Snakes and Ladders Review: Unbelievable and Unhinged

In Prime Video’s dark-comedy, thriller series Snakes and Ladders, four friends get embroiled in a dangerous situation as they try to hide an accident, making them come face to face with the consequences of their actions which involve law enforcement and a bunch of dangerous criminals. The series has 9 episodes, each with a run time of around 30 minutes.

Snakes and Ladders Review

Prime Video series Snakes and Ladders hinges on the thought that a group of middle schoolers can successfully pull off a con that most adults will fail at. Depending thoroughly on convenient plot armour that stops their parents and the police from discovering a body buried in Gilly’s backyard, the series is thoroughly unbelievable and eerily similar to Stranger Things than one might one, minus the Demogorgon and the government conspiracy, of course.

The kids are a little odd to follow and understand, however. As an adult, one can’t help but find it insane that these young kids disposed of a body, took pictures with a rotting corpse to find the guy’s accomplice and then held one of their fathers captive because Gilly couldn’t part with his parents any longer. The part that I find impossible to believe is that these kids are apparently completely sane, well-adjusted individuals who put their friendship above all else. I don’t think any middle schooler would be okay with getting rid of a dead body and then planning to catch a dangerous criminal under any circumstance.

Now, a discussion can be had that children are often portrayed in shows to achieve things that adults cannot. In Stranger Things itself, this group of youngsters apparently fight a monster coming out of a wall in a government facility but the important thing to note here is that that was a sci-fi show about experimental monsters. In a crime-thriller series that is allegedly taking place in the real world, it’s a little difficult to digest children doing any of these things.

The series gets more and more convoluted as the episodes pass, with more unhinged and unbelievable events occurring one after the other that will leave anyone scratching their heads. As a whole, the sequence of events isn’t unbelievable, but the fact that it’s kids doing these things is what will leave anyone shocked. I also didn’t buy that no one around these kids has any idea about what is happening with them as they go on random adventures and shoot people willy-nilly. The opportunity to introspect on the kids’ mental health and well-being as they face one traumatic incident after another is also left unexplored, which is disappointing.

However, being a young adult show, there’s some merit to it being a little childish and silly. There are moments in the show that are genuinely thrilling and combining Leo’s story arc with that of the kids makes for an adventurous ride. The twists and turns are fun to watch and although unbelievable, I can see children having a fun time with this. Keeping the kids as the focal point also helps make us root for their innocent motivations, regardless of how impossible they are.

Final Thoughts

Snakes and Ladders is unrealistic and thus, unrelatable. The kids do a great job of portraying their characters and it’s sweet to watch them trying to solve a crime. However, the scope of it all seems a bit over-the-top for a children’s adventure as the themes are quite dark and disturbing. The things that they are able to achieve by sitting on a bicycle feel like an impossible task and the fact that we see them happening with all the seriousness that it can muster is straight-up hilarious, but for the wrong reasons.

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