The year is 1986. A family is hauling its whole house across the water, pulled along by a small boat with a sputtering motor, when the house begins to sink. Leo, the father, is dragged under with it, and young Calvin Penney cuts the line so the rest of the family survives. Down in the water, he glimpses something: a void, or perhaps the enormous eye of some huge creature.
That is the opening scene of Below, Netflix’s new drama/horror series, and it’s a terrific first image. Over the six episodes that follow, the show tries to live up to it and mostly falls short.
Below is now streaming on Netflix. The first half holds up fairly well. The final three episodes wrap up the story in a messy and sometimes absurd way, and the show never quite found its sea legs in the first place.
The Widow’s Bay problem
Timing works against Below. A small, isolated coastal town that suddenly faces a mysterious threat from the sea is a premise Widow’s Bay already covered this year, and Below can’t match it.
The best way to describe it is a “what if Jaws but…” project built around Josh Hartnett. His career is on the rise again thanks to Oppenheimer, Trap (yes, Trap) and a great Black Mirror episode. He tries everything he can to hold the series up, and he does it in a heavy Newfoundland accent.
Hartnett plays Calvin as an adult. His trauma dates back to the night his family was forced to resettle, moving from one remote town to Snook’s Arm, which is only a little less remote. (The real Snook’s Arm went through its own resettlement in 2018.) As for what he saw in the water, the show doesn’t leave it to the marketing. It keeps returning to it all season long.
Iceberg vodka and a flamingo on the roof
Forty years on, Calvin is a widower who has never left Snook’s Arm. He brings broken-off pieces of iceberg back to the docks and sells them to be turned into iceberg vodka, which is also a real product.
The distillery belongs to the Crockers. So does Calvin’s boat, and the family seems to have money in just about everything in sight, the nearby Ocean Science Center included. At the center, lead researcher Dr. Fonda Howander (Mackenzie Davis) examines marine samples and looks into strange wildlife sightings, such as a flamingo that lands on a local’s roof.
It isn’t hard to see where this is headed. Below deals with climate change and capitalism, and with what has been lost and what can still be saved now that both have crept into everyday life. The problem is that the show doesn’t have much to say about either. For the most part it gestures at the scenery and declares, with gumption, “look.”
A better hook than it deserves
The thin thesis is unfortunate, because the premise works. A massive piece of iceberg floats into the harbor at Snook’s Arm. For the local ice harvesters, it ought to be a cash cow, but something about the ice is off.
At the same time, people and animals near the water begin dying under mysterious circumstances (remember, something is in there). Episode one closes on a shocking image that I’ll leave unspoiled.
The cleverest move Below makes is letting viewers think the cause could be anything at all, real or mystical. It then reveals that everything can be explained by science (marine zoobiology, specifically) or, naturally, by capitalist greed.
Hartnett and Heaton are the reason to stay
The story takes place during a Come Home Year, when former residents and relatives who have moved away return for celebrations and local customs, including kissing fish at the one and only dive bar in Snook’s Arm.
Wade (Charlie Heaton), Calvin’s mushroom-addled son, still lives under his roof. He’s a townie failson, and the scenes he shares with Hartnett rank among the show’s best.
Calvin’s two other children, both in their 20s, also return, each carrying some big-city baggage. Mary (Ruby Stokes) has a boyfriend she desperately wants her father to approve of. Jay (Rohan Campbell) appears to be in trouble and receives menacing texts such as “Your [sic] a dead man.” (Scary typos.)
As the season progresses, the Penneys end up juggling too many storylines with too little time for any of them. Nearly every character arc needed more space, and an extra episode or two would have made a difference.
Where it goes off the rails
Things get wild in Episode 4, which features a deep-water sequence I sort of can’t believe made it to air, considering certain real-life events that aren’t all that long ago.
From there, the remainder of the season feels like a scramble to resolve the show’s mysteries. Some answers do come, but they aren’t very satisfying, and the plot is still riddled with enough holes to sink a boat.
So here’s the fishing analogy Below has earned. There’s a tug on the line, and you’re sure you’ve hooked a big one. Then you reel it in and find nothing on the hook but a clump of kelp.