Written by Matthew Widdis
In a suburban home a young boy can’t fall asleep. He tries to seek comfort from his mother but she’s otherwise occupied. He watches TV in the middle of the night but something interferes with the signal. With static on the screen and no sound, he can hear the faint sounds of “O, Christmas Tree.” He opens his door to find a candy cane on his steps and a vintage Rolls Royce Wraith at the curb. The door to the back seats opens on its own and wrapped Christmas presents.
What boy could resist?
He gets into the car and meets the elderly Charlie Manx (Zachary Quinto,) who promises him a great time in Christmasland. Meanwhile, Manx’s accomplice dispatches the mother’s boyfriend with a syringe. He botches her murder, though, and the Wraith pulls away as mother and son scream for each other just before her neck is violently broken.
Vic McQueen (Ashleigh Cummings) is a high school student who cleans houses with her mother on the weekends, and lives a stereotypical Boston-adjacent existence. She’s a talented artist with dreams of college. Her rich best friend, Willa, and her Harley-riding father (Punisher’s Ebon Moss-Bachrach) support her dream while her mother (brilliantly played by Virginia Kull), is more pessimistic about her chances.
Vic has to navigate multiple arenas. Her home life is loving but volatile… even more than she realizes. School is split between her art, her classmates (straight out of a casting session for The Departed 2), and her friendship with the hulking but simple janitor, Bing (Olafur Darri Olafsson). Hanging with Willa, she has to prove her sand to rich kids but still maintain her distance when a boy a shows interest.
And then there’s the other thing — she is developing a confusing and uncomfortable ability to sense and find lost things by way of a spectral bridge that everyone else believes destroyed years ago.
When alt-girl librarian, Maggie (Jahkara J. Smith), finds out about the murders and abduction, she offers to help the local sheriff by consulting an unusual bag of Scrabble tiles. Danny Moore, the abducted child, is easing into the idea that he is “worthy” of Christmasland and not oblivious to the fact that Manx is getting younger as he feels worse. Bing becomes fascinated by an ad in a comic book that Vic lends him. Manx senses a disturbance in the force: Vic, her newfound abilities, and their obvious collision course with one another.
If some of these themes seem familiar, there’s good reason for that. With all due respect to Quinto, the true star power of the series comes from Eisner Award winner and Bram Stoker Award nominee, Joe Hill. Joe Hill has the comic book Locke & Key and three other novels to his name besides NOS4A2. And, just like his father, Steven King, he references his works (and dad’s) throughout one another.
The NOS4A2 premiere gives us the intriguing concept of Vic and Maggie and Manx coming to learn of each other’s existence, but Vic’s background is more of a focus than that of the world they’re building. A good portion of the episode is seemingly just to hopscotch around Vic’s hometown of Havermill, Massachusetts. The premiere introduces us to any number of peripheral characters ranging from her art teacher to the young girl she babysits. Even the great scene when she goes on foot from Willa’s party to her parents’ friends’ bonfire, a world away on the same lake seems like it doesn’t give us much going forward.
AMC dramas tend to anchor firmly on the central character; a sound mindset. But, in the case of Vic McQueen, I hope the future will be more “show” than “tell” in terms of her development, if only for the sake of run time.
.){kind=link}