon’like one-liners. She didn’t exist to give snappy comebacks with a side of girl boss.
She looked as though she’d aged. She was serious. She behaved like a real person who felt terrible about what was happening.
And, just to shout out the costume department, she looked washed out. Yes, that is a good thing. Let me explain.
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White is not a good color on her. At least not that shade. It made her look bad. This is not something that Sarah Michelle Gellar would choose to wear.
But it is something that Tanya Martin would choose to wear. And I love that. I love when shows and movies let people look bad because they’re more interested in being true to the character and not focusing on everyone looking as hot as possible at all times.
I also want to discuss Gio, Deb’s boyfriend.
Gio scares me. And I think that most women watching this will feel the same way.
Not girls. Not teenagers or even some young women. But adult women, I’m willing to bet, do not like Gio after this episode.
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It was the scene at the bar. The part where he got in the face of the guy who spilled Deb’s drink. There was danger in that scene. Gio didn’t want an apology. He didn’t want to make sure Deb was okay. He didn’t even want the drink replaced. He wanted a reason to hurt that stranger. Because at that moment he was furious. And the only way to handle that fury for him was pain.
Gio is a very dangerous man. I’ll be very surprised if this season doesn’t end with Dexter having to take him out.
What didn’t work
At this point, we have a lot going on. We have Nicky’s kidnapping. We have Dexter finding himself as a serial killer. We have the flashback storyline with Laura and Harry. We have the dangerous Gio and the likely in-danger Sophia. And we have these murders of drifters and homeless people that the team is now investigating.
That’s a lot. It’s more than what can be followed comfortably. And that doesn’t even consider the one or two-episode arches like Levi, Nurse Mary or Tony Ferrer. A lot is going on, and a lot to keep track of. And it’s hard to believe, seeing what we’ve seen from this franchise and knowing what we know about how they handle endings, that these are all going to have satisfying endings. Especially since I haven’t heard anything about a season two.
We have four episodes left in this season, and I am expecting the storylines to start heating up. As of right now, we have way too many that don’t have enough to do with each other. But as we get closer to episode ten, I would expect these loose threads to knot together and form a noose around the neck of our dashing Dexter.