After their hit Netflix series Dahmer – Monster: The Jeffrey Dahmer Story, creators Ryan Murphy and Ian Brennan have come out with yet another mystery thriller miniseries, The Watcher, which is trending on Netflix at no. 2 globally and no. 5 in India. Based on a real-life incident, the show follows the Branner family that starts receiving threatening letters and is stalked soon after moving into a new neighbourhood.
The Watcher is tailor-made for the kind of Netflix audience that gets hooked by the promising premise of a show and ends up bingeing the entire series even if it starts to slack off after the first few episodes. The most frustrating bit about this show is that there is no big reveal at the end, and you are left to come up with your own theories on the crime.
How the plot thickens
Things go wrong for a couple — Nora (Naomi Watts) and Dean (Bobby Cannavale) — and their children Ellie (Isabel Gravitt) and Carter (Luke David Blumm) as soon as they move into their suburban dream home in Westfield, New Jersey. From receiving threatening letters from an anonymous source, known as ‘The Watcher’, to nosy neighbours, they struggle to keep countenance in the face of all the trouble.
Though the hunt for ‘The Watcher’ is the ultimate plot point of the limited series, it’s the motive behind the threatening letters that drives the story forward. Early in the series, Nora and Dean Brannock discover leads that imply that their neighbours are members of a cult that wants to sacrifice Ellie and Carter. There is also a supernatural angle — the former owner of the house disappeared after murdering his own family. The psychological deterioration of Dean adds to the scare of the unknown.
The formidable trio of Watts, Coolidge and Farrow
The ensemble cast of Naomi Watts, Bobby Cannavale, Jennifer Coolidge, Mia Farrow, Noma Dumezweni and Terry Kinney try to make up for the drawbacks in the script.
Watts puts in a fantastic performance as a terrified mother and wife. She perfectly portrays how Nora feels ill at ease right after things start to go wrong. Jennifer Coolidge plays an eccentric real estate agent who gets on Nora’s nerves with her weird mannerisms and secretive motives. However, it’s Mia Farrow’s Pearl, the longest-living resident of the neighbourhood and the keeper of dark secrets, who steals the show with her creepy presence.
A poster of The Watcher. Twitter/ @Netflix
Too many subplots disrupt the flow
The biggest downside of The Watcher is the plethora of subplots that do not really add anything extra to the story. From Dean’s extramarital affair to Ellie’s reckless revenge on his father for denouncing her boyfriend, the show sweeps many of its twists under the rug as quickly as they appear. These turns and twists ultimately take their toll on the suspense that was created in the first two episodes.
Lacklustre conclusion
After seven long hours, which sometimes feels like a real stretch, the series finale leaves it to us to guess who the culprit is. In the last episode titled ‘Haunting’, everybody could be a suspect — the private investigator, the inquisitive neighbours and even Dean. After investing a lot of time in the series, this cliffhanger treatment may feel maddening to the ‘real watcher’ who bravely sat through all the episodes to see the mystery unravel.
