Hulu’s latest nail biter of a drama is absolutely a cult that you want to get yourself inducted into for the long haul
“Once you begin to know the Ladder, all the pain, all the horrible things that have happened to you will disappear.”
“No they won’t.”
The Path is the stuff that the very best kind of television is made of. A lot of that has to do with the fact that cults are fascinating subject matter—or more specifically—the mind control aspect of cults makes for enlightening material. There’s a reason that David Tenant’s brainwashing Kilgrave on Jessica Jones resonated with so many people. Mind manipulation is just straight up interesting, and the topic of cults takes this superhuman idea and somehow makes it incredibly human. We’ve all been at low points when we’ve wanted to believe in a higher power or that something larger could help us out, and The Path very much cuts directly into people during those moments in their lives.
Coming from Jessica Goldberg, a playwright and writer for Parenthood, who brings executive producer Jason Katims from her alma matter along with her, the two know how to effectively build a world. The steady drip of characters here is also reminiscent of Katims’ strong work on Friday Night Lights, a show that could also go to pretty sinister places when given the opportunity. Add to that that you also have Aaron Paul (Breaking Bad) and Hugh Dancy (Hannibal) back on television after their pivotal series, and the promise of getting to see the two of them going head-to-head with each other is certainly something to get excited over. Even only one episode in, the show is already giving delicious glimpses of what’s to come with these two.
The series opens to some devastation in North Carolina, courtesy of a tornado, with Cal Stephens (Dancy) swooping in to save the survivors with his movement, The Meyerists. Much of this first episode is framed around Mary (Emma Greenwell), a frail survivor from the tornado with an appropriately horrible backstory. As she is inducted into this movement, we get to experience this new world through her eyes, learning about the way of the Light and the Ladder along with her. A lot of this pilot shows the Meyerists at their best as they try to rebuild and heal Mary, while also sharing all of their respective stories of how the movement has saved them, too. It’s warming stuff, but also behavior that doesn’t want you to let your guard down. Something’s not right.
This first episode also sees Aaron Paul’s Eddie returning back home to the movement after a trip to Peru, where their leader is. Eddie has returned changed, with this epiphany of his fueling much of his behavior. Eddie’s character, as well as his wife, Sarah (Michelle Monaghan), also introduce another deeply interesting aspect to the series, that of raising a family within this Meyerist environment. Eddie and Sarah have several children—most notably, Hawk (a dead ringer for a baby Heath Ledger), a 15 year-old who is about to take his vows—and watching this family negotiate around their rules and beliefs brings forth a lot of pangs of Big Love during its infancy. A particularly unnerving scene sees Sarah reading illustrated bedtime stories about the Ladder to their children. There’s such a history here, with people even being born into it now.
It’s admirable for how much The Path just supplants you into all of this to a certain extent. Terms like “first year novice” are casually thrown around, giving you an indication of just how deep this all runs. It’s a really effective pilot in terms of just putting you into the Meyerist movement and seeing how things operate in their bewildering world. It makes for a very dense first episode, but it’s all engaging stuff. It almost feels Game of Thrones-ish to an extent, but we’re learning about the Ladder instead of Westeros.
Goldberg’s pilot also does a great job at establishing a feeling of paranoia amongst this group, and that you’re always under scrutiny. Even during a sex scene between Eddie and Sarah, the Eye of the Ladder is present and watching over them. It almost feels like a threesome due to its heavy presence in in their relationship. Depicting its weight in this way makes for really strong stuff. There’s also a phenomenal score in play in this show that’s amping up the unnerving factor whenever possible. This stuff is never better than when the show is digging into the negative side of the Ladder, like hinting at what happens to the “Dissenters” that try to leave the movement. Seeing the power vacuum that’s been created here and how people are so willing to use innocent people’s lives as bargaining chips is scary, real stuff.
While it’s still incredibly early on here, both Paul and Dancy still get ample opportunity to shine. Paul already seems to have a strong hold on Eddie, who crushes it in a monologue about his dead brother as well as how he got involved with the Meyerists. Watching Cal coach him through this does a great job at distilling their power dynamic already. While Eddie is all about emotions, Cal feels much more stilted, sociopathic, and intimidating. It’s a little hard to tell at this point if he actually believes what he’s saying, or if he’s just some con artist, but that’s exactly how it should be. He’s bringing forth some Leftovers feels, which is never a bad thing in my book either. The episode also cleverly juxtaposes Cal’s violent side with him simultaneously inspiring people, showing not only the duality within him, but also the movement itself.
The Path’s premiere lays a lot of groundwork and hints at what’s already a deeply engrossing show. Towards the end of things, Cal brings up a poignant anecdote involving Plato’s cave. In this environment people were raised to always look one way in the cave, but when they eventually escaped and saw the true world, they realized that they had just been looking at shadows for all this time. And that these people would rather stone and kill this man who has brought this new world upon them than have their realities destroyed in this monumental way. This pretty much feels like the thesis of the series, as it argues over the pros and cons of living blissfully in ignorance. It raises the incredibly important question of, “What else don’t we know?” and the final images of the episode provide a delightful paradigm shift that very much echoes this sentiment. It feels like The Path is going to be all about sussing out what’s real, what’s fake, and everything in between, and with the lines already being blurred, I can’t wait to see where the rest of this goes.
The Path premieres March 30, airing every Wednesday, exclusively on Hulu.
