Written by Jeremy Slater And Heather Bellson And Dre Ryan And Adam Stein And David Grimm And Laura Marks And Charise Castro Smith And Marcus Gardley And Franklin Jin Rho And Manny Coto And Rebecca Kirsch And Alyssa Clark And M. Willis And Sean Crouch
Directed by Rupert Wyatt And Michael Nankin And Craig Zisk And Jason Ensler And Jennifer Phang And Tinge Krishnan And Louis Milito And Bill Johnson And Dean Sarafian And Ti West And So Yong Kim And Alex Garcia Lopez And Steven A. Adelson And Meera Menon And Elizabeth Allen Rosenbaum
Father Tomas: "I was told you were an exorcist."
Father Marcus: "Who exactly told you that?"
Father Tomas: "Does it matter?"
Father Marcus: "Yeah, I think it does."
About two years ago, I watched and reviewed every single sequel/prequel to The Exorcist but there was something that i had missed out on. That thing of course being the television series itself.
This show ran for two seasons on FOX, clocking in twenty episodes overall. It was also a reasonably well received show with two very captivating lead performance from Alfonso Herrera and Ben Daniels.
Herrera played the more inexperienced Father Tomas Ortega while Daniels played the hardened exorcist in question, Father Marcus Keane. It would be dreams that would ultimately bring these two men together and demonic possessions that would rest their relationship with each other and respective faith.
The first season of this show played out like a legacy sequel to the classic 1973 movie. Yup, this meant the return of Regan MacNeil (Geena Davis), going under the name of Angela Rance. Of course that wasn't revealed until halfway through the season when we had a few episodes with her mother, Chris (Sharon Gless) returned and old family tension reared it's head.
Yes, Pazuzu (Robert Emmet Lunney) effectively was the main threat of the season, terrorising Regan's daughter, Casey (Hannah Kasulka) as well her husband, Henry (Alan Ruck) and other daughter, Kat (Brianne Howey). I'd say as a legacy sequel, this was overall better than expected.
Now while I don't think the second season turned out as good, it was still better than it should've been. This time the focus was on foster dad Andrew Kim (John Cho) falling victim to a possession, which played on his guilt of deceased wife, Nicole (Alicia Witt) while putting his adopted kids like Verity (Brianna Hildebrand) and fellow social worker Rose Cooper (Li Jun Li).
Andy's story isn't as compelling as the Rances from the first season but I did appreciate it trying to be a bit different. In between both possession stories, there was also characters like Father Bennett (Kurt Egyiawan) and Mouse (Zuleikha Robinson) trying to stop the church from actually integrating with demons. It took a bit too long for that plot to circle back to our main cast in the second season.
Now the strength of this show was definitely the team up of Tomas and Marcus. Alfonso Herrera and Ben Daniels are fantastic casting and both are given some compelling material to work with. As characters, they may have certain conflicts but they largely balanced each other out and their separation at the end of the series was expected but slightly sad to watch.
- Season 1 episode titles: And Let Me Cry Unto Thee, Lupus In Fabula, Let 'Em In, The Moveable Feast, Through My Most Grievous Fault, Star Of The Morning, Father Of Lies, The Griefbearers, 162 and Three Rooms.
- Season 2 episode titles: Janus, Safe As Houses, Unclean, One For Sorrow, There But For The Grace Off God, Go I, Darling Nikki, Help Me, A Heaven Of Hell, Ritual & Repetition and Unworthy.
- In the first season, Tomas had an affair with a married woman named Jessica (Mouzam Makkar) while in the second season, Marcus was seeing a man named Peter (Christopher Cousins).
- Fans of Yellowjackets would've spotted Sophie Thatcher as a younger version of Regan in the first season.
- Creator Jeremy Slater would go to run Moon Knight for the MCU and is one of the architects for the DCU.
- Chronology: The first season is set in Chicago while the second season takes in a few different places, including Nachburn in Seattle.
For a show that would've a little constricted by network television rules, it's impressive just how good this version of The Exorcist turned out to be. Tbe writing for the most part was strong, the scares and possession scenes really effective and the dynamic between Alfonso Herrera and Ben Daniels. Definitely worth watching.
Rating: 8 out of 10
No comments:
Post a Comment