NOS4A2 Review: The Shorter Way (Season 1 Episode 1)
Unless you were already familiar with the novel of the same name by Joe Hill (son of legendary horror writer Stephen King), it’s entirely possible you’d come away from NOS4A2 Season 1 Episode 1, “The Shorter Way,” with the feeling that this is a somewhat disjointed and monotonous beginning to the series.
To be clear, NOS4A2 is hardly bad. But the biggest problem with the series thus far — and it’s unclear given its structure when it would ever pull out of this — is the way in which it is a bit of a slow burn in this first hour. It’s being very methodical with how it is setting up a lot of the pieces, conceivably to match the pace of the novel.
That’s all well and good, in theory. But in execution, this comes across feeling rather tedious and a bit of a slog to get through.
Bits and pieces of the series premiere work, but there’s an overall feeling that the show is trying just a tad too hard. This is best encapsulated in a moment involving a supernatural map that features names like Pennywise and Lovecraft — just in case you couldn’t already tell that this is supposed to be evoking Stephen King and H.P. Lovecraft, specifically.
Simultaneously, the show wants to leave just enough room for the viewer to figure out exactly what is happening with certain characters and also demands credit for how smart it is.
Again, a lot of what it’s doing works individually, for the most part.
Vic — the small-town girl just wanting to be free and discovering abilities involving a bridge that shouldn’t be there — has a nice leading-lady energy that should work well for the show going forward.
Played by Ashleigh Cummings, there’s a lot of vulnerability and hesitation in her performance that comes through excellently for a girl that is so terrified of the steps she’ll have to make out of high school.
On the opposite side of this — the antagonist to Vic’s protagonist — is Charlie Manx, played by Zachary Quinto. He is ostensibly a vampire that drains children of their energy in order to stay young. Charlie feels like he is practically in a completely different show from Vic, yet those tonal shifts aren’t as detrimental as one would imagine.
Quinto is essentially doing a different variation of Sylar from Heroes and one that, even if it doesn’t work quite as well as one might hope, gets by mostly on the familiarity of that type of performance.
Overall, NOS4A2 isn’t a series that can truly be judged solely on this first episode. That’s because it’s hard to see (based on the way plotting goes and the pace of this episode) how this will shake out even one episode from now.
The premiere doesn’t exactly inspire confidence at first glance, but it’s possible this a show with promise buried down deep that will take a bit of time to get the ball rolling.
What did you think of this episode of NOS4A2? Share your thoughts in the comments below!
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NOS4A2 airs Sundays at 10/9c on AMC.
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Drew Koenig
Drew has an ongoing, borderline unhealthy obsession with pop culture, but with television in particular. When he's not aggressively trying to get out of a perpetual state of catching up, he can be found passionately defending the ending of Lost. More of his online work can be found at The Lost Cause and he also co-hosts The Lost Cause Pod.