REVIEW: Dead of Summer, Episode 110
Dead of Summer comes to an end with this season finale, which turned out to be a series finale, entitled “She Talks to Angels” and in it the story closed with what I thought was a good ending.
There weren’t many flashbacks in this episode and that contributed to make it great. In an episode that intends to end a story (since a second season would have begun a new one) the focus should always be in the present. And I liked the fact that the flashbacks weren’t, as in previous episodes, a continuing storyline: we simply saw 4 flashback scenes unrelated to each other. Out of the three, my favorite one was Garrett’s because it was a bit emotional and also was the only one which seemed to have a connection with the present. I also liked Jessie’s because we got to see her sticking up to her mother, which she definitely deserves.
In present day, while the survivors were trying to finally leave Camp Stillwater, Garrett’s car broke down. Amy explained that Holyoke put the last piece of his soul inside Jessie, so while both powerful and opposing sides are still breathing, none of them can leave the camp. Amy soon advertised she was always evil and she has Malphas inside her, and I think this was another proof of how much of a psychopath she is. She could have pretended for a few more seconds, got close to Jessie and kill her right away, but she didn’t. Excluding the fact that this happened because the writers wanted to make 10 episodes instead of 9, we can see that she was so sure she could kill them all and get out, that she could tell them anything and even give them time to run.
[WPGP gif_id=”7470″ width=”600″]
A cat and mouse game began soon in the episode and this was really nice to watch. Made the episode very intense. In an anthology show, every season finale is kind of a series finale, so we really never know who will make it out alive, since no matter if their character die or not, the actors can still always return for another season. This episode really shows that, because it was made obvious that it was either Jessie or Amy, and blood would shed before any of two were dead. And if we consider this was what the writers promised, they totally delivered.
One good thing about this was that it brought out the good in some people, especially Alex, who sacrificed himself so that Jessie could get away, hoping that would buy her some time to run and come out with a plan. This was a great scene and it had even more impact because it was placed after a flashback between Alex and his mom, in which she called him weak. Well, he wasn’t in the end. Garrett was also suffered a casualty in the episode, but even after he died, he managed to help Jessie.
After Blair and Drew came back, the four made a plan and were able to trap Amy using the last pure water in the camp. Garrett managed to play Holyoke’s song (which was recorded in Joel’s camera by accident) and that weakened the demon, allowing Jessie to kill it and with it, Amy. In the end, Jessie, Drew and Blair got out of Camp Stillwater (definitely hoping they would never had to return), and started living what seemed like a good life.
Overall, this was a good show, which had a premature end. It starts off a bit slow, but gets more intense episode after episode. These final few were really intense episodes and also full of unexpected twists. I just think this season finale would have had more impact if Amy managed to kill everyone and got out of there, spreading evil and destruction onto the world.
But anyway, it had a good ending, a happy one, and this tenth episode was definitely great. I am giving it a 9.5/10.
It is now time to say goodbye to Dead of Summer. As I said some times (hope I am not being very repetitive), but this was really a great summer show, which could have had a good future. But it is never a good thing to be sad about the past all the time. Even though it could have had more seasons, it didn’t, but we still have this one and no one will ever take that away.
REVIEW: Dead of Summer, Episode 109
Dead of Summer continues with the ninth episode entitled “Home Sweet Home” another Amy’s centric episode, and this was a very shocking one.
Maybe we thought we knew everything (or at least the most important parts) about Amy’s past, but this episode didn’t just prove we knew very little, but also that the little we knew was wrong. We realized in the previous episode and also in this one, that this was definitely not the first attempt to raise Malphas and put him in a human body, but it was the first time it was successful, and everyone thought it was because Amy is very pure. What they don’t realize is that they couldn’t be more wrong. The real reason why Amy accepted Malphas is because they are somehow alike, since Amy is a psychopath. Malphas didn’t want someone pure, he wanted the exact opposite.
In flashbacks we saw some scenes of Amy as a child and we found out her brother was a bit mean to her, but that is surprisingly the reason why she is still alive. After her entire family died, she moved from house to house but she never found a home. At least not until Camp Stillwater. Before the camp opened, Amy paid a visit and talked to Deb, who said she was fully staffed, but if someone dropped out, Amy would be the replacement. After this we see some of the flashbacks we had seen back in the pilot, and realize we missed a big part of it: Margo didn’t fall accidently, Amy simply let go of her hand so she would go to the camp. The reason why I think Amy liked Stillwater so much is because when she went there she felt something good (at least to her) and she knew she had to stay there. That something was Malphas.
In present day, Holyoke tries to call out to the spirits of light only to find out the piano was tempered with, so it brought spirits of darkness instead, making him disappear. Garrett, Alex and Jessie were then alone with a purification ritual they had no idea how to perform. At least we can say they gave it their best shot. After trying and failing to purify Amy, Jessie told Malphas to go to her, and then Alex threw her into the last of Stillwater’s pure water. It was said the water was so pure, that there was no one who could survive it. No one until Jessie.
When we met Amy in the pilot, she was (or seemed to be) that really sweet girl, so pure and innocent, while Jessie seemed to be the Camp bitch who will do anything to get what she wants. But we started to understand in the last episode this isn’t exactly right (at least the part about Jessie), but in this one we totally realize we got it all wrong. And the proof to this was when Jessie survived after being thrown in the water. The bad news is that so did Malphas, who went back to Amy, but no one knows this yet.
In this episode we also found out that Amy was the masked figure all along. She was the one who killed Dave (the gardener), Blotter and Cricket. She probably started talking to Malphas ever since she arrived at the camp, becoming the inside (wo)man Damon and his mates didn’t know they had.
Meanwhile, there were also a few problems when trying to go home and, after the bus driver was killed and Deb was forced to leave the bus, Blair and Drew managed to take the kids out of the camp. But Deb paid the ultimate price for this because, after she was almost killed by the ghost of her friend Keith, she went back to the camp where she was murdered by Amy, after she found out she was hiding something.
This was really an amazing episode, my favorite one of this entire show. Amy being evil was a really big twist I did not see coming. In most horror movies/shows, a demon chooses someone who is very pure as their vessel, and I thought this would be one of those cases, but I was really happy it wasn’t. I am giving this episode a 9.7/10.
Next episode, the tenth, is entitled “She Talks to Angels” and it will definitely close the story, since, even though the show was cancelled, it was supposed to be an anthology so this story would end in the next episode anyway. Don’t miss it, along with my review, because there is a lot more death coming our way.
REVIEW: Dead of Summer, Episode 108
Dead of Summer starts to wrap up the season with this eight episode entitled “The Devil Inside”, finally Jessie’s centric episode, and in it we find out that in Camp Stillwater things really aren’t so black and white.
In flashbacks we learned that Jessie’s dream was to go study in Northwestern University and she was definitely very focused on this goal: she studied a lot and she worked part time jobs to get money for it. But right from the first scene we find out that Jessie’s mother, Renee, was never a good influence to her daughter. Some scenes in these flashbacks even made it look like Jessie was the responsible mother, while Renee was the rebel daughter. To get to the interview she had been preparing for weeks, Jessie would obviously need a ride, but her mother showed up really late, or she didn’t even show up at all (it isn’t clear which of these options actually happened). In a later scene, I really got the idea that Renee did that on purpose so that Jessie wouldn’t get in, because if she did Renee would be alone. This is definitely not mother-like at all. Fortunately for Jessie, she got in, even though she arrived very late to the interview. But the bad parenting definitely does not end here. After going out to celebrate this, Renee got a little bit (lot) drunk. She still insisted in driving, and they had an accident. Looking out for herself (since that is what she seems to do best), Renee told her daughter to switch places with her, to make sure she wouldn’t go to jail. Of course by doing this, Jessie’s dream was shattered. These flashbacks scenes were really amazing. In present day we usually see Jessie doesn’t really care, but now we found out that is not really her, she is simply still upset since all this is a recent thing. In fact, Jessie definitely deserved so much better. She really deserves a mother who will love her more than herself.
In present day, Deb announced that, because of the recent events, she is going to close the camp because when the story goes to the papers there will be reporters everywhere. Of course no one is happy about this, but it does seem like the best choice to make, since they wouldn’t really be able to have fun when dozens of reporters started showing up, asking everyone questions, taking pictures, filming…
The reason it took so long for this centric episode is because, with the demon on the rise, Jessie is now crucial to stopping it, and the reason why will be revealed in the next episode. As we saw, Jessie definitely started to matter a lot more in this episode, especially during the eclipse: Cricket told her she must dump Holyoke’s bones in the lake. Jessie really does believe what she saw was real, but after telling what happened to everyone, not a lot of people seemed to agree. She spent a part of the episode wondering if the person she saw was actually Cricket or if it was someone else pretending to be her, in an attempt to trick her. Fortunately, in the end, Jessie realized she must start listening to herself, so she ended up doing what Cricket asked her to do. The moment she threw the bones, she and Joel (because he was very close to her), saw a projection of the past, realizing that things are very different from what they initially thought. Those people we saw right in the beginning of the series weren’t killed by Holyoke, but by Malphas’ worshippers. There are definitely some very different forces at work at the lake, but Holyoke represents the good side. If we think about this, it really does make sense. All this time Holyoke wanted to stop Malphas from ascending, he was simply misunderstood.
After finding out Malphas is already inside Amy, and they were actually deceived when they tested her, the counselors and Garrett go searching for her. They even explain everything that is going on to Deb, who realized her perfect summer back in 1970 wasn’t as perfect as she remembers. They find Amy in the fifth spot of the map they had and, after letting Alex go, Amy killed Joel. Ready to take on more of them, Holyoke gets her and takes her to his cabin, where he intends to purify her.
This was definitely a great episode. I really loved the twist of Holyoke being good all this time, not to mention that Joel’s death was another shocking one. The flashbacks were also a great contribution because we finally got the chance to see who Jessie truly is. I am giving this episode a 9.3/10.
Even though some questions were answered, there are others who still need to be, and episode nine, “Home Sweet Home” is definitely a very enlightening episode. It is, in fact, my favorite one of this show, so don’t miss my review.
REVIEW: Dead of Summer, Episode 107
Dead of Summer continues the season with episode 7 entitled “Townie” and it was definitely an episode of answers.
We saw flashbacks to Garrett’s past, and the opening scene was really great. In it we saw two kids with a bat, right in front of a teacher’s car, ready to smash it. While one was very reluctant to doing this, the other kept pushing him to. It would be to expect that the mean kid was Damon and the one who seemed to be well behaved was Garrett, but things took a surprising turn when we found out that it was actually the other way around. Ironically, it seems that Garrett was the one who pushed Damon to the dark side. But of course they were still kids and a lot could change (and it did) and the thing that changed Garrett was going to Camp Stillwater. Well, it is probably more correct to say that Garrett wasn’t changed by something, but by someone: Jessie, also known as Braces. Jessie was definitely into the camp spirit and quickly decided to approach the misfit, and she never gave up on him, not even when he seemed to always recur to anger and beating when things got a little tough. In the end, Garrett put all that anger into good use, by making Team Red win the Color War.
We also even realized why and how Michael, Joel’s brother, started seeing Holyoke. He was a monitor at the camp during Garett’s first and only summer adventure there. Apparently Holyoke approached him the same way he did Joel and Anton. I am really glad this was explained, because, even though it was a minor storyline, it really didn’t make sense that Holyoke, who was linked to the camp, would just start hunting some random someone outside of it. After Michael killed himself, and with the camp being closed, Holyoke moved on to hunting his brother, which actually makes sense (or at least as much sense as it can make).
In present day, Garrett decides that he is tired of Satanists, so he wants to bring them down once and for all. With the Sheriff’s help, they set up a plan and use Amy as bait. Even though the plan didn’t have much space for failure, it definitely failed terribly: both Amy and the Sheriff (who was watching her) disappeared without a trace. Desperate to find them, Garrett followed Anton’s lead and searched for a cave where he found Amy tied above a lake and the Satanists around her. In an unexpected twist, Damon and his crew killed themselves shortly after his arrival, saying that would make the demon rise. And in fact Garrett did see something when he was pulling Amy out of the water. He saw a hand (it was hardly a hand, but I don’t know what else to call it) grabbing her leg. With Jessie’s help he was able to save Amy, believing that it was all finally finished, little did he know that it is just getting started.
Meanwhile, Drew and Blair started connecting again while they were on the woods making sure everything was OK. They talked about things and finally accepted their relationship, ending up sharing their second kiss. I am definitely glad they finally decided to make amends because it is no fun seeing them apart.
But the episode still had one more final twist to show, and in the last scene we found out that the Sheriff was the person Damon used to refer to as “The Teacher”. This was a cool twist. It wasn’t really super unpredictable but I don’t think anyone can say it was obvious either. This is why he never helped Garrett investigate, but he never stopped him either since that would have been extremely suspicious. Garrett finds out he was the one who killed his dad so right in the last second, Garrett shoots the Sheriff. But as I said, this is far from being finished, and we saw there was someone wearing a mask and watching all this, meaning that more trouble is still coming.
This was really a great episode. We finally got some answers and it is so much relaxing that the Satanists are now out of the way (most of them, anyway). I also really liked the flashback scenes too. I am giving this episode a 9.0/10.
Next episode, entitled “The Devil Inside”, also provides some much needed answers, especially when it comes to Jessie’s past, since this is finally her centric episode, so don’t miss my review.
REVIEW: Dead of Summer, Episode 106
Dead of Summer continues the season with episode 6, entitled “How to Stay Alive in the Woods”, and what a great episode this was, and that is exactly what this show needed at this point, because even though the previous episodes were good, maybe not as good to make the audience always keep watching, definitely one of the reasons why it got cancelled.
In flashbacks, we saw a lot of Deb’s past and we found out that she is, like everyone else, a woman with secrets, but maybe in contrary to what some people may believe, her secrets have nothing to do with the major mystery that has been looming over Stillwater. Deb is simply a woman who had once a great summer, and so she thought some great and magical things would follow, but turned out very disappointed. We saw that she was happy (not the happiest, but happy) when she was collecting signatures for charity, but it was clear that when she started working in the law firm with her partner/boyfriend, she was far from happiness (unless when she was reading Keith’s postcards). This was the most clearer when her boyfriend, Fred, proposed and Deb’s answer was simply “sure”, like that moment was a mundane thing. No surprise, no “Oh my God, of course I do”, no joking around a bit, just “sure”. Deb clearly is far from happy with her life in that moment, and, almost as it was always meant to be, by chance, she found Keith. The two of them talked, and that is when Deb realized that that summer back in 1970 is as good as her life will get. We later found out that Keith isn’t also exactly doing well. Even though he might have been happy when he was writing poetry for some magazines, when he found Deb he hadn’t written in a while, so he definitely agreed with her. Ready to go find their time capsule, Deb later went to Keith’s motel room, where she found him dead, killed by an overdose. That is how much Keith needed memories from that summer.
In present day, Deb blames herself for what happened to Cricket, because she realized that if she wasn’t so stuck in the past, if she didn’t want so hard to bring back some memories, Cricket would still be alive. Of course she is being a little hard at herself, it obviously wasn’t her fault, and that was exactly what Keith came back to tell her. In the beginning we might have thought that he popped by because he learned Deb had reopened the camp, so he wanted to see her and it again, but things got a lot creepier when we find out that Keith was dead. And exactly because he was dead, he had to go back to wherever he came from. But before he left, he told Deb that bad things are coming. Maybe Deb wasn’t able to save the world, but she might now be able to save all those kids at the camp.
Meanwhile, Blair is far from OK with Cricket’s death and he wants to find out what really happened to her, because he realized that her death doesn’t make sense, since she knew the woods very well. But with Cricket dead, there is no way that isn’t creepy to talk to her, so he prepares a spirit session using an Ouija board. The session scene was really amazing to watch, and my heart was definitely beating really fast because I had no idea what was going on. Cricket possessed Amy, but then so did Holyoke, and while in her body he tried to cut her throat. The session ended with Jessie’s arm drawing a skull. This was the moment in which Jessie started to believe there is definitely something very wrong going on.
At the same time, Sykes continued to investigate the lake’s history and he found a file number in the cufflink he had found last episode. Inside the file was his father’s research about the lake and cults related to it. Later on, Jessie found him and they realized that what she drew, when put on top of the map Sykes had found earlier in the series, shows the spot where the cult is burying things for the ritual. But someone already knew that Sykes knows where to find the buried things, so they moved it.
After Keith left, Deb decided to gather everyone and make a time capsule for Cricket, in which someone put something that had some kind of meaning to her. I found this scene a really great one, and this idea was really good so everyone would get some closure.
Right in the final scene, we saw someone in a mask burying Blotter’s head, making sure that there are no doubts that he is actually dead.
This was really a great episode, the best one so far. I really liked Deb’s back story because it felt so real. There is always a moment in time in which we would all like to go back to. Sometimes we try to recreate it, but succeeding is very very rare. The episode also really focused on the main mystery and that is definitely a plus, since there aren’t many episodes left. I am giving this episode a 9.4/10.
Episode 7 is entitled ”Townie” and, as the name suggests, it will focus on Garrett, so don’t miss my review.
REVIEW: Dead of Summer, Episode 105
The fifth episode of the only season of Dead of Summer is entitled “How to Stay Alive in the Woods”, and it has Joel as centric character. This was definitely an episode that raised a lot of questions, but also that answered a few old ones.
In flashbacks to Joel’s early life, we find out that he used to have a brother, Michael, but he killed himself when Joel was still young because “He’ll never leave me alone”, at least this is what he wrote with his own blood on the wall. It was later confirmed that Michael was hearing voices, and he believed that killing himself was the only way to make them stop. We also found out that someone glued a camera to Joel’s hand in a very early stage of his life. But the fact that he wanted to be a film maker isn’t really the reason why he carries a camera in his hand almost 24/7. He does that because, like his brother, Joel started hearing voices and seeing things that weren’t there, and his camera allows him to see what is real and what isn’t. But the man he sees isn’t just some random someone, but Holyoke, also known as Tall Man, the guy who has been haunting the Camp since the beginning. This was definitely a great and really unexpected twist, but it sure wasn’t the only one in this episode.
In present day, Joel continues to see Holyoke and right from the beginning of the episode the ghost asks him to kill Amy, or someone else will die. Joel of course continues to believe that none of this is real, but we can see that he is afraid of himself and of what he might do, because, when asked, he refused to be alone with Amy. Everyone else starts to realize that Joel is acting weird, but of course that no one suspects the truth.
Do you remember last episode when I said that Joel and Deb had sex? Well, maybe not. This episode made us realize that most of the scenes which we saw from his perspective didn’t exactly happen as he thinks they did. Deb said all they did the previous night was go for a walk, she showed him what is inside her box, she told him about her friend Keith and that is it. A short while after this, Joel realizes that things work differently in Camp Stillwater, so he can’t trust his camera there.
In the meantime, Styles continues with his investigation in cults related to the lake, so he and Jessie go to the cabin in which we saw Holyoke play the piano right in the beginning of the series. There, they find a hidden door on the ground, inside which there is a doll, a tape and a cufflink with the initials JS, Jack Sykes, which means that Garett’s dad was investigating these exact same things.
Closer to the end of the episode, after losing the one thing that allowed him to distinguish reality from his imagination, Joel decides to tell everyone about everything, from his brother’s death, to Holyoke asking him to kill Amy. But when Jessie arrives with an old photo of Holyoke everyone starts to understand that in Stillwater there is a lot more than what meets the eye. When Anton walks in, he tells everyone the man he saw when he arrived was Holyoke. Jessie is still a bit skeptical about all this, but now no one can say that this is just in their heads. There is definitely something big happening, and even though we knew this from the beginning, the counselors start now realizing this too, which means that from now on, things will start to be very different.
But of course that none of this changes what Holyoke said, and with Amy still alive and kicking, he made good in his word. Right in the end, Cricket was going to meet Alex to watch the Blood Moon when someone pushed her and she fell on a bear trap, dying immediately. I have to say that this part doesn’t seem very realistic. Sure that there are bear traps in the woods, but when the Camp reopened those traps should have been deactivated, because there are kids around.
Nevertheless, this was a great episode. It had great twists, and it was definitely a change compared to other previous ones. The death at the end was also very surprising, because it gets to a point where you don’t think that anyone major will die, but you should be warned that in Dead of Summer no one is safe. I am giving this episode an 8.6/10.
Episode 6 is entitled “The Dharma Bums” and it will have Deb as centric, making us realize why she decided to reopen Camp Stillwater.
REVIEW: Dead of Summer , Episode 104
Dead of Summer is once again back, this time with episode 4 entitled “Modern Love”, an episode that focused on Drew.
Back in the pilot we learned that Drew was having secret showers away from everyone because he wanted to hide the fact that he is a girl, so in this episode it was time for us to find out more about him. We saw that ever since he was little, Andrea wanted to be a boy. His mother found it cute at first, but after a while, she realized that Andrea actually meant it. Maybe a few months after taking him to a therapist, Andrea told her mom that his name was going to start being Drew, but the mother definitely didn’t take this lightly. I think it is understandable this mother’s position. Even in today’s society it can’t be easy to accept something like this, now imagine in the 80s. When this happens with a friend, maybe it would be easier, but this is this woman’s child we are talking about, the person who knows him from moment 1 and this isn’t really something parents wonder along the way. But unlike most parents, Beth grew to accept Drew and that was when she snuck into a party and saw him laughing and dancing, realizing that he was so much happier when not wearing a skirt. But even though she accepted Drew’s birth that doesn’t mean she accepted Andrea’s death. I am not sure what happened in the end of the flashback scenes, but Beth left a note in the back of a picture of Andrea saying that she doesn’t accept her daughter never existed and seeing Drew every day was a reminder of her lost. I don’t think she killed herself because they would have probably showed her body, so maybe she left. But if that is the case she is a terrible mom, just abandoning her son like that.
In present day, Camp Stillwater knows exactly what Drew has been through, and so it haunts him through Andrea, or more specifically, with the exact same girl who was on the photo in the back of which his mother wrote her goodbye letter. With Drew started to act in a strange way because of this, everyone starts to admit that they have been seeing things ever since they arrived. It doesn’t take long for them to start pointing fingers at Deb, because Joel found a mask at her cabin that was similar to the in Cricket saw in her dream. Looking through Joel’s videos, Alex, Amy and Cricket find out about a box she holds a lot of times, so they decide to break into her cabin to see what is inside it. But ultimately Joel was a lot more lucky than they did, because Deb showed him the thing that was inside the box: a book entitled, “Dharma Bums” (which is the title of episode 6), and it was given to her by someone she loves very much. She said all this right before they kissed.
While Drew’s secret showers continued, in this episode they started not being so much of a secret anymore, because Jessie found out that he was actually Andrea. Trying to get the upper hand, Drew dug into a letter Jessie had received and found out she has a court day coming up. If she says he is Andrea, Drew will tell Deb about it. But Jessie doesn’t give up so easily and afraid to be exposed, Drew left camp. Fortunately, for once, Jessie did the right thing and tried to make up for what she did and talked to Drew, not only convincing him to stay, but also to tell Blair who he used to be. Taking her advice, and Blair’s too actually, since he said Drew could trust him, he came clean, which made Blair run away. A lot of people really hated this, but I think that it can be understandable. Blair thought he knew what Drew was going to tell him, he thought he was going to say he is gay, but that was not at all what he heard. Afraid he was going to say the wrong thing, Blair preferred to run and measure his words before saying them out loud and risk hurting Drew. At least this is how I see it.
This was a good episode, and I felt like it was a rise compared to the previous one. It didn’t really develop the main plot (the camp’s secret I mean), but I found Drew’s struggle throughout his life really enjoyable to watch. I am giving this episode a 7.2/10.
Next episode is entitled “How to Stay Alive in the Woods”, it will explain a few things about Joel, so don’t miss my review.
REVIEW: Dead of Summer, Episode 103
Dead of Summer continues its first and only season with a Cricket centric episode entitled “Mix Tape”, which means that it is time she starts seeing things that aren’t there.
In flashbacks we find out that writing on walls of Camp Stillwater isn’t Cricket’s first attempt to pass on a wrong image about herself, because she used to do the same in her school. Why? It wasn’t very clear the reason why she used to do this. Apparently she wanted boys to think she is up for anything, but the truth is that she isn’t. Maybe she thought that people would like her more, but if that is the case, then she doesn’t like herself that much because you should want people to like you for who you are and not for someone you occasionally pretend to be.
But the most uncomfortable and shocking scene in these flashbacks is yet to come: after Cricket found out that her dad was having an affair with the neighbor, she goes to tell her mom but she already knew. She knew, but she didn’t do anything about it and she also didn’t intend to. “Women like us, sometimes we gave to settle”, and so that is what she is doing. Even though this shows takes place in the 80s and we are now in the 21st century, this is, unfortunately, still something very real. And someone ignoring their significant other while they are having an affair is probably the best case scenario, because there are definitely worst situation in which people simply decide to settle. The most unfortunate of all this, is that people like Cricket’s mom will always exist, no matter in what century we are nor how much progressive the world is.
In present day Cricket continues with her “wall art” in an attempt to get Alex to notice her, but instead of him, she caught somebody else’s attention: Damon’s. Even after she ignored him the first time, Damon didn’t give up and, for him, the second time was the charm. Of course Cricket only went out with him to make Alex jealous, and her move definitely worked because Alex and Damon ended the night fighting. After this, they were both in a cabin making out, and that is when Cricket finally realized that she doesn’t want a simple hook up, but something that would last a lot more than one night; she wants a Mix Tape. And a mix tape was exactly what Blotter had made for her before he left, making Cricket regret ignoring him while he was still in the Camp.
Meanwhile, Joel and Deb continue bonding and I have to say that I love seeing them together now. It was great watching them interact with each other and talking about old movies and how they love them. Jessie and Garrett also shared a few moments together and it was also sweet when they went back to a bench they had carved when they were at the camp. Near the “Townie and Braces” these two almost shared a kiss. Unlike Jessie and Garrett, Drew and Blair actually kissed (finally).
But even though love is in the air, there is no rest for the wicked, so Damon and his gang continued with their ritual and in the end of the episode we found out why he was so interested in Cricked: he thought she was the one they needed, but turns out that is Amy because she is the one who was at the lake when they started performing whatever it was that they were doing.
Of course that when bad guys don’t take a day off, good guys can’t either, so Garrett continued to try to find out more myths about the lake, and by doing so he found out the name of the “Tall Man”: Holyoke. I really do admire Garrett’s persistence and dedication to this case. If all cops worked half as hard as he does, I am sure the world would be better than it is now.
Overall, this was a good episode, but I feel like the show so far isn’t getting better, out of the contrary. I liked the pilot because, as I said before it was mysterious and creepy, but that seems to have lost its way. The show will get better closer to the end, but it is a shame that it is a bit stopped now. I do like how they are developing the characters, because I think they are really well written, but they were able to develop Amy and still make her episode creepy. Because of that loss of goosebumps, I am giving this episode a 7.1/10.
But as I said, the show will get better, so stick around for my review of the forth episode entitled “Modern Love”, which has Drew as a centric character.
REVIEW: Dead of Summer , Episode 102
Dead of Summer takes another step in its season with the second episode entitled “Barney Rubble Eyes”, in which the campers arrive to Stillwater, making all things even weirder.
Like last episode, and like most episodes in the future, we saw some flashbacks, this time telling Alex’s story, and it surprisingly started in Russia. The episode begins with his grandfather telling him that if Alex wants something in this world, he is going to have to take it, because this world bears no gifts. This is actually not a bad advice, and Alex made into its life mantra. We even saw him applying it: when he started working at a Dry Cleaning shop he found out that his boss was having an affair with another employee, and so he threatened he would tell his family about it if the Boss didn’t let him take a few shirts every once in a while. And this makes the mystery of the shirts, presented in the last episode, solved. Of course that this was a smaller mystery and no one actually thought it was connected to THE main mystery, but it is a nice way to start.
Of course that when there are creepy mysteries there has to be children around, and so, as I said before, the campers arrived and in the midst of them there was a very peculiar kid, Anton. Like Alex, Anton is Russian so, for this and other reasons, he reminded Alex of himself. As the episode unfolded, we could see that Alex identified himself in that kid more and more, but he didn’t want to say anything to him while there were other people around, probably because no one knew Alex is Russian. But in the end Alex helped him, which was great: he told Anton he should change his name to something a bit more american and even helped him stand up to the mean kids.
But reminding Alex of himself wasn’t the only thing Anton was up to during the episode. On several occasions, this kid spoke to someone he referred to as “Tall Man”, who is actually the ghost we saw in multiple occasions during the pilot. Of course that no one believed him, and they all started to think about living people that Anton might have seen, and so Sykes started pointing fingers to Damon, a character we only met this episode.
Another episode, another death. Even though everyone thought Anton’s mystery was solved, Alex and Blotter still lost sight of him in multiple occasions, so someone had to go down for it. Because Alex wanted to keep the job, he drugged Blotter with his own stuff, so Deb would think he was stoned all the time. Deb fired him and, on the way home, Blotter found the Tall Man, looked back and we only had time to hear him scream. Even though we didn’t see his body, I am sure he is dead.
One thing this episode did really well was pairing people up, of course not simply in straight lines, but also made some triangles. Alex and Amy seem to have started something real, but now Amy knows it was all a bet. Amy and Sykes also made a connection last episode, something Jessie isn’t very happy about. Cricket is now going after Alex. Summing up: things are very confusing to what it comes to romances. The ones that seem simpler are Blair and Drew, who seem to have made a connection, however small. Aside from all these, there is also a little blue bird between Joel and Deb, but for now it seems like the chemistry is mostly in Joe’s side, even though he knows she is hiding a few things.
All things considered, Dead of Summer is developing its story slowly for now and that seems to be a plus, because overwhelm the audience with a lot of mysteries right in the first couple of episodes would definitely have had an even worst impact. I think these two episodes so far have been kind of equally good, but because last episode was a bit scarier, I am giving this one a 7.3/10 (a little less compared to the previous one).
The third episode is entitled “Mix Tape” and it will have Cricket as centric character, promising to also answer a few mysteries.
REVIEW: Dead of Summer, Episode 101
When the fall is over all you can do is rely on summer shows to keep yourself entertained. As summer shows come and go, Dead of Summer was a very enjoyable one. It is creepy, sometimes scary, the characters are really well developed, there is a big mystery that ultimately makes sense, and not to mention that it is also very surprising, especially closer to the end. This now being the era of anthologies (at least that is what it looks like because there seems to be a new one at every corner) this show didn’t really add anything special to the world of television. If it had been done a few years earlier it would probably had been more successful and thus it would have been renewed. Dead of Summer was, in my opinion, a show with potential but which was cut down before it had the chance to make an impact, which unfortunately happens a lot. Who knows if this show would have been able to turn into the new American Horror Story?
“Looks can be deceiving” can definitely be this season’s mantra and we kind of start to see that in this first episode, entitled “Patience”. But of course that what is deceiving in this pilot is just a taste of what’s to come, because it isn’t even comparable to some plot twists that we will see throughout these short 10 episodes.
The main plot of the show happens in 1989, when a woman known as Deb decides to reopen a summer camp, Camp Stillwater. Deb was kind of a sideline character in this episode, so let’s move on to the people who weren’t: the counselors. The first one we meet is Amy, who is not just a newbie to Camp Stillwater, but to summer camp in general. Everyone else is in for the ride mostly for some nostalgia of the good old days. She has a bit of a hard time fitting in at first, but by the end of this episode she is a lot more into the camp spirit.
But everyone has secrets, and sweet Amy is no different: in flashbacks we found out that, while trying to sneak out of a party with a friend, Margo, because Amy couldn’t pull her back up nor hold her hand forever, Margo fell to her death. Camp Stillwater knows about this, and so it uses it against her in multiple times. While trying to restore electricity and later while she was just thinking by the lake, multiple creepy hands start reaching out to her. This is what Camp Stillwater does, it finds your most terrifying moment and makes you relive it time and time again.
But Amy was far from the only counselor we met in this episode. We also met: Jessie, who seems to be the camp Bitch; Drew, a boy who turned out to be a girl in the end; Alex, who seems to steal shirts; Cricket, who wants people to think she is way more naughty than she actually is; Blair, who actually doesn’t seem to be hiding much; Joel, who seems to live with a camera in his hand; and Blotter, who seems like the “consequences be damned” kind of guy. Even Deb seems to have some secrets of her own, because people with nothing to hide don’t usually go unbury boxes in the woods during the night. Aside from the camp people, we even got to meet Deputy Sykes, also known as Townie, who really seems to be interested in this new mystery surrounding Camp Stillwater.
Some people may think that it is too soon for bodies to start piling up right in the pilot, but the Dead of Summer writers beg to differ. Aside from a dead deer, Amy found the body of the Gardner of the camp, Dave, when she was swimming in the lake. This took her and Sykes to his cabin where they found lots of creepy pictures of dead people and a map that made the lake look like a beast. Apparently not everyone was OK with them finding it, so they burned down the cabin with Amy and Sykes still inside.
This was, in my opinion, a good pilot. It was full of mystery, some action, some creepiness. What is really interesting about this show is that each episode will focus on a different character, allowing us to see the story through their perspective, to see a glimpse of their past stories, find out how they decided to join Stillwater again and also discover what they are hiding.
Now looking at this episode in an isolate way, I will give it a 7.5/10. I don’t want to aim too high, because, even though this episode was cool, much better ones are coming.
Dead of Summer is just getting started, and so are my reviews. Episode 2 is entitled “Barney Rubble Eyes”, and it will be Alex’s centric, so don’t miss it.