The Mosquito Coast Review: Everybody Knows This is Nowhere (Season 1 Episode 3)

If Apple TV’s The Mosquito Coast were half as good as a narrative as it is as a travelogue, this would be one of the best shows of the spring. 

This series is straight-up beautiful to look at. The Mosquito Coast Season 1 Episode 3, “Everybody Knows This Is Nowhere” is packed to the brim with gorgeous vistas, sprawling desert frontier, and desolate canon passes. Even the dead animal carcasses are lovingly arranged across the punishing landscapes. 

There’s a sequence where the Fox family flees an approaching helicopter, taking refuge in the bombed-out practice city that American military forces clearly use for practice at staging Middle Eastern raids. It’s both beautiful and shocking — how many of us ever considered this is a thing that exists? — but it’s also as useless as any other desert mirage. 

Unfortunately, that’s also kind of how this show feels. Like a useless mirage that keeps yanking away any hint at the real story that it might be telling.

We’re taken along steep by trudging step as the Foxes, now fleeing the scene of a gunfight with an American militia, make their way toward Mexico through the unrelenting desert. Everyone looks miserable — which is only fair, as many of us watching at home likely feel the same way.

Where are these people going? What are they running from? Why are Allie and Margot so willing to put their kids in danger in this way?

Despite the fact that multiple people ask point-blank what Allie did to force his family into these conditions, no one seems prepared to tell us. And since this is the third installment of what is only a seven-episode series, that’s a problem.

It’s easy to feel sympathy for the Fox family because this is a horrific experience, but those emotions are almost completely unearned. 

Of course, as viewers, we’re going to be rooting for the group to survive the threat of imminent death at every turn in the desert. We’re human, that’s how we’re wired! But are these characters we should be feeling that way about?

We have no idea why they’re doing what they’re doing! 

Shouldn’t we be angry at Allie and Margot for dragging their kids into this harsh place? Don’t we deserve to know why they’re doing this? (Apropos of nothing, I will admit Allie’s mad casual attitude to what is essentially graverobbing makes me dislike him even more!)

Given how little we know about what I’d consider the basics of this show’s plot, it’s wild to me that The Mosquito Coast spends an entire episode basically walking around the desert.

Especially since we see/learn the most about ex-coyote Chuy, and it’s not clear at the end of this hour that he’ll even survive, let alone that we’ll see him again. 

Truly, this show is so frustrating. I want to root for these people. I want to cheer when they narrowly miss being discovered by a gang of coyotes. I want to feel relieved when they barely escape a shady helicopter or a dangerous desert creature with their lives. 

I want to hope they’ll make it to Mexico because something better is waiting for them there, not just because at some point, maybe, The Mosquito Coast might tell me what they’re running from when they get there. 

Additional Thoughts and Observations

• If I could change one thing about this show, it would be to let us see more of Margot’s perspective. Melissa George has an incredibly expressive face so she does what she can, but it’s hard not to get a cultish sisterwife vibe from a character who seems both so obviously aware that the life she’s giving her kids isn’t ideal, but equally unable to discuss the things her husband has done. But The Mosquito Coast gives her almost no voice of her own.
• Literally. Did Margo even get half a dozen lines this episode?
• Trying to think of a moment where I have disliked a character more than when Chuy gets bit by a rattler saving Allie’s son Charlie and Allie’s response is simply to tell him he really needs him to do the Fox family a solid and call his friend to come to pick them up. Like, a thank you might have been in order, my dude, before you start blatantly using a dying man. 
• After two episodes of the weird The Umbrella Academy-style U.S. Marshals following the Fox family around, they’re nowhere to be seen in the episode. Where are they? Is the FBI or some other U.S. government agency still trying to prevent the Foxes from leaving the country? Did they just give up after they found the dead mini-militia? Or does this show just not care about what’s happening beyond the Foxes’ immediate orbit? I have no idea. 
• I cannot get a read on Fox daughter Dina. Out of everyone, she seems the closest to admitting that he’s full of it (which he generally seems to be — again, maybe not but how would I know!!), but when push comes to shove she keeps towing the family line. I’d love to know why that is.

What did you think of this episode of The Mosquito Coast? Share your thoughts in the comments below!

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New episodes of The Mosquito Coast stream Fridays on Apple TV+.

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