This past weekend I binge watched all 13 episodes of Hemlock Grove. It is a ridiculous show, but I like ridiculous things. The dialogue was at some points amusing and at other times bemusing, but boy was it a fun ride! Yes, TV critics have valid points to make, and I respect their professional TV watching-ness, but as a general member of the TV watching public I really enjoyed giving up hours of my life to marathon this delightful fluff.
Things I thought were rough:
1. Famke Janssen’s British(?) accent was all over the map at times, but hey, she is some sort of supernatural foreign creature, so what is the problem in not being able to pin point exactly where her character picked up her accent from?
2. Dangling storylines – I don’t want to be too hard on these as the season finale clearly leaves room for expansion of unanswered questions in a potential season 2. As I binged my way through the show, one of the only things that took me out of the Hemlock Grove universe and made me question the characters was the request for “lots” of bacon grease in one episode. Lots wasn’t really needed (if you’ve watched that far you’ll understand what I’m saying), but it’s also sort of nitpicky. I think it’s the little nitpicky things that can add up and spoil a show, but overall I was along for the ride and didn’t hit any other big speed bumps.
A lot of critics slammed Bill Skarsgård for doing a poor job on sounding American. I didn’t have any issues with his accent, though I also have no idea what English sounds like when it’s spoken with a Swedish accent, so maybe that’s why I don’t know any better?
I find it kind of funny that all the reviewers seemed ok with the high levels of violence and sex.
The only point the critics (in general) and I agree on is the wimpy role of the female characters in the show. The females are villians or damsels in distress and don’t really get to play hero at all. I know the story focuses on the two male lead characters, so naturally they play the hero-type characters, but it would’ve been nice to have a stronger female supporting character that is not literally a woman (or girl) in the attic.
Mostly I take offense at reviewers and comments from the general public that state they’ve only watched 1-3 episodes of the series and then complain about plot holes. Perhaps these dangling plot lines get tied up in episode 7 or 8 or 9 or etc.? If everything was given away in the first few episodes there would be no reason to keep watching.
Best part of the show was the relationship between Roman and Peter. This is what makes the show interesting to watch and why I have no complaints about all the talky scenes between the two characters. Their buddy relationship makes it stand out from other similar programs (SPOILER————-Though the love triangle storyline between Roman, Peter, and Letha actually detracted from the show for me. It felt very been-there-done-that and was very predictable. I was super glad when they killed Letha off in the last episode. THANK YOU. I also didn’t like Clementine Chasseur. In fact, I think the show killed off all my least favorite characters at the end of season one, so I really hope they do a season two so I can check out the show after they did that great spring cleaning of characters that needed to expire.)
And enough with the True Blood comparisons! I love True Blood’s early seasons, but the last season was awful and makes Hemlock Grove look like a masterpiece. (SPOILER———-Though I was totally LOLing over Roman being a vampire. It’s like Eric’s little vampire brother, hahahaha.)
Though feel free to take my opinion with a grain of salt, as I’ve realized I totally have a soft spot for Petyr Baelish/Littlefinger in Game of Thrones. I am a terrible woman and human being.
Illuminated Past 