Reviews
[Review] Hulu’s Cult Series, “The Path”
Hulu’s intense psychological drama wraps up its first season confidently, setting up much more manipulation to come
“You can’t fake belief, you know.”
As The Path closes the door on its first season, it can’t help but feel reminiscent of how it began, with a strong foot forward and a smug wink to the audience. This is a show that enraptured many of us with its thought-provoking pilot. However, it’s one thing to tell the start of a compelling story, but another skill entirely to be able to stick the landing and bring it all together. Granted, The Path’s story is far from over, but with a very clear arc having been put to bed here with the end of the tenth episode, it’s fair to look at how this first season of the manipulating drama came together.
Perhaps what’s most fascinating with this show over the course of its inaugural season is how it dissects the idea of faith endlessly, showing how dangerous of an idea it can be. We see the concept invading people in a number of different ways, whether it’s providing them a security blanket for when they need help, being used as a tool to take advantage of someone, or just a constant in life that is turned to when you’re feeling melancholy. On the other hand, the series also does a fantastic job exploring what it feels like to have your significant other be endlessly devoted to something that you’re afraid of. We see the many different facets of Meyerism throughout the course of the season, with the larger questions of delusion and blind allegiance acting as the sort of thematic center to it all. There’s a scene early on in the series where the Meyerists’ de facto leader, Cal, spits out at an affluent skeptic, “Because I don’t give a shit about your million dollars. I want your faith.” That really says it all right there. This is a series where belief is currency and watching that fluctuate amongst this sect of survivors is continually fascinating.
Ultimately this season comes down to the battle between Cal (Hugh Dancy) and Eddie (Aaron Paul) as their separate struggles with faith under the Meyerism blanket pull the cult-like collective to adversely extreme places. It’s magical how the show eventually bubbles to the point that you’re nervous and tense whenever the two of them are occupying a scene together. It also doesn’t hurt that both of these actors’ previous homes, Hannibal and Breaking Bad, saw them undergoing mental trauma of the highest order. Re-appropriating this dynamic with them still being apart of some twisted puppet master relationship continues to work for them in The Path, and if anything is even more effective because of both actors’ previous baggage. It’s very interesting that both of these people, deep down, don’t believe in what Meyerism is preaching yet they go about this in completely opposite ways. Eddie’s struggle is your typical Hero’s Journey but it’s gutting to see his family so deeply entrenched in this system and being pulled apart, too. All he wants is the truth and it’s gripping how something so simple can be constantly eluding you.
The other extreme here happens in the season’s eighth episode, “The Shore,” which might also be the season’s best installment. Here we get a laid back entry that devotes most of its time to a pseudo-exiled Eddie and Hawk wandering the land. It’s kind of beautiful and all sorts of touching to see Eddie de-Movementing when he and his son reach Coney Island. Watching him remember what the real world is like, and then seeing it again for the first time through his son is extremely fulfilling. Seeing these two finally be able to put all of the bullshit aside and just be themselves and enjoy a clam roll is such a high.
The revelation of how much Hawk’s journey this season connects is something that comes as a big surprise. It’s just as satisfying—if not more so—than any one else’s story, but it carries even more impact due to how it affects everyone else. Hawk’s decisions down the road with his girlfriend form a strong schism between Eddie and Sarah (Michelle Monaghan) that shines a light on how fundamentally different these two are at the end of the day, Meyerism aside. This rift eventually explodes into the two of them arguing over whether the Movement makes sense or not, which is really what this show is all about. And how for some people it can already be too late for them when they reach this conclusion.
Meanwhile, Cal is willing to go to literally any means necessary to maintain his power and spread the word of this ballooning lie to anyone within earshot. He introduces the very frightening aspect of the Movement (and one that I’m sure is a factor in many real life “cults”) where they’re basically kidnapping civilians and “solving” their problems, with their allegiance and mouth service to the Ladder acting as payment. You know, kind of like Fascism. Cal also displays his faith in the form of doubling down on delusion. He forms such a narrative around Stephen, the Movement’s founder, yet it’s an ever-growing trick to everyone. He says that he wants to preserve the Ladder, but he really just wants to preserve his power supply. He’s never not using people as his tools, whether it’s through him working out his power issues through the impressionable Mary, or him finally shifting his efforts to Sarah. The character feels so desperate and grimy by the end of the season, and it’s an incredible transformation.
There’s also a moment where we get to see what Cal’s life with his family back home is like, and it’s an enlightening piece to his puzzle. It goes far to humanize the character and show how he’s just as lost and repression-happy as everyone else. There’s much more of a rags-to-riches mentality going on with Cal being determined to rise above his meager beginnings, almost like he’s fulfilling some prophecy. This backstory hardly redeems the character for the horrible things that he does over the course of the season, but it does help show that he is a victim of being entrenched in a system, too.
Part of the sweeping feeling of dread that this season takes its time building to is via all of these psychological landmines that Cal has implanted in so many people. Much like how Hawk’s story resonates to a surprising degree, the same can be said with Mary (Emma Greenwell). There’s a lot of tragedy coursing through this show but Mary might be the one that gets the brunt of it. We’re very much in her eyes through a lot of this, as much of a newcomer to Meyerism as she is, with her story very much being that of a classical victim’s. She goes through the wringer endlessly as she tries to find acceptance and feel at peace, which highlights the real dangers of self-altering institutions like this. She bounces between sexual dependency and an LSD addiction as means of coping, with Cal continually preying upon her. In spite of all of this manipulation that Mary is put through, her relationship with Sean turns into something so honest and genuine. It’s really beautiful and it might end up being the most real relationship in this show, even if it was predicated by such lies.
After putting all of these impressionable lives aside, the bigger questions that The Path digs into involve Cal working to secretly expand The Movement, with this push towards “mainstreaming” it going to lead to absolute problems for the group. The show knows how to pace itself well and it’s nice to see these elements of growth not dragging their feet. If anything, the progression of Meyerism should take time, but thankfully Cal’s impulsive nature pushing it ahead of schedule not only makes sense for the character, but is exciting television. There’s such a “crash and burn” aspect hanging over the final few episodes of the season, and it’s wonderful.
Any rough patches throughout the season come in the form of certain beats in Eddie and Sarah, and Hawk and Ashley’s respective relationships feeling repetitive at times. This is more so about treating these stories with the weight that they deserve. The payoffs mean all the more. While Sarah also seems to be coming around to Eddie’s side by the end of things, having the two of them be separated could be an even more interesting dynamic for next season (which, thank goodness, has been confirmed).
The component to the season that I thought was the other most interesting aspect to this show is it’s way of playing with your mind as much as the people within the show. A number of signs and visions begin happening within the series, particularly to Eddie, insinuating that he could be some sort of Messiah. The show wisely plays it both ways where he could be having a psychotic break or actually experiencing some divine intervention. It raises the compelling idea that even if everyone is misusing Meyerism, that doesn’t mean that there still isn’t truth to it underneath all of this. The season dangles everything so close to coming to the surface, yet not quite pulling the trigger on anything either. The final beat is such a gratuitous cliffhanger, but one that’s completely earned by the journey that it’s put Eddie (and the audience) on. It’s a moment that’s perfect, huge, and will completely dismantle the status quo even further next year.
The Path is a series that just when you think you have things figured out it pulls the rug out from under you, and with a show like this you hope that rug never ends.
The Path’s finale airs Wednesday May 25th, exclusively on Hulu.
Books
‘Scary Movie Night’ Review: A Hitchcock-Themed Thriller Full of Juicy Twists But Not Much Else
A secluded mansion. A group of friends each harboring secrets. A party built around one woman’s love of Alfred Hitchcock. These are the ingredients laid out to begin Scary Movie Night, the sophomore novel from Miranda Smith and follow-up to her breakout debut, Smile for the Cameras.
They’re all, standing alone and taken together, very promising ingredients, and when Smith starts to bounce all those secrets and all that seclusion around with a little murder in the mix, they make for some juicy plotting. But fun twists and macabre themed party nights do not a thriller make. There is fun to be had here, but for all its reliance on classic horror tropes and the films of a master of cinematic suspense, Scary Movie Night never quite finds a way to become something more.
Movie blogger and influencer Tippi (yes, she’s named for Tippi Hedren from The Birds) is going through a rough patch. Her upcoming marriage was just called off, and she’s planning to hit the Cannes Film Festival then travel the world as a newly single woman, even shifting her career focus from movies to travel in the process. Her friends Ava, Marlowe, and Constance are supportive, but they also know it might be the last time they see Tippi for a while, so master party planner Ava comes up with the perfect sendoff: A themed scary movie night party, complete with costumes, hosted at the elegant estate of Tippi’s grandmother, Marmee.
Marmee, you see, has her own history with the glamour of Hollywood, and even has a private cinema set up in her mansion. It’s the perfect venue for the perfect night, at least until Tippi starts receiving vaguely threatening notes from her ex, and the first body turns up.
See what I mean about all the ingredients being there? This book starts with so much promise, particularly when guests turn up for the party and reveal their various movie costumes. There’s so much to chew on, and Smith wastes no time diving directly into the drama of it all. The book moves primarily through Tippi’s first-person perspective, so we get the lowdown on her friends, their various relationships, the quarrels that have defined previous social interactions, and much more. It’s a series of rich veins all tapped at once, and it feels like the book is genuinely going somewhere quite fun.
Here’s the thing: The book does go somewhere quite fun; it just gets there in a way that I found both frustrating and often unfulfilling. The characters aren’t defined by their choices in the book so much as they’re defined by what Tippi tells us about each of them, and while the notion of Tippi as an unreliable narrator is key to the plot, her supporting cast never really gets a chance to sit up and exist as anything other than archetypes in her head. The dialogue doesn’t help matters in this regard, and I kept finding myself wishing one of Tippi’s friends would just seize the narrative, just for a moment, so I’d get some sense of these people beyond the broad brushstrokes of the protagonist.
Which brings us to the issue of Tippi as the narrator in the first place. Like the Hitchcock blondes on which she’s clearly modeled, we’re meant to learn about her through her choices, and constantly question whether or not she’s made the right ones. Why did she leave her ex with a wedding looming? Why is she changing career paths? Why does she have to be talked into her own going-away party? How she reacts to these things, and what she’s really after, will be what defines her, but here’s the thing: Tippi, for all her Hitchcockian layers of plotting, never steps forward as a fully formed character. Like the Hitch films playing in the background during the party, she’s more like a suggestion of a character than a person.
Writing first-person present-tense is tricky under the best of circumstances, but doing it when your protagonist is meant to be harboring secrets of her own is especially challenging, and it just…never quite entirely works here, and drawing very direct parallels between her and Hitchcock’s various leading ladies doesn’t really help matters.
But here’s the really interesting part: I wouldn’t be invested in any of these issues were it not for a story that genuinely kept me reading. For all of this book’s shortcomings, and I found a few, it ultimately holds together because Smith has a genuine gift for plot twists, and secrets, and the kind of juicy drama that makes a thriller keep barreling forward on the page. There’s good stuff in here, even if it’s sometimes overshadowed by missteps, and that means that while Scary Movie Night might not obsess you or give you nightmares or stick in your head for weeks on end, it will entertain you. I wanted more from this book, but I also want to see what Miranda Smith writes next, and that’s an achievement in itself.
Scary Movie Night is available July 14 wherever books are sold.
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