The Mist finale is barely redeeming its slow, staggering first season
Spoilers ahead for the first season of the fog.
On August 24th the fog’The Season 1 finale aired on Spike. On the 25th, Netflix released the series for streaming in select countries outside of the United States. (A Netflix spokesperson said the company doesn’t offer “exhaustive lists of shows available in countries,” so viewers outside the US will have to check their local accounts to see if they’re there.) The TV series adaptation of Stephen King’s 1980 novel differs greatly from Frank Darabont’s 2007 film adaptation. All three versions follow the same premise: a mysterious fog descends upon a city for no apparent reason, and people who enter it die chaotically. The TV adaptation runs afoul of King’s giant Mist monsters, kills the big bad Mrs. Carmody in episode 1, and for many episodes seems to be going down a different path, where spiritual beliefs prevail and nature seems to be a vengeful god. But the epilogue turns the spiritual and naturalistic theories on their head. in the end , the fog It goes back to the early sentiment from Episode 1, and the theme King wrote about in the original version – human cruelty, and how easily people can be manipulated.
It’s a satisfying finale to a slow, bloody season, as the characters spin their wheels with drawn-out discussions about their lives, or who might actually save them. The scripts devote a lot of time to character development, but it’s never been the show’s strength, because most of these characters act in malicious and sinister ways, controlled by fear and selfishness. in the fogIt is rare for anyone to act out of kindness or courage. The characters are largely identity-driven animals, struggling to survive, betraying each other in the process.
The purposeful part of the fog It comes from the ways people misperceive each other, and hurt themselves in the process. Football star Jay is hurt throughout the story because everyone believes he raped young protagonist Alex Cunningham. Karma appears to be acting against him, until his innocence is revealed. From that point on, every act of human cruelty against him seems merely excessive violence. There’s an ironic, metaphor-defying twist about the rape scenario that the writers seem to use to say it’s impossible to really know people, and such easy assumptions hurt people.
We are part of groupthink
Throughout the first season, the show holds two reasons for why the fog hit this particular town. For King readers and newcomers alike, there was no clear way to know which one supported which show, until the very end. One theory blames soldiers from the mysterious Project Arrowhead. But the psychic Lady Raven, who continues to survive the deadly fog, proposes an alternative – that nature is to enact Alex’s vengeance, and killing the usurper will free the city.
genius the fog, which will be lost on viewers who don’t give up on some of the season’s most boring episodes, however, is how easy it is to seduce its audience with grandiose fantasy theories. When the army, police and all forms of help for this small town are gone, everyone is comforted by wild solutions, including killing Alex herself or killing her suspected rapist. With morals and murder suddenly suspended, the townspeople resort to groupthink and a dangerous mob mentality.
the fog He deals with these irrational outbursts with embedded meta-commentary, luring the audience into thinking that Mrs. Raven could just be the townspeople’s messiah, perhaps Alex’s rape giving her immunity to the Mist. By making the theories convincing—or at least omitting any ideas that would contradict them—the writers implicate viewers in the characters’ collective thinking, asking “Would you do anything better with this scenario?” The show goes too far, but ultimately honors Stephen King’s original ideas about mobs and fear, even as it ignores its giant bugs and tentacle monsters.
Knowing the series eventually finds its way to the strengths of the source material makes the rest the fog Easier on the stomach. Although the journey through the first season is tedious, at least by the end, the show has brought the important characters together, taking them beyond their most flamboyant reactions. Rather than delve into their own personal dramas, they’re ready to tackle the real cause of the haze. But then the screen fades to black, and Season 1 ends. despite of the fog Epilogue Barely redeeming its first season, the story ends on a juicy note. If the show is renewed — and its surprise dump on Netflix could certainly help it find the audience it needs — season two has the potential to pick up. the fog From its current status as a mediocre TV drama to a story worth following.
