31 Days of Halloween: Moar TV - Crackin'

Below, 2026, Netflix -- ep. 2-6

Full disclosure; we did not binge the final episodes, but using this post to fill in a blank for the nights when we only watched TV.

Lord thunderin' Jaysus b'y, that ended up being disapponting.

Seriously, WTF. Its like they got the first two episodes in the can, but only received enough funding to do four more episodes and rushed to finish it up, completely gutting it of all plot and sense.

To remind, from episode one, the setup: a Newf fisherman saw his family home go down in the water with his father. Thirty years later, he's still traumatized by the giant squid / octopus eye he saw in the water. His family was resettled to Snooks Harbour, only to end up struggling there too. Then the kraken returns, along with a large iceburg and weird shit starts happening.

There were so many plot elements that had potential: the old money family that was exploiting the fishing villages, actually responsible for the resettlement plans in the area, the research vessel that had been tracking the existence of the kraken forever, the research lady who wanted to know more about this species, the horny ghostly "hag" (not hag-ish at all) that crawled into bed with Wade Penney, the weird hallucinogenic effects the residue of the kraken had on some people, the "addicted to water" effect it had on most people -- same as the last effect but different, the weird cultish people that stayed behind on the re(un)settled islands who low-key worshipped the kraken ("mudder"), and finally the kraken's appearance itself. Most of these plot elements got, maybe, half of an episode each and were either quickly summed up, or entirely abandoned. Nothing was satisfying, nothing was "resolved", it just .... ended.

When the show started, I was reminded of the UK specific mystery shows we had watched, like Fortitude and The Rig -- I guess the latter write-up was eaten by my lack of TV writing, but where Fortitude was about (somewhat) the emergence of a prehistoric virus from deep in the ice of Svalbard (yes, like that X Files episode), this was about the discovery of a prehistoric "being" at the bottom of the ocean near a Scottish oil drilling rig, something akin to a Gaia creature. Both of these shows spoke of the dangers that would come with us fucking the climate, and since this show, Below that is, is set in Newfoundland, the effects of climate change and human exploitation of the environment cannot be ignored. Alas, other than melting ice burgs and changing sea creature migration patterns, the show abandons that plot like it does everything else.

The abandoning of storylines was so bad, episode six starts with the aftermath of the kraken attacking the community of Snooks Harbour, and its failed defense by the Canadian Military. What? Did we miss an episode? When did that happen? The Military?!?! WTF? But by then the show didn't care, and nothing mattered, let alone plot threads and continuity. I mean, they explain the missing engagement ring by, "Hey, you have my ring! Give it back!" and that's it.

This show had so much potential of being so much, but it ends up being just another series that will cause eyes to roll because it's Canadian.