| Creator, Showrunner | Little Marvin |
| Cast | Deborah Ayorinde, Pam Grier, Luke James, Joshua J. Williams, Jeremy Bobb, Wayne Knight, Carlito Olivero, Charles Brice, Iman Shumpert |
| AKA | Them: The Scare |
| Episodes | 8 |
| Genre | Horror |
– No Spoilers –
Taking place in 1991, the second season features a shocking crime taken up by LAPD Homicide Detective Dawn Reeve that leaves all the hardened detectives traumatised. Determined to stop this dangerous killer during a time when Los Angeles is standing on the edge of chaos, she comes across something much more malevolent than she had initially expected that threatens to destroy her family in the process.
Them Season 2 is a thoroughly uncomfortable affair – from the initial, gut-wrenching crime to the situations that follow it, the series holds this very uneasy feeling throughout its runtime that is difficult to ignore. It makes your heart heavy in a very odd way – it’s like you know something is wrong but you can’t place your finger on what. Is it Luke James’s Edward Gaines, who feels like he might be hiding something underneath his awkward outward demeanour? Or is it truly something supernatural that has something to do with these horrible situations unfolding around Dawn?
From the very first episode, the series reels you into its storytelling and doesn’t waste time behind unnecessary things. It gets straight to the point and follows that thread forward wherever it takes the story. And hoo boy – it takes the story down some very disturbing places! With blatant racism as a heartbreaking background and rearing its ugly head down every alley, we follow a frustrated and scared Dawn who just wants to do the right thing and bring this serial killer to justice and the series does a fantastic job of bringing her personality and her thoughts surrounding this grisly affair to the forefront.
Racism also plays a very important part in the storytelling as a whole. Although the series’ horror elements make for a bulk of the terror, racism is a grating watch that is also relentless. The series does a fantastic job of making it peek through the other insanity and giving it a terrifying twist in its own way. You feel Dawn’s rage in these sequences and it fires you up just as much as it does her.
Coming back to the horror elements, there are not a lot of shows that truly gave me the heebie-jeebies as much as Them Season 2 did – Luke James is absolutely fantastic as Edmund is just so terrifying that it will make you sit up and take notice. Several moments in the show are absolutely brutal to watch and it’s absolutely unrelenting – you won’t be able to run from the heavy feeling of dread that something is about to go really bad at any point… which it does. The series’ use of tension and atmosphere is near perfect and it doesn’t make use of cheap jumpscares to scare it. The practical effect is perfect as well and the bodies are the stuff of nightmares.
As we reach the fourth episode, the answers keep getting muddier – who is the culprit? Because all of these “suspects” can be it. Everyone acts mighty guilty throughout the runtime and their personal “quirks” are all terrifying to witness. Juggling racism and mental health issues, Them brings forth a fantastic season full of mysteries and mind-boggling questions that will leave you scratching your head till the end. Episode 5 is the time when the series truly goes off the rails and if you thought you were having trouble breathing, after the fifth episode things just go off the rails… but in a good way.
Deborah Ayorinde is absolutely fantastic in this series. She is the kind of protagonist you would want to follow and root for. She takes an active interest in the people around her, wants to look into things deeper and goes under the surface to get to the root of the problem. Her empathetic nature draws us in but it’s her unwavering resolution that keeps us with her. However, as mentioned above, Luke James truly takes the cake of a shockingly unhinged character with something deeper going on under the surface than we could’ve imagined.
Them Season 2 Review: Final Thoughts
With another fantastic season, Them Season 2 leaves us glued to the screen making us wonder what is happening and the mysteries that await in every scene. With absolutely fantastic performances and characters written with depth, the series explores different themes in such a way that it all rushes at you relentlessly episode after episode. Who is the culprit and how does Dawn solve this horrifying case? Is it something supernatural? You’ll be surprised by the shocking directions.
Them Season 2 is streaming on Amazon Prime Video.
Also Read: Amazon’s Them Review: Race and Horrors