The River
Found footage. That’s what we are said to be watching at the beginning of The
River, a new eight episode series on ABC. Who found the footage and how they
found it is a mystery, but then again just about everything on The River is a
mystery at this point.
Here is the premise: Dr. Emmet Cole is the host
of a popular and long running wildlife show called The Undiscovered Country.
The show also features his wife, Tess and their son Lincoln as they travel the
globe on their ship, The Magus. Emmet ends each episode with the same tagline
of “there’s magic out there”. But six months ago Emmet disappeared in the
Amazon. His ship and crew were never found and he was declared dead. Then
suddenly his emergency beacon goes off and the search for him begins.
We got little more than that in the first 15 minutes of the show when the crew was hastily put together and we learned that Emmet had been estranged from his son, who was also working on his PhD. Tess had to convince Lincoln to join her and the camera crew as they searched for his presumed dead father. This part of the show moved so quickly it was a bit difficult to get into it and overall the first episode lacked a lot of what I was expecting. But by the time the second episode ended I was hooked, but more on that later.
In addition to Tess and Lincoln the crew consisted of a mechanic and his hot daughter who only spoke Spanish, Lincoln’s childhood friend Lena who is also the daughter of a missing cameraman and is smoking hot and sexy, the three man (soon to be two) camera crew and a security guy with a lot of guns. All these allegedly intelligent people end up doing really stupid things, but then again that is always a requirement when it comes to stories meant to be spooky.
After our hasty beginning our crew was making their way down the Amazon as they followed the beacon signal. They located it, but as it turns out it was
underwater. So without much hesitation Lincoln and Kurt, the security guy, dove
right in to look for it. What they found was the beacon attached to a cage. A
cage in which someone or something had broken out of at some point. This was
meant to be one of those spooky moments, but it was not. However, Lena proved
her worth of being more than just the hot girl on the show with a nice rack when
she charted the river currents back to the origin of the beacon. The sexy
daughter of the mechanic, Jahel, was frightened as this was a place that was not
meant to be found. She gave it a name, but I totally forgot it. Sorry.
Despite the warnings from Jahel they forged onward towards the unknown. Using motor powered inflatable rafts they were able to get through to the location of the Magus. At first it looked abandoned, but then they heard a noise from inside. They searched for Emmet, but what they found was someone or something in the panic room. Panic rooms are generally locked from the inside, but this one was welded shut from the outside.
Safety tip #1: If a panic room is welded shut for the outside there is probably a very good reason why. There is something inside that no one wants to see get out. Thus you do not mess with a sealed panic room. I’m just saying.
Despite the safety tip from my Tess was determined to get that dang door opened as she was convinced that Emmet was sealed inside for some nefarious reason. It took a while and some heavy equipment, but they were able to get the door opened and of course, Emmet was nowhere to be found. Instead they found what appeared to be an incredibly misshapen coconut. Again, this was something they probably should have left alone, but it was too late now. They had released this dry spirit that fed on blood. It quickly fled, but not before slashing Lena’s leg and getting a taste of her blood.
Lena then reveals that Emmet had told her
that if anything were to ever happen to him she needed to destroy his stash of
video recordings. So naturally I was thinking that he was entrusting her to
destroy his porn collection so Tess would not find out, but no. The videos in
question (which Lena did not destroy) were of Emmet walking on water, holding a
huge fireball in his hands and generally cavorting with the indigenous people of
the Amazon. So I guess there really is magic out there.
At this point they new they were dealing with something freaky weird and that alone would make them leave, but the inflatables had been slashed by the spirit and the only way out was to get the Magus working again. So Emilio the mechanic and his hot daughter Jahel began working on the engine while Lincoln and Lena tried to free the boat from the overgrown foliage. After a while the spirit started shaking trees and such and the other camera guy I mentioned earlier goes out to film it and gets killed.
Lincoln realizes that the only thing they can do is to
trap the spirit like dad had previously done with the oblong coconut.
Meanwhile, Tess is screaming at the thing and asking if Emmet is still alive.
She asks for a sign: once for no, two for yes. Well the crazed spirit slashes
her leg twice, which obviously means yes, before getting locked back up in that
doggone coconut and tossed into the Amazon. I’m not sure if I would trust any
spirit let alone one that had just been trying to kill me and feed on my blood,
but Tess felt otherwise and further into the jungle they would go.
At this point I was not sold and debated on whether or not I should watch the second of the back to back episodes. However, I did and despite having the bejeezus scared out of me I am glad I did. It should be noted that I had no idea what to expect in episode two and had I known I probably never would have watched. You’ll know why soon.
We flashed back to Christmas 1989 where we saw two things we needed to remember:
• As a child, Lincoln was given a talisman by Emmet, who had received it from a shaman and was to one day give it to a child that would be strong enough. We were not informed what he needed to be strong enough for.
• Lincoln had an adorable stuffed bear he called Marbeley. Lincoln drew the same talisman on the bear.
Lena recalled that Emmet had an infection on his thumb and figured by piecing together the videos she could create a timeline and hopefully pinpoint an approximate location for
the good doctor. At the same time a firefly went into the mouth of Jahel and
she was suddenly awakened. I have to think that would wake me up too. Anyway,
she was now being controlled by Emmet who had her walk to Tess and tell her that
they had him. Who was they? We don’t know. Tess was now bound and determined
to go find the old guy. So with Jahel still channeling Emmet and Emilio looking
after her the rest of our crew started their journey into the jungle.
Our crew found an old graveyard and heard what they believed to be a child crying. Instead they found a monkey wearing a mask. After the monkey got scared and wisely ran away we saw that there were hundreds of creepy/scary dolls hanging from the trees.
Safety tip #2: Should you ever be out in the jungle and come across a tree with hundreds of hideous dolls hanging from it you should run away. This is not a good sign. (Neither is a monkey with a mask) And whatever you do please do not take any of them down. Just run away and go home.
Just for the record I should tell you a few things that you may or may not know about me:
• I am terrified of any sort of film/TV show/story that involves a creepy doll
• Ventriloquist dummies scare the shit out of me
• There is nothing remotely entertaining about a ventriloquist
• A doll that talks or moves on its own is incredibly disturbing
When the dirty,
scary dolls were revealed I was totally freaked out. I grabbed the nearest
stuffed bear and held it tightly. Then Lincoln looked and saw his very own bear
strapped to a tree. Dang it, now the bears are scary. I continued to clutch
the nearest available bear and was telling myself that the dolls would never
move on their own. Gaaaaaa! One of the dolls just turned its head to look at
everyone. Damn you creepy dolls!
Safety tip #3: If someone decides that they want to camp out for the night under a tree full of cursed/possessed dolls you always say no.
Then since it was getting dark they decided that camping underneath a tree full of creepy dolls was a good idea. Nooooooooooo! Then Lincoln decided to take back his bear. Noooooooooo!
The tree in question was a spirit tree and the only way to appease the spirit was to bring her gifts. As the legend went, a young girl drowned when she wandered away from her mother and now haunts the area. She was also a very powerful spirit as she managed to drag Tess under the water of a nearby pond and hold her as her very own. She would hold Tess hostage until she was returned to her own mother. This gave Lena & Lincoln the idea to find the grave of the girl’s mother, dig her up and put her in the water. Seems logical I guess. So they dug up the creepy skeleton and Lincoln carried the body down to the water and put her in. After a few minutes Tess reappeared and crawled out of the grave completely filthy.
Safety tip #4: If you are dragged underwater by a spirit and then emerge from a recently exhumed grave you should just go home because it’s not going to get any better.
They returned to the ship where Emmet had left Jahel when the bug flew back out of her mouth. We flashed back to 1989
where we saw Emmet filming his son and Lena. Then he noticed something
unusual. Lena had a birthmark on the back of her neck that resembled the
talisman he had given to Lincoln. So Lena is the one who will be strong enough
and not Lincoln or the bear? Oh my.
So after a first episode that was a little on the dull side we had a lot of excitement and tension in episode two. What show will we get next week when the show gives us episode three? I hope it’s more like the second hour, but with a whole lot less creepy dolls. Six episodes to go and the mystery has just begun.
We got little more than that in the first 15 minutes of the show when the crew was hastily put together and we learned that Emmet had been estranged from his son, who was also working on his PhD. Tess had to convince Lincoln to join her and the camera crew as they searched for his presumed dead father. This part of the show moved so quickly it was a bit difficult to get into it and overall the first episode lacked a lot of what I was expecting. But by the time the second episode ended I was hooked, but more on that later.
In addition to Tess and Lincoln the crew consisted of a mechanic and his hot daughter who only spoke Spanish, Lincoln’s childhood friend Lena who is also the daughter of a missing cameraman and is smoking hot and sexy, the three man (soon to be two) camera crew and a security guy with a lot of guns. All these allegedly intelligent people end up doing really stupid things, but then again that is always a requirement when it comes to stories meant to be spooky.
After our hasty beginning our crew was making their way down the Amazon as they followed the beacon signal. They located it, but as it turns out it was
Despite the warnings from Jahel they forged onward towards the unknown. Using motor powered inflatable rafts they were able to get through to the location of the Magus. At first it looked abandoned, but then they heard a noise from inside. They searched for Emmet, but what they found was someone or something in the panic room. Panic rooms are generally locked from the inside, but this one was welded shut from the outside.
Safety tip #1: If a panic room is welded shut for the outside there is probably a very good reason why. There is something inside that no one wants to see get out. Thus you do not mess with a sealed panic room. I’m just saying.
Despite the safety tip from my Tess was determined to get that dang door opened as she was convinced that Emmet was sealed inside for some nefarious reason. It took a while and some heavy equipment, but they were able to get the door opened and of course, Emmet was nowhere to be found. Instead they found what appeared to be an incredibly misshapen coconut. Again, this was something they probably should have left alone, but it was too late now. They had released this dry spirit that fed on blood. It quickly fled, but not before slashing Lena’s leg and getting a taste of her blood.
At this point they new they were dealing with something freaky weird and that alone would make them leave, but the inflatables had been slashed by the spirit and the only way out was to get the Magus working again. So Emilio the mechanic and his hot daughter Jahel began working on the engine while Lincoln and Lena tried to free the boat from the overgrown foliage. After a while the spirit started shaking trees and such and the other camera guy I mentioned earlier goes out to film it and gets killed.
At this point I was not sold and debated on whether or not I should watch the second of the back to back episodes. However, I did and despite having the bejeezus scared out of me I am glad I did. It should be noted that I had no idea what to expect in episode two and had I known I probably never would have watched. You’ll know why soon.
We flashed back to Christmas 1989 where we saw two things we needed to remember:
• As a child, Lincoln was given a talisman by Emmet, who had received it from a shaman and was to one day give it to a child that would be strong enough. We were not informed what he needed to be strong enough for.
• Lincoln had an adorable stuffed bear he called Marbeley. Lincoln drew the same talisman on the bear.
Lena recalled that Emmet had an infection on his thumb and figured by piecing together the videos she could create a timeline and hopefully pinpoint an approximate location for
Our crew found an old graveyard and heard what they believed to be a child crying. Instead they found a monkey wearing a mask. After the monkey got scared and wisely ran away we saw that there were hundreds of creepy/scary dolls hanging from the trees.
Safety tip #2: Should you ever be out in the jungle and come across a tree with hundreds of hideous dolls hanging from it you should run away. This is not a good sign. (Neither is a monkey with a mask) And whatever you do please do not take any of them down. Just run away and go home.
Just for the record I should tell you a few things that you may or may not know about me:
• I am terrified of any sort of film/TV show/story that involves a creepy doll
• Ventriloquist dummies scare the shit out of me
• There is nothing remotely entertaining about a ventriloquist
• A doll that talks or moves on its own is incredibly disturbing
Safety tip #3: If someone decides that they want to camp out for the night under a tree full of cursed/possessed dolls you always say no.
Then since it was getting dark they decided that camping underneath a tree full of creepy dolls was a good idea. Nooooooooooo! Then Lincoln decided to take back his bear. Noooooooooo!
The tree in question was a spirit tree and the only way to appease the spirit was to bring her gifts. As the legend went, a young girl drowned when she wandered away from her mother and now haunts the area. She was also a very powerful spirit as she managed to drag Tess under the water of a nearby pond and hold her as her very own. She would hold Tess hostage until she was returned to her own mother. This gave Lena & Lincoln the idea to find the grave of the girl’s mother, dig her up and put her in the water. Seems logical I guess. So they dug up the creepy skeleton and Lincoln carried the body down to the water and put her in. After a few minutes Tess reappeared and crawled out of the grave completely filthy.
Safety tip #4: If you are dragged underwater by a spirit and then emerge from a recently exhumed grave you should just go home because it’s not going to get any better.
They returned to the ship where Emmet had left Jahel when the bug flew back out of her mouth. We flashed back to 1989
So after a first episode that was a little on the dull side we had a lot of excitement and tension in episode two. What show will we get next week when the show gives us episode three? I hope it’s more like the second hour, but with a whole lot less creepy dolls. Six episodes to go and the mystery has just begun.
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