A less-than-civil neighbourhood
Amazon’s Them sets its antagonistic and angry tone early and builds towards a bravura, breathtaking finale that will leave you gasping, writes James Croot.
As this gorgeously evocative, frighteningly provocative series informs us, between 1916 and 1970, six million AfricanAmericans relocated from the southern United States.
Known as ‘‘the great migration’’, it saw singletons and families head for the major, more northern cities, lured by the promise of industrial jobs – and a better life.
Them (on Amazon Prime Video) follows the fortunes of the Emorys. In September 1953, Henry, Livia, Ruby-Lee and Gracie Jane packed up their belongings and beloved pooch and moved from North Carolina’s Chatham County to California.
With a well-paid position at Tanner Aerospace awaiting him, Henry (Ashley Thomas) decided to eschew the popular Watts, for the snowy pickets and pastel hues of Southland Trust Realty’s East Compton suburban paradise.
However, the fences aren’t the only whitewashed surroundings of 3011 Palmer Drive. Neighbourhood ‘‘detective’’ Betty Wendell (Alison Pill) might have been delighted that the house across the road had finally sold, but
after one glimpse of the Emorys, this self-confessed ‘‘one woman welcome wagon’’ is instead circling them, gathering the local wives together to strategise the best way to drive them out.
Billed as the first
instalment of an anthology series, a la American Horror Story, the 10-part Them: Covenant takes its subtitle from a clause in the subdivision’s contract forbidding ‘‘Negroes’’ from buying the houses.
Although the estate agent assures them it isn’t enforceable and ‘‘nothing a little red ink won’t help disappear’’, other residents are keen to ensure its spirit is kept alive.
What follows is a confronting, compelling, chilling look at a less-than-civil, racially divided America.
Debuting at the recent SXSW Film Festival, series creator Little Marvin and director Nelson Cragg have crafted a stunning opening episode which sets its antagonistic and angry tone early and builds towards a bravura breathtaking finale that will leave you gasping – and desperate to know more.
Although this first Them’s
period setting may draw comparisons to last year’s impressive Lovecraft Country,
in truth, this has more in common with the unsettling mood of Jordan Peele’s modern day Get Out, or, to a lesser extent, the surrealness of suburban nightmare Vivarium or the sitcom subversion of Disney+’s WandaVision.
This is the ugly UnPleasantville middle-class America didn’t want the rest of the world to see. A ‘‘black mirror’’ of The Help, if all the white characters were clones of Bryce Dallas Howard’s Hilly.
The excellence – and black humour – extends to the upbeat, Doris Day-esque soundtrack choices, the very visual metaphors involving cracked wallpaper and dark basements and the Saul Basslike opening credits.
Featuring an exceptional breakout performance from British-born, former Luke Cage star Deborah Ayorinde as the tormented, but determined Livia, Them isa show that should please David Lynch and Spike Lee fans, and one of 2021’s first real examples of must seek-out TV.
Them is streaming now on Amazon Prime Video.