Dead of Summer: Our 5 Favorite Things About the Series Premiere

Summer is here, and it’s about to get scary.

 Dead of Summer, the much-anticipated new series from the creators of Once Upon a Time, has finally premiered on the Freeform network. The show’s spooky camp setting and the creators’ promise of quintessential camp moments and a horror/’80s teen movie mash-up vibe had me seriously psyched to get a taste of the show that is gearing up to be Freeform’s big summer hit.

Here are five things that I loved about this series premiere.

1. The opening scene, which hints at a larger sinister presence at Camp Stillwater

The very first scene of the premiere takes place over a century before our group of counselors moves in. Set in 1871, the scene shows an older piano-playing black man as he’s accosted by a group of white men, who drag him away while screaming at him, “What did you do to them?” We see tons of corpses floating in the lake, which begins to bubble and turn red, as if filled with blood.

It’s massively creepy and plunges us right into that campy-scary vibe we’ve been promised. The creators of the series have also confirmed that the camp and lake have a dark past which will be explored in future seasons (should the anthology series be picked up after this first run). I’m always up for stories with a deep, intricate mythology, and this pilot definitely lays the groundwork for that nicely.

I’m intrigued and want to know more about that piano player, why the men grabbed him, and what the deal is with all those corpses in the lake–which is basically the whole point of a series premiere, so good job on that front! We also see the same piano-playing dude (or, more accurately, his ghost) in Joel’s video footage at the end–so he and his death are definitely linked to whatever supernatural WTF-ery is going down by that lake.

2. The music!

Prior to the series’ debut, I spoke with several cast members (including Amber Coney, Mark Indelicato, and Elizabeth Lail) and the creators. Everyone emphasized the big role that music plays in setting the tone of the series, and they certainly weren’t wrong.

For the most part, the show has a great 1989 feel without seeming too over-the-top and in-your-face in its period moments. The musical selections in the premiere are great. I love the use of the Janet Jackson song that opens the episode and the Guns ‘N Roses song “Patience,” which is where the premiere gets its title from.

3. Amy’s backstory flashbacks

It’s kind of weird that I enjoy the flashback sequence as much as I do, because I’m actually not a huge fan of Amy so far.

As far as de facto protagonists go, she’s sort of bland (nearly everyone around her is far more interesting, including Margot, who we’re unlikely to ever see again on account of her being dead and all). Amy is verging on Mary Sue territory right off the bat (she’s beautiful and smart and everyone is attracted to her and she’s got all these morals!) with not too much of a personality in sight.

All that said, where the flashback sequence wound up took me by surprise and I like that. You can distinctly tell that there is something off with Amy throughout the premiere, but the root of her trauma (Margot’s shocking and very sudden death) caught me off guard. It’s a very traumatic event to open the series with, and nicely manages to provide a reason for the camp’s “haunting” of Amy.

Of course, the actual manner of Margot’s demise (death by accidental fall from not-very-high window during a police raid on a party…) is slightly absurd, but we can’t have everything.

While other characters are seeing glimpses of specters, it is Amy who receives the most direct scares in this premiere. The reveal that Margot was killed at the party when she fell from the window pairs well with Amy running from her literalized trauma made physical in the form of Margot’s ghost.

The fact that she kept Margot’s bracelet is a little weird, though, not going to lie.

4. The closing montage, hinting at the secrets each counselor is harboring

While a bit ham-fisted, the ending nicely sets up nearly every character’s arc.

Amy jumps into the lake with her fellow counselors, facing her fears (an ongoing motif in her conversations with Margot) and beginning the process of healing from her trauma.

Joel spies on Deb through her bedroom window (purposely this time), potentially setting up an illicit romance between the two–or Joel discovering whatever dark secret Deb is hiding with that box she dug up from the middle of the woods.

Cricket writes derogatory slurs about herself. She’s apparently rife with self-hate but covers it up with jokes and snark while with her fellow counselors.

Alex cuts the tags off of his many fancy rich-boy shirts, and we see that each shirt has the name of some other dude on the dry cleaning tag. Is Alex pretending to be rich? Did he steal those shirts? Why is he stealing shirts? What’s going on? Questions!

Jessie confronts Deputy Garrett and reveals that she is his long-lost camp girlfriend “Braces,” all grown up. Yawn. Whatever. I don’t really care about this one. She also delivers the deeply cringeworthy line “they’re off now,” referring to her braces, as she sexily walks away from her Deputy crush. Oy.

Drew’s secret is arguably the biggest. Drew appears to be a transgender man (or perhaps is genderqueer? Unclear, so far). While everyone at camp assumes that Drew is male, Drew never explicitly addresses their gender identity, so I’m going to stick with they/their pronouns until we know otherwise. Whatever Drew’s deal is, they are content to lay low and avoid the other counselors, likely for fear of backlash over their gender identity. It’s 1989, after all, and despite how welcoming everyone is of Blair, people were generally less accepting of non-cis, non-straight gender and sexual identities.

The only counselors we don’t get dirt on are Jason (who I’m betting will be the first counselor to die because we know literally nothing at all about this guy) and Blair (who better not die because you don’t just waste Mark Indelicato like that).

5. Elizabeth Mitchell

I love Elizabeth Mitchell and her silky-smooth voice. I loved her on Lost and I loved her as the Snow Queen on Once Upon a Time, even though that Frozen arc was terrible. She’s great. I’m very interested in the enigma that is Camp Stillwater’s owner Deb.

Nearly everything she’s done in just one episode begs one question or another, which has set her up as the most mysterious and intriguing character.

Why did she decide to pour her life savings into re-opening this creepy camp? What’s in the box she digs up in the middle of the woods? Why is she (apparently) into a barely legal teenage boy? Why is she so on edge when Deputy Garrett confronts her about the map that Groundskeeper Dave had in his cabin?

Clearly, we are meant to believe that Deb either knows the camp’s dark secrets or suspects them. The question of why she is reopening the camp knowing what she knows, and whether she’s complicit in the camp’s evil (or to what degree), remains to be seen.

Stray thoughts:

• I fully understand that for plot purposes, Margot’s popular girl friend needed to be bitchy (I guess?) but she’s like a caricature of a terrible teen girl. It’s highly unlikely that we’ll ever see her again (she was very much a side character and only there to facilitate the Amy-Margot friendship), but still. She is like every Heather from Heathers rolled into one, but much less cool.
• Dearly departed Groundskeeper Dave is also a bit of a lame duck. A plot point, a half-an-episode weak red herring at best.
• I really dislike Jessie. Like, right off the bat. Each of the other characters at least hints at having some kind of inner depth, complication, or turmoil, but Jessie is extremely flat. She’s a fairly stereotypical nerdy-girl-turns-hot, but her flirtatiousness and insta-jealousy of Amy when Deputy Garrett shows interest in the new girl is extremely off-putting. I hope that she gets personality traits beyond “thirsty and territorial” sooner rather than later.
• Speaking of Deputy Garrett, I am getting major Billy Loomis vibes (don’t click that link if you want to avoid decade-old spoilers for the Scream film franchise). Is it just me? They front-load his backstory (he attended camp for one summer, his father died, he’s an ostracized townie), which seems suspicious. Also, his “don’t let what was supposed to be stop you from seeing what really is” line to Amy is perhaps the clunkiest piece of dialogue I’ve heard in the past two years. Really.
• For these reasons, I cannot even begin to express how little I care about the Amy/Deputy Garrett/Jessie love triangle brewing. I just cannot.
• Nearly every scene featuring Cricket has her holding a magazine directly, comically in front of her face. It’s hilariously over the top. We get it, show; you’re set in the ’80s. No need to keep doing that.

What did you think of the series premiere of Dead of Summer? Share your thoughts in the comments below!

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Dead of Summer airs Tuesday at 9/8c on Freeform.

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