SurrealEstate Review: The Harvey (Season 1 Episode 2)
On SurrealEstate Season 1 Episode 2, “The Harvey,” we get a glimpse at a different type of spirit and a look at the team’s dynamics.
This episode makes an interesting choice in opening with an unrelated case, but it ultimately works. The first few minutes make it very clear that this series knows what it’s doing when it comes to horror only showing the audience enough to really get their heart racing.
The events from eight months ago feed the throughline of the episode, Susan’s integration into the team.
Anyone who has started a new job knows that there will be bumps in the road. Susan’s no different, and it’s refreshing to see someone seasoned stumble as she takes on a new challenge.
This kind of adjustment and reevaluation is part of the process of acclimating to a new team and environment. It would be disingenuous of SurrealEstate to not show us that.
Susan’s situation is a bit different than most because Luke is right this isn’t just another real estate job. With The Roman Agency, she’s dealing with things that have teeth. They can kill people if she doesn’t understand them.
While SurrealEstate does have a funny edge, it doesn’t want to border on negligence at the expense of its humor. That’s what Susan would be dancing towards if she didn’t listen to Luke.
The monster-of-the-week works better too since it doesn’t have to share screentime. Since we’re only dealing with the Quincey house there’s more time to unpack and explore the case at hand, and build tension.
Molly Lewis does a great job as Cindy. She’s able to pull off the sweet little girl and lean into the monster. It really gives me The Haunting of Bly Manor vibes in how she handles her more menacing scenes.
The villain, once again, seems to be wrapped up in a nice little bow pretty quickly with the big obstacle really being the homeowners and not the ability to capture the creature. After Luke’s talk with August it sounds like this being is hard to defeat and insurmountable, but all they needed was a game and a device.
It is possible the Roman Agency is just really good at their job. (Considering they’re specialists, I really hope they are.) However, “The Harvey,” made me crave a deeper more formidable enemy.
It’s still early in the season, and we need to see that these characters can win, but we also need to see them challenged. This goes back to my review of SurrealEstate Season 1 Episode 1, “Pilot,” which talks about how the show seems to be laying down framework for more intricate mythos.
“The Harvey” is a step in the right direction. As the audience gets more grounded in this world, hopefully the writers can play with and and expand arcs across multiple stories and focus less on monster-of-the-week standalones.
Where SurrealEstate seems to start building it’s mythos is with Luke’s dad. Seeing that little bit of conversation is a nice touch at the end and key to making us invest in these characters.
An audience will return to this show each week because they like the characters and the team. Yes, we want to see them sell houses, but we want to like them too. Giving us a little glimpse into what Luke’s father is like and why he’s there is something I’m looking forward to the series exploring more.
“The Harvey” is a strong second outing that shows that the series knows how to build a story around characters instead of plot. They understand that they don’t need to serve each character at the same time.
Now that the audience is in the world they can take some time to dig into these personal backstories while delivering monster-of-the-week type stories.
Stray Thoughts
- Luke briefly mentions that the spirit that killed the family in the teaser lied to him. While the episode doesn’t dig into this, it will curious to see what happens if or when Luke is wrong. Early on in the season isn’t the time to introduce that storyline, but visiting one of these cases is definitely something that would be worthwhile to examine.
- Happy to see a little LGBTQ+ representation on the show and to have it established in such a way that it’s visible but not the center of the story. Yet, we know that this is going to up since Father Phil mentioned he was a fallen priest. I am looking forward to hopefully unpacking that a little as the series continues.
- I sincerely hope that part of the larger mythos I’m craving comes from Megan’s house. She appears briefly on this episode, but doesn’t do much.
What did you think of this episode of SurrealEstate? Share your thoughts in the comments below!
Critic Rating:
User Rating:
SurrealEstate airs Fridays at 10/9c on Syfy.
Follow us on Twitter and on 
Instagram!
Want more from Tell-Tale TV? Subscribe to our newsletter here!
Lauren Busser
Lauren Busser is an Associate Editor at Tell-Tale TV. She is a writer of fiction and nonfiction whose work has appeared in Bitch Media, Popshot Quarterly, Brain Mill Press Voices, and The Hartford Courant.