Eternally Yours Season 1 Episode 4 Review: A Bunch of Halloween Haters

Eternally Yours Season 1 Episode 4, “Halloween,” reveals that the vampires, much like their ghostly network counterparts, detest the annual excuse for humans to turn their culture into costumes.

There’s also the bit about werewolf attacks being much higher on Halloween — and dismemberment is not the vibe these vamps want.

So as the coven steps out of its comfort zone, we are treated to a mixed bag of tricks and treats at the spookiest house on the block.

This Halloween outing feels like the first proper multi-storyline arc for the sitcom. In honor of that traditional format, the house divides its attention rightfully between Liz and Mort.

It’s so great to see Mort get more screen time and a romantic subplot as well. The twist that Jesse and Emma are so worried about being mauled, only to be emotionally dismembered by a teenage girl, is quite hilarious.

It’s not even a joke, but Liz teaching European history as someone who lived it is actually hilarious and iconic of her.

The vampire jokes are fun, but they hit on another level when all those stereotypes come back around on Charles as he attempts to embrace them for Liz in a declaration of selflessness.

Charles knows his way around a classic Count Dracula laugh.

Any excuse for a sitcom to do a Halloween special is a good one, but there’s just something about a spooky sitcom embracing its nature that hits different.

Eternally Yours more than delivers on its candy-coated vibes. We have werewolves, telepathic rage-baiting, scary movie marathons, and bowls of candy being stolen off the front porch.

This is less a critique and more a personal desire, but it would have been neat to see the creators go in a different direction from Ghosts and have the vampires embrace Halloween as the one night of the year they can be their true gothic, monstrous selves in the open.

This running joke that all supernatural beings (except for the werewolves, apparently) hate Halloween is fine. But it’s also kind of lame without someone like Max championing the traditions of this sacred holiday.

Charles and Liz’s marriage struggles are a perfect continuation of the pilot’s driving premise. Not to mention, their confrontation is one of the most compelling scenes of the show so far.

Liz stands out as one of the most developed and likable vamps of the bunch. She craves humanity’s mundane struggles in a way Charles doesn’t. For her, this is the first time she’s getting to experience the world as a modern woman with agency. Charles has had hundreds of years of job promotions and dinners with the boss. Liz has only had decades.

That potency of her desire to be appreciated by her human boss and promoted sets up a kitchen fight that showcases the characters and the actors’ range beautifully.

Charles has every right to argue that nothing matters as a vampire because he’s experienced it all with little ceremony. When Liz reminds her husband that something mattering to her should be enough to earn his sacrifice, it’s an emotional gut punch.

Follow that up with a grand gesture from Charles in bat form, and these two might be the couple to root for moving forward.

Eternally Yours toys with another fascinating new layer to these immortals.

Emma and Jesse emulate millennial energy despite being just as ancient as Liz and Charles. So it makes sense that their vocabulary won’t always match up with their youthful appearance. Thus, this episode experiments with incorporating more outdated phrases into their speech.

In concept, it’s an excellent way to show their age. Ghosts has become such a powerhouse because it utilizes the different backgrounds and speech patterns of its long-dead characters to manipulate line delivery. 

That can absolutely happen here, even with vampires who have learned how to modernize their speech out of survival.

In execution, it’s too polarizing. Partially because we haven’t heard Emma and Jesse speak like this, and because the shaky delivery is at war with the rest of their lines. This show should absolutely play around with dialect, but in a way that feels natural to the characters (like with Liz and Charles).

While there are plenty of treats to nibble on, there are lots of tricks too.

However, tricks imply something unexpected or surprising happens, and it really doesn’t. The teasing werewolf storyline flirts with future reveals but doesn’t escalate to anything tangible yet, and the romantic linchpin of this series is nowhere to be seen.

Emma and Max are supposed to be playing out the early days of their sweeping love story. Yet despite spending the entire episode together, there is no romantic chemistry to be seen or any hints of intimacy until the final seconds of the episode. The writing all but treats them as disgruntled siblings sharing a space.

Throwing them into bed together at the last second doesn’t change the fact that this show is doing little to sell us on its core couple.

The scariest thing about this episode is the complete lack of romantic connection Max and Emma have, and that’s a problem.

---

What did you think of this episode of Eternally Yours? Share your thoughts in the comments below, and don’t forget to leave your own rating!

Critic Rating:

Audience Rating:

 

Eternally Yours airs Thursdays at 8:30/9:30c on CBS.

Check out our latest TV recommendations, updated weekly!

Want more from Tell-Tale TV? Subscribe to our newsletter here!