Grade: C
The River started off the first half of its two hour premier with a bang but it ended with a huge disappointment in
”Marbeley”,a standalone episode with only 10 minutes of possible storyline advancement. While it is a really enjoyable episode the real problem with it is how the plot really pertains to the entire series storyline. With only 8 episodes to the series it is hard to see where things could go & one of the worst things they could throw at the audience was an episode that really had nothing to do with anything. In
”Marbeley” we follow our search party off the boat & into the jungle to find a monkey with a doll’s head as a hat, a tree with a whole lot more dolls tied to it including a special teddy bear, &, something Peli knows best, an angry ghost. These of course add up to a nice heart-pounding hour of television & do nothing to move the series forward that couldn’t have been dropped into an episode that probably mattered a bit more.
So as the group decides to get off the boat for a while, who wouldn’t after all that cursed spirit insanity that went on in
”Magus”, & explore the jungle with no real rhyme or reason besides the fact that, “Hey, Emmett could be out here somewhere so lets look.” Soon into their wandering around we discover an early settler graveyard & then what at first looks like a mini person is really just a dolls head but wait its also on-top of a monkey. This leads them to the doll tree with Lincoln finding a special little teddy from his youth attached to the tree. This leads the team to realize that Emmett was there at some point so they decide to venture a bit more into the jungle & while crossing a creek what seems like a hand reaches out to grab Tess’ leg & try and drag her under. This of course leads our team to finding out Lincoln took the teddy & everyone going back to the doll tree to camp out for the night instead of continuing in the dark. The crew sets ups camera’s, tries provoking the dolls, & then all decide to head of to bed where we get the classic
Paranormal Activity style fast-forward through the video & soon we see Lincoln get dragged a bit out of his tent. Another fast-forward happens until we start seeing Lincoln being tugged a bit more & then being fully dragged out of his tent & into the jungle screaming.
Like I said before, the episode does good on delivering some heart pounding, edge of your seat, can’t wait to see what happens next type of horror. It is a good ghost story but one that would probably work just as well, if not better, on a series like the early episodes of
Supernatural. When all that is taken away we are left with 10 minutes or so of actual usable story development & of course it will be a while before we know if any of the episode was really useful at all. Of course I will keep watching though because the one thing
The River did was set up an intriguing story with a clever new way to tell it. Let’s just hope that the remaining 6 episodes pack more of an all around forward feel like the first half of the premier or else this will just be another Peli joke on everyone.
