Sometimes a concept takes itself so seriously, it turns endlessly amusing by extension. Writer/producer Steven Knight is certainly no stranger to big-swing ideas. One of the men responsible for the BBC drama “Peaky Blinders,” the one-man-driving-in-a-car movie “Locke,” and “Who Wants To Be A Millionaire,” Knight is such a ridiculously prolific writer and creator that he almost seems to be churning out loglines at this point in his career. He recently made the extremely strange, almost incongruous, FX series “Taboo,” starring Tom Hardy. If you’ve seen “Taboo” or the recent film, “Serenity,” Knight’s movie about a tuna fisherman played by Matthew McConaughey that (spoilers!) takes place inside of a computer program, you might be somewhat prepared for how batshit nonsensical his new Apple TV+ show, “See,” starring Jason Momoa, truly is.
READ MORE: ‘See’ Trailer: Jason Momoa Stars In New Post-Apocalyptic Series Coming To Apple TV+
A deadly virus has reduced the earth’s population to less than two million people. The humans that survived emerged without their sight and it’s been so long since people have been able to see, the very concept of seeing cannot be fathomed, let alone explained; the very sense has fallen into myth. Momoa plays halberd-cleaver wielding warrior Baba Voss (other priceless monikers include Gether Bax and Bow Lion), protector of a snow-covered village in the mountains. His tribe wears fur skins and rugged armor, armed with utilitarian tools and weaponry that are practical, and pliable, for survival use as well as combat.
“See” opens with an epic cliff-side siege, the “Aquaman”/”Game Of Thrones” actor shoulder blocking and power bombing his enemies off wooded boulder-stacked bluffs. The assailants, a group of Witchfinders have heard rumors that Baba’s wife, Maghra (Hera Hilmar), carries the child of a much-whispered legend, the child of a man who can harness the power of light (aka, can see). Maghra ends up giving birth to twins (a boy and a girl; how did you guess?) that indeed, have sight. Midwife Paris (Alfre Woodard) insists that the tribe leave the village, flee from the Queen’s hunters, but many believe there is no way off the mountain.
“There is a bridge,” Paris promises, “built by a man,” (yes, the dialog is like that). The villagers have never heard of such a path but apparently it been present for years. The man of myth who built the bridge, Jerlamarel (Joshua Henry), is the alleged father of the newborn twins, all of whom may possess his power of sight. After protecting the infants from a bear —a scene that’s almost shameless ripped straight from “The Revenant”— Jerlamarel informs Baba Voss that he’s left a box for them, and that’s what’s inside will change the world. There are books inside, books that Paris claims to house all the knowledge from every age (because, sure, that’s possible).
The twins age rapidly over the next two episodes, growing up with words that no one besides them could fathomably know or conceive. Meanwhile, the wicked Queen Kane (Sylvia Hoeks, “Blade Runner 2049”) listens to Lou Reed songs from her Kazua Dam fortress, masturbating through prayer, decreeing herself a god of destruction and ordering public executions with what seems like molten lava. Her subjects believe the holy power from the river is failing. Queen Kane claims that Jerlamarel and his witch babies are to blame for the shifting tides, the bones of her ritualized society being built off abstract utterances of feeling, for “caution and fear waste so much time.”
“See” unabashedly takes its core genre concept to kooky weird places. It’s an intense sense of self-seriousness preventing the series from ever going full-on carnivalesque (at least for the first three hours critics were provided with), when the show might as well fully unleash itself if it’s going to be this obscene and extreme. The strange syntax and surreal worldbuilding details are so forced they almost become fun to laugh at once you get used to their nonsensical nature. The story is so fiendishly ludicrous it borders on transmorphing into something one might describe as enjoyable entertainment, if the journey featured less blood-splattered brutality and had any sort of ideological center. Aesthetically, the mythology seems to accomplish what it set out to, Knight constructing an end of the world frontier fantasy that’s so bone-crunching and over-solemn it’s just plain silly.
A lot of cash was clearly spent on this thing, so its sweeping visuals are simply stunning (director Francis Lawrence helmed at least the first three episodes) and Bear McCreary provides an effectively ominous score (Drums… drums…. in the deep…). There are quite a few helicopter shots following messenger hawks, plus a good amount of inventive action that doesn’t see the word gratuitous as a problem, or a factor even. If only Aquaman pummeling people could counteract all the ludicrous storytelling.
It’s next to impossible to resist the urge to howl at Momoa’s performance sometimes (but maybe that’s the point?) crawling on all fours and yowling war chants exotically in battle. He seems forever cursed to be cast as a Robert E. Howard hulking brute type, destined to gruel and growl through squibs and gritty swordplay for the remainder of his days —the dime store barbarian of a money shot driven high concept productions run by Silicon Valley suits. Hoeks, on the other hand, steals every moment she’s on screen, sinking her venomous teeth into a juicy character, using callous cadence and outbursts of fiery chaos to intimidate any and all who would oppose her, even forcing a chambermaid to perform cunnilingus as she prays, communing with her devilish faith; her performance equal parts genuinely disturbing and sickly captivating.
Key world-building specifics are not fully outlined in the first 3 episodes. A side plot develops featuring forest-dwelling humanoids known as Shadows, some kind of cartwheeling dryad covered from head to toe in a blueish-white earth mud; they can apparently be recruited as stealth agents to eavesdrop for you, or something? (Don’t worry, I’ve watched the show and I don’t know what I’m the hell I’m talking about either.) Frequently used terms like “killings ropes” or the “god flame” require an adjustment period but learning about this dumb world is actually one of the most amusing things about watching the series.
“See” is high-concept drudge that treats total nonsense like a life and death struggle the fate of the whole universe rests upon. While it grows on you as empty escapism as it treks through the mud that doesn’t make up for its narrative shortcomings. This isn’t a TV series you watch for character depth or thematic resonance; it’s a post-apocalyptic fairy tale so dark and dire that no one would want to hear before being tucked in to bed — a deformed beast of surrealist fantasy so utterly sincere, so insanely overwrought in its conviction, that it becomes next to impossible to take any of it seriously. [C-]
