HBO’s new limited series “The Third Day” boasts an original structure to tell a relatively familiar story. Six episodes will air on HBO broken up into two halves of three episodes a piece. Each half has a different protagonist and takes place months apart. And the two halves are connected by a live episode next month which will reportedly consist of a single unbroken shot and isn’t really needed to make sense of the story as a whole. Got that? It’s a lot of structure to keep track of for a relatively short mini-series.
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What’s important to know is that the vast majority of the five episodes sent to press takes place at a mysterious location called Osea, which may be just of the coast of the United Kingdom but has a surreal nature that places it in fictional history just east of “Shutter Island” and just west of the setting of “The Wicker Man.” Leaning into these influences, the first three episodes work because of a great, vulnerable performance from Jude Law, and a refined tonal balance that keeps just enough questions unanswered to keep viewers engaged. The fourth and fifth episodes are a little more frustrating, but the great Naomie Harris anchors those in a similarly urgent way and it feels like the final chapter could really tie it all together. (It’s a shame that HBO chose not to send that to press; don’t blame us if the whole thing falls apart in the final hour).
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From the beginning of “The Third Day,” Sam (Jude Law) is suffering. Not only is it the anniversary of the death of his son at the hands of a sociopath but he was recently robbed of a fortune that was in a safe in his house. Reeling from the blows he’s been dealt by life, he wanders the woods where his son’s body was found like he does on this date every year and comes upon a truly startling scene: a young woman trying to commit suicide. He rescues the girl and takes her back to her home across a causeway that the tides only make passable for small windows every day and to the unusual island of Osea.
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At first, Osea seems like a quaint vacation spot, a place that may have been left behind by technology’s progress but with empathetic, welcoming villagers, including Mr. and Mrs. Martin (a great Paddy Considine & Emily Watson), who comfort Sam and encourage him to stay the night after the causeway closes. Sam finds another stranger in the only room above the Martin’s pub, a woman named Jess (Katherine Waterston), to whom he becomes close in emotional and physical ways. As Sam opens up about his problems to Jess, the island becomes more and more threatening. There are mysterious, shrouded figures in the woods, unsettling scenes of an undercurrent of violence at Osea, and, strangest of all, there seems to be a connection between Sam’s history and that of the island.
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A man coming to an island of devout people that he’s never been to before and seeming like he was fated to do so is naturally going to draw comparisons to “The Wicker Man,” but Dennis Lehane and Martin Scorsese’s adaptation of “Shutter Island” feels like a distinct influence here too. Much like Leonardo DiCaprio’s character in that film, Sam is fleeing unimaginable grief, and doing so to a place that seems to be welcoming him in a sinisterly seductive manner. Law dives into the role, finding the immediacy of a character struggling through an increasingly confusing situation. Director Marc Munden, who worked as an assistant for Mike Leigh and Terence Davies, finds just the right balance of character and visual storytelling, never allowing “The Third Day” to devolve into surreal horror and maintaining focus on a relatable story of a man pushing through grief and fear in a way that makes leaving his life on the mainland behind seem like a believable choice. Sam is increasingly scared of what is going on at Osea, but life at home is no less terrifying right now. Law nails that aspect of this character.
The fourth episode jumps forward several seasons and introduces viewers to an entirely different protagonist, a mother named Helen (Naomie Harris) who comes to Osea for a vacation with her two daughters (Charlotte Gairdner-Mihell and Nico Parker) and finds it in a very different state than what is shown in the first three episodes. Helen is clearly fleeing something as well, and the second half of “The Third Day” first seems to be a symbolic echo of the first with more of an emphasis on maternal symbolism than paternal, but then it ties itself more directly to the story of Sam, Jess, and the Martins, revealing piece by piece what has been going on since the end of chapter three. Again, it would be really nice to know how this all ties together in the final chapter, but the storytelling is consistent enough through the first five hours to believe that the team here will do so well.
The writing on “The Third Day” has a habit of explicitly stating its themes, often through exchanges in which Sam and Helen make clear what they’re feeling and needing in that given moment. It gives the whole thing a theatrical quality that could turn some people off seeking more realistic dialogue, but the show maintains that heightened tone throughout all five episodes and it gives the entire experience a raised tension even in its minor moments. Many of the relatively mundane conversations on “The Third Day” feel like they’re laced with threatening subtext, like the villagers on Osea could merely throw Sam in a helmet of bees any minute now, adding to the intense watchability of the overall show. What really makes “The Third Day” special at times is how much Jude Law pushes through that ominous surrealism to find something human and relatable.
The Harris episodes have a different energy—if Sam is giving up on everything, Helen is trying to save her daughters—and feel almost more purposefully mysterious in a way that can be frustrating. Harris is very good here but they simply lack the urgency of the first half of the series as the viewer has to piece together how they connect to something already seen instead of experiencing them in a more immediate, character-driven way. It’s the difference between trying to figure out the history and mysteries of Osea in the first half versus trying to connect new characters to old ones in the second. However, Harris and the two young performers hold it together emotionally and the fifth episode ends with a scene that implies a fascinating final chapter to come. [B]
“The Third Day” premieres September 14 at 9pm ET on HBO, but episodes will premiere first a few days beforehand at the Toronto International Film Festival.