Brief Story Line
Joe Goldberg (Penn Badgley - Easy A, Gossip Girl TV series etc) was working as a manager in Mooney's bookstore with another clerk named Ethan (Zach Cherry). One day a young woman named Guinevere Beck (Elizabeth Lail - Dead of Summer TV series etc) visited the book store and attracted Joe's attention. Feeling intrigued, Joe started to find out about Beck's private life by using various unconventional, even illegal and sometimes dangerous method & becoming like a stalker.
Beck had a very rich best friend named Peach (Shay Mitchell - The Possession of Hannah Grace, Pretty Little Liars TV series etc) who was very protective and up to the point of obsessive. Convinced that he found the love of his life, Joe tried his best to be close and get into Beck's personal life as though by chance, but he would find that his efforts were almost always be hindered by certain reasons and coincidence. Joe also tried to juggle his personal life that involved his young neighbor Paco (Luca Padovan) while attempting to make Beck fall in love with him.
So what would happen to Joe & Beck, and how would the story conclude? Find them all in this unique and intriguing romance, drama thriller series.
End of Brief Story Line
OK, to be honest I was a bit cautious in the start of the season since the first episode felt a lot like drama and unlike what I thought would be a very suspenseful and intriguing psychological thriller. But as the story proceed and especially by the end of that episode, I was immediately hooked. It had a truly surprising ending and made me interested in finding out what happened next. The following episodes moved in a medium pace and quite entertaining to me. When I reached episode 4, I was amazed by how unique the way that episode was told.
As I continued watching, I found myself very astonished with episode 6 which I personally thought was the best episode for me. However after that, there was a sense that the story became a bit too predictable and I thought it lost its momentum a bit. Until the final 2 episodes when the pace started to really picked up, providing a wonderful surprising conclusion that left me with anxious feeling and excitement of how the second season would be.
The story was sometimes told from the point of view of Joe with his narration of what went on in his head, which made me feel amused especially with few funny remarks or comments. And since the main lead was kind of a stalker with his own personal agenda of making a girl fall in love with him, it felt like a story about an anti hero. In fact, I do not know why but I had a familiarity feel with a popular TV series back in the 2006 that ran for 8 seasons titled Dexter starring Michael C. Hall as the titular character. Perhaps because Dexter also sometimes made personal funny remarks in his mind and had got certain charm plus few other similarities that I noticed.
The main plot itself was actually not that complicated. Simply put, this was a story of a man who might be a psycho and fell in love with a woman and made it his personal mission to be the love of her life by taking out whatever or whoever that might be in his way. Combined with some mystery about his past and the suspense of whether or not his actions would be found out, the series became quite unique. Penn Badgley was awesome and really suit his character while Elizabeth Lail was quite OK, but I thought Shay Mitchell stole the show as the obnoxious queen bee. There was also a surprise special guest star John Stamos (Full House TV series) whom I did not recognized because of his beards.
From what I understand, this was based on the novel with the same title written by Caroline Kepnes. Amazingly, the series was developed by Sera Gamble and Greg Berlanti who once again proved that he has got a Midas touch and most of his new developed series are always a huge success. (I mentioned about him in my previous reviews, but to remind you, some of his works included: The Chilling Adventures of Sabrina, Blindspot, Titans and many more). So I am not surprised by how well received this series was.
Overall this is a unique psychological thriller. The romance might feel a bit overwhelming if you are only interested in the thriller side. There were episodes that focused on the suspense providing some thrill, but there were also quite a lot episodes seemingly focusing on the romance, and a toxic relationship to my opinion. There were some scenes more suitable for adults and it had some violence as well. So if you are looking for a romance/drama psychological thriller, give this one a try. It might not have been up to the level of famous thriller movie like Gone Girl, but it should provide us with some surprises and fun watching series from the point of view of a psycho. I myself was quite entertained by this and pretty excited for second season.
Mike's movie moments rating: 4.5 out of 5 stars
No comments:
Post a Comment