BELOW, The New Netflix Series That Can't Decide on Which Plot to Follow
If you're interested in watching a movie with about five loosely related plots stacked on top of each other, this one's for you.
And my honest thought is that the writers didn't even craft it like this on purpose. The overall feel of this series is like there was a Saturday morning, team-building exercise where each writer had to draft their own (mostly) original screenplay that would be pitched to the board (or whoever approves these productions). At the end, the team leader said, with tears in their eyes, "I love them all. Let's see how we can mash this shit together!" And that's exactly what they did.
The tone and plot threads are a what if Jaws, The Ring, Rampage, Deep Blue Sea (but with a squid), Wrong Turn, Resident Evil, Outbreak, and Goodfellas all existed in the same universe, at the same time.
Let me explain. Heavy spoilers after this sentence.
40 years ago, a small Newfoundland fishing village is forced to relocate.
While towing his home across the water, a fisherman dies under mysterious circumstances in front of his family. The gigantic eye and large shadow of an underwater beast is seen fleeing the capsized wreckage.
40 years later, the same relocated fishing village is once again facing imminent domain and being forced (with a modest bribe to the townspeople) to relocate once more. And of course, mysterious water deaths are once again plaguing the area.
The now adult son of the deceased fisherman, played by Josh hartnett (He's probably going to be The Only person you recognize in this series, other than the guy some Stranger Things. No, not Steve. The other guy that Nancy was going with.), has a family of his own and his young adult children have arrived back at the village for a homecoming year. The surprise guest? A gigantic ice berg that has suddenly pulled up to port in the town's bay.
Within days, the townspeople become deliriously ill. Some feel extreme dehydration to the point of being unable to stop themselves from purposefully drowning in the bay.
Meanwhile, the ice fisherman's (Josh hartnett, and yes, he catches natural ice for a living), younger son begins to have horrifying waking dreams of a watered-down, barefoot girl in a white nightgown, with dark hair covering her face (more on her in a bit) stalking him.
We find out that this son has some jealousy against his brother, the older son, who's managed to break of the town and find some success in life. Did I mention that a pair of gangsters have followed the older son to the town to kill him if he doesn't pay them a large sum of money he owes to somebody (I forget who, but does it really matter?).
This same son has been trying to convince his childhood traumatized dad to relocate because he needs the cash to pay off the debt. He's also been sleeping with an older townslady, who turns out to be the daughter of the owner of the mega corp that's trying to buy the town (more on that in a bit), and was sent as an undercover mole to sway the people to sell cheap.
Right. Are you picking up what I'm putting down? This series is like five separate (already made) movies at once.
Back to the story.
Through happenstance, after being taken (slightly) hostage by the crew of a scientific research vessel trying to study the giant, ancient squid that's haunting the town...I forgot to mention that a local scientist figured out that the giant ice berg wasn't ice but actually an ancient mucous membrane breeding sac for a giant squid, didn't I? Sorry.
So, after the fisherman gets taken against his will into a sub to track the squid, which is then (obviously) attacked, and he is, of course, the only survivor, he awakens on his childhood island.
I need to pause from typing for a moment, because yes, there's more. Right. That's what I said too.
Folks from his original town have been living on the forgotten island. They had somehow (I promise I don't remember how, but does it matter?) figured out how to communicate with the squid, who now provides them with fish to live on.
Oh, and that creepy wet girl? She somehow (I promise I don't remember how, but after all this, does it matter?) is psychically connected to the squid and has been feeding it pieces of living people to appease it and keep the forgotten village fed. Right. Did I mention she was, for whatever reason, obsessed with the fisherman's youngest son and trying to make him apart of their cult. Right.
So after Josh Hartness finally figured out wtf has been going on, he burns the old town down, saves his son, and flees back to the main island.
Once there, he, the scientist who discovered the secret of the "definitely not ice" berg, must faceoff against the crazy mega corp owner, his daughter, and the military to save the new town, which was sitting on a wealthy mineral mine that none of the townspeople knew about, and the ancient squid from being annihilated.
Yes, this turns into a Free Willy story for the man-eating killer squid who gobbled his father 40 years ago. What?
No need to tell you that everything wraps up neat for our hero.
I promised myself I wouldn't post a negative review, and I'm not, only trying to notify as many people as possible for the jarring and disjointed shenanigans they are signing up for with this series.
Once again, Netflix takes the phrase "lost the plot" to its most epic boundaries.
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