Hemlock Grove is the new webseries produced by Netflix; the second series Netflix
has produced in this fashion. Despite low expectations, Netflix’s
previous webseries, was surprisingly decent - greatly raising the bar
for Hemlock Grove. We tuned in hoping for something really good.
We were disappointed. So, very very disappointed.
There
is so much to complain about regarding this show that we envisioned a full
series of posts on the myriad fails but, being a webseries, they would
quickly become irrelevant unless the worst should happen and a second
season actually be produced (gods preserve us). So we’re left with one
post on the many reasons this show became only slightly more amusing
than stabbing vinegar soaked toothpicks into our eyes.
We
are a social justice site, and there are many social justice fails we
can - and will - attack. But even before we get to them, Hemlock Grove was impressively awful even if it had perfect social justice credentials.
The acting was wooden, melodramatic and just plain awful. I rarely attack actors directly, but Bill Skarsgard has talented family, you’d think his father or brothers would give him some pointers.
The
world building was clumsy as hell, with all kinds of myriad creatures
introduced that are utterly irrelevant until the very last episode.
Letha’s angel-pregnancy, the whole Upir family, the medical experiments,
Shelly - all of it pretty irrelevant but the whole show is full of
them.
And the story is so badly written - it’s clogged with
irrelevancies that make no sense and add nothing - why did we have the
man who saw visions? What did he add to the story? Roman and Peter’s
shared dreams - was there actually a point to this or did I zone out
waiting for the actors to actually convey some emotion? And how come
this entire damn town is quite willing to believe that Peter is a
WEREWOLF but absolutely no-one bats an eye at Roman mind controlling
random people for funsies? I know Peter’s never had a friend but within
minutes of knowing Roman he’s inviting him to come witness his change?
Even the defeat of the big bad - Peter and Roman spend all series
plotting against the Vargwolf and then a random third party, randomly
appears and handles it with minimal effort?!
It
was one of those shows that made me scream with frustration because it
just made no sense, half the plot lines were irrelevant and all the
actual pointful information was crammed in the last episode.
This alone would have made Hemlock Grove dire, utterly and completely dire. At best it's a poorly stitched together prequel to the story they actually wanted to tell, at worse the producers didn't realise that the "horror" element wasn't supposed to be our reaction at the awful writing and terrible acting.
But Hemlock Grove goes further in making us hate it by perpetuating all kinds of prejudice repeatedly, episode after episode.
There wasn’t a single episode of Hemlock Grove
which didn’t have some sort of misogynist language. Women were
constantly referred to as bitches, skanks, and my personal favourite,
“farm fresh cunt.” What the hell does that even mean? It was so bad
that if they made through an episode with only one slur being used I was
shocked. Both sexes constantly engaged in this language and women
seemed to be barely able to tolerate being in the same room together
without snipping at each like a pack of wild jackals.
There were only two instances in which the misogyny was directly challenged:
- When Norman talked to Letha about sex and told her that desiring sex and consenting to sex is not a bad thing. He further instructed to never allow someone to make her feel ashamed of having sex.
When
Tom Sworn heard his daughter referring to their classmate as a skank
and a slut, he very directly told him that he didn’t like that kind of
language. The problem of course is that he didn’t explain why he found
that language inappropriate. In fact his tone was really no different
than a parent who corrects a child for swearing.
These
seem like really positive messages don’t they? The problem is that
they are isolated incidents. Letha’s sexuality was tightly controlled.
Roman stopped the car when he found out that she was pregnant and then
threatened violence against the father. Why? Because his precious Letha
had been soiled, soiled I tell you. To make sure we got the message
that Letha’s body was under the control of her male relatives, when
Roman realises that she is having a relationship with Peter, he decides
to rape a woman. If he couldn’t control her, then he was going to
control and have power over someone else. There are absolutely no
consequences from Roman raping Ashley Valentine. He simply erases the
memory and the entire crime against her is invalidated. To make matter
worse when he goes into a coma, she creates a get better card for him
and Letha comments that this effort is proof that she has a soul.
Then there was the violence. Hemlock Grove
is about a werewolf who is sick, kills and does not eat the meat.
Interestingly enough, for some reason this supposedly rabid werewolf
only kills women: Brooke, Lisa, and the sworn girls died this way. The
writers didn’t even try and make the choices random and instead this
young women were killed because the Vargwulf didn’t like their sexual
choices. Yes, you read that right. Letha was targetted because she was
with Peter and the twins because of their lost virginity and the peer
pressure that produced. Better keep your legs crossed ladies or the furious werewolf will get you!
At
the end of the show most of the women are dead or, in one case, missing
- if not at the hands of the Vargwulf then from other causes. Lynda and
Destiny are the only ones that managed to get out of this mess alive
and present with Letha and Olivia quickly jumping on the big pile o’female bodies in
the last episode.
Which
leads us to the lesbians, the show’s GBLT inclusion. Firstly there was
Brooke, having an affair with a teacher who was the first werewolf
victim. Remember her? Well she wasn’t exactly memorable, she was more
talked about than anything else. She existed to die and motivate
everyone else - in other words, she was fridged and we never even got to
see her with her lover, have any kind of relationship or, indeed any
kind of life
Which
brings us to Clementine, who could have been an interesting character. A
tough character, an involved character, an investigator with skilled
and insight and a driving passion while at the same time being torn over
her faith and role with her signature line “god doesn’t want us to be
happy, he wants us to be strong.” That could be a comment about a
lesbian chaining herself to service to the homophobic Catholic church -
even her St Jude, amulet to lost causes. But none of this is developed,
her romantic life includes a woman she blew off on the first time we saw
her and then her encounter with Destiny the prostitute. All her
investigation adds up to nothing, she follows people around,
investigates and then runs into Olivia and dies. She doesn’t appreciably
add to the investigation, she doesn’t even get in Peter and Roman’s way
sufficiently to be an antagonist. In the end she dies and becomes
motivation for her brother for a possible second season - that would be a
fridge.
Destiny’s own sexuality remains rather in the dark since the only sex or sexual desire we saw was when she was paid to have sex.
Then
there’s the treatment of race - Johann the evil Asian scientist is,
well, evil and sinister and pretty pointless. Clementine we’ve covered with her tortured
toughness and eventual death - she had lots of backstory at least, but it didn't really go anywhere, and Ashley existed to be raped by Peter and disdained by her peers.
From which we have to touch on the Roma characters and boy is there a lot here.
Firstly,
the actors playing Peter and Lynda are not Roma. It is always
problematic to use people who aren’t part of an ethnic group to play
that ethnicity; it’s not like there are no Roma actors.
There
is an enormous amount of anti-Roma prejudice on the show - constantly
using the word “Gypsy” and referring to them as trash and scum. The only
time this is challenged is by a Black side character who goes on to
make a weak stab at the silliness of “political correctness”. Because
having a POC dismissing it would make it better? I don’t think an
episode went by without some antiziganism of some kind. And even though I
don’t think they were presenting it as good, nor did they go out of
their way to challenge it.
Nor
did Peter, Lynda or Destiny challenge the stereotypes themselves.
Almost as soon as we’re introduced to Peter, he’s stealing a jacket with
the full blessing of his mother who carried a tag-remover for that very
purpose. They’re transient. Destiny is a prostitute and a
con-artist (who has woo-woo but still cons people about woo-woo she doesn't have). Lynda apparently sells drugs (or really good optrex). Travelling, drug dealing
thieves - it’s like a bingo card of negative stereotypes. Top that off
with a whole load of woo-woo and you may as well have put them in wooden
caravans asking to have their palms crossed with silver before stealing
children.
Even
people who were supposed to be friendly with Peter continually ask him
about “his people” and how “his people” did things or made random
comments about “you people.” Barely a sentence went by without someone
othering Peter. Of course, while presented as so completely other, we
see little in the way of Roma tradition or culture with either of them,
it’s a label attached to explain their “otherness”, their woo-woo, not
an attempt at a real portrayal.
It was almost impressive how many problematic issues were rammed into one season of Hemlock Grove.
Without it, I would have been bored to tears watching it, confused by
the convoluted plots and maybe amused by the sheer awful acting and
terrible dialogue. But then heavy loads of isms were added on top of
that turning a mess of a show into an utter hot mess. We will not be
looking forward to a second season.
