Contributor: J.M.
A lot of the issues that pervade “Magus” are ameliorated in “Marbeley.” The pace is a lot more measured, avoiding some of the whiplash pace changes that come from “Magus.” The interplay between the old footage of The Undiscovered Country, the old Emmet Cole show, and the footage of the journey of the team deep into the Boiuna is a bit ham handed, but an interesting and nonetheless insightful view into the character of Emmet and his family. Which really when it comes down to it, will determine how much you enjoy “The River”: just how much the viewers buy into the ties that bind Emmet to the crew and their desire to find him against all odds.
The issues between Emmet and Lincoln get expanded in this episode. As the flashback footage demonstrated, Emmet has been interested in magic for a long time before he went traipsing off into the Amazon. Given the revelations at the end of the last episode that there is a group interested in ensuring that Emmet doesn’t return from the jungle, it appears that he stumbled on something quite significant. The presence of the birthmark on Lena’s neck and the necklace the shaman gave to him also hints and some sort of larger conflict. With their only being six episodes remaining, hopefully the writers will be able to bring it to some sort of logical conclusion.
The main story involved a restless spirit who demanded appeasement and the presence of some creepy baby dolls and the titular bear who had been Lincoln’s as a child. It was a satisfactory story enough for the necessity of the episode, even if it required the crew to make a series of regrettable choices again. Seriously, someone should have suggested that sleeping underneath the tree with the sacrificial dolls is probably not the best idea. The nonsensical decisions of the crew was a continued holdover from the pilot and I hope that the writers can change the stories enough that they can generate tension without requiring the characters to abandon all sense. The resolution to the story was easy enough to understand, but again I question the providence that they know exactly what’s going on, the story of the ghost that haunts them, it is just too coincidental for me to really get into.
Also, I wasn’t a big fan of the decision to have Emmet take over Jahel’s body. Emmet works better as a character who is not there, who leaves his mark in the flashbacks and in the actions that the characters take rather than as someone who is actually present. Not a terrible decision, but simply not the best in my eyes. Especially considering the method of his possession, it just seemed like another decision by the writers to fill the needs of the plot by whatever means they could come up with rather than making a much tougher yet probably more believable writing choice when trying to come up with something to propel the plot forward.
All in all, this was a much better episode than the pilot, calming the pace down and maintaining the atmosphere and tension in a far more organic and natural fashion. I’m sold on the potential of the series to bring the horror genre to a more mainstream audience. Though there are still some rough patches, “The River” has enough force of character to overcome them.
Rating 8/10
