Into the Dark Review: The Current Occupant (Season 2 Episode 10)
Into the Dark Season 2 Episode 10, “The Current Occupant,” is one of those stories where your mileage will very much vary depending on how forgiving you are towards the genre.
The series itself is a bit odd from a conceptual level. It’s certainly an anthology series in the vein of Black Mirror or The Twilight Zone but it’s also slightly more grandiose than that. They are feature-length long installments and they seem to be designed by Blumhouse Television to be horror scripts that thought would make interesting forays but wouldn’t play well in a theater.
That’s our way of saying that this is an odd little show to begin with and “The Current Occupant” does nothing to lessen that. The episode follows Henry Cameron, a man with no memories who was in a traumatic accident and slowly starts to suspect that he is the President of the United States being held against his will as part of a big conspiracy.
This is a straight-up psychological thriller, and like we said at the top, your enjoyment in this will greatly depend on how willing you are to go along with that particular brand of horror. Personally speaking, this is a sticking point almost from the beginning because the rules are far too flimsy.
Anything can happen and anything can be explained by way of a sick brain. We can see a character doing something at one specific moment and then later have it be revealed that they were actually doing something entirely different and only thought they were doing that thing.
It uses mental illness, which is an entirely different subject altogether, as this magic button a writer can press so that any kind of concept of reality can be useless. It’s the worse type of unreliable narrator not only because it’s the protagonist that you can’t trust but also the very world itself and everything you see happening.
It ends up killing a lot of the investment that we have in the story because the very plot itself is lying to us.
That being said, a lot of people genuinely enjoy this subgenre. That’s where a real line is drawn. If you, in general, enjoy psychological thrillers, such as Shutter Island, then there is a very strong chance that you will like “The Current Occupant.” If you don’t, then you won’t. It’s as simple as that.
Misgivings aside, this is a good entry into and example of psychological thrillers. Ignoring that all of the professionals involved seem to be very bad at their job, the slow rollout and reaction to Henry realizing that he might be the President is executed quite well.
Unfortunately, it doesn’t capitalize on a mentally ill President as much as it could considering that we have an actually deranged one currently, so that’s a serious missed opportunity.
In all seriousness, it doesn’t enough to say about the possibility that someone who held the highest office in the land could be out of his mind. There’s nowhere for it to take this idea, even if it was inclined to, because it’s too invested in the is-he-is-he-not part of it to even be concerned with that.
The performances guiding this is really the best part of “The Current Occupant.” Barry Watson (perhaps best known as Matt from 7th Heaven) as Henry is great as the grounding force of this, really letting you believe that he could both be the President and also just a guy from a mental hospital.
Along with him, Marvin ‘Krondon’ Jones III (Tobias from Black Lightning) as The Orderly is this terrific menacing force throughout it. Anyone familiar with him knows that all he really needs to do to sell a scene is have this grin and it’ll all work and that remains true here.
He has a wonderful duality here in that he can both be this soothing presence to Henry who tells him that everything’s going to be okay and then he can turn it on a dime to be a male Nurse Ratchet. Jones operates in both of those lanes so efficiently that it’s almost like he’s playing two different roles.
Ultimately, a lot of people genuinely enjoy this subgenre. That’s where a real line is drawn. If you, in general, enjoy psychological thrillers, such as Shutter Island, then there is a very strong chance that you will like “The Current Occupant.” If you don’t, then you won’t. It’s as simple as that.
What did you think of Into the Dark: The Current Occupant? Share your thoughts in the comments below!
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Into the Dark airs monthly on Hulu.
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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.