Hit or Miss: Showtime's 'Let The Right One In'
The ominous first look at Showtime’s new horror series, Let the Right One In, hints at the terror, mystery, and danger of things to come for viewers brave enough to tune into the show’s October 9 premiere. Anika Noni Rose (Dreamgirls, Maid) and Demián Bichir (The Hateful Eight, A Better Life) helm the cast as Naomi Cole, an NYPD homicide detective and single mother, and Mark Kane, a father desperately looking to cure his daughter’s vampirism. The show’s latest trailer sees Rose’s Naomi and Bichir’s Mark embark on separate yet equally dangerous journeys towards saving the ones they love as carnage and bloodshed close in around them.
The trailer opens on Mark performing a strange bloodletting ritual on himself as he opens a vein on his arm using a heated knife and drains the sanguine liquid into a vessel. Before he can finish, a young girl grabs the container and ravenously drinks its contents. We learn quickly that this girl— Mark’s daughter, Eleanor, played by Madison Taylor Baez (Selena: The Series)—suffers from a vampirism that causes an insatiable thirst for human blood. In his efforts to keep Eleanor hidden from the world as he searches for answers, Mark must commit clandestine murders to satisfy his daughter’s bloodlust and keep her alive.
“We’re home now, Eli,” Mark tells the girl as images of the New York skyline flash across the screen. He goes on to remind her that staying safe and inconspicuous requires caution. Mark leaves Eleanor alone at night while he works as a chef in a nice restaurant. At the restaurant, he’s visited by Zeke Dawes, an old acquaintance played by Kevin Carroll (Snowfall, Blindspotting), to whom he frantically insists, “we have to find a cure.” Left by herself at home, Eli sneaks out in the shadow of the night and encounters a young boy, Isaiah Cole. An unspoken magnetism draws the two lonely youngsters together and soon Eleanor and Isaiah, portrayed by Ian Foreman (Ordinary Joe, The Holiday Switch), strike up a friendship.
In the light of day, Isaiah’s mother Det. Naomi Cole investigates a brutal homicide at a crime scene discovered in the city’s sewer. Naomi recognizes that whatever or whoever killed the victim represents a previously unknown threat and she prophesies to her partner that “there’s something new out there.” As Naomi descends into the underground crime scene in the trailer, viewers realize something inhumane lurks in the darkness around her. Unbeknownst to the detective, the dangerous “something new” she anticipates is actually rooted much closer to home than anything she’s come across before.
The final group of characters introduced by the trailer include Claire and Arthur Logan, a daughter and father who may just hold the answers sought by Mark and Naomi. Claire, played by Grace Gummer (American Horror Story, Mr. Robot), appears conflicted yet determined as she confronts the fallout of an apparent medical experiment gone wrong. “What I saw in there is not you, it’s the virus,” Gummer’s Claire tells an off-screen loved one. Later, viewers catch a short glimpse of Arthur, played by Zeljko Ivanek (Argo, Madam Secretary), reclined in a bed and attached to medical equipment. In the scene, Claire berates Arthur for his lapse in morality, declaring in an accusatory manner, “you threw him out there to burn alive.” Perhaps through the exploration of the history behind the Logans’ relationship, Mark and Naomi may find solutions to their respective predicaments.
The preview reaches its fever-pitch when a jarring sequence of successive shots and sound-bites converge to entice viewers with the combined promise of bloodshed, secrecy, and personal sacrifice. A number of verbal exchanges between Mark and Eli serve to emphasize the drama within this sub-segment of the trailer. “What if this is all I’ll ever be?” Eli asks in broken-hearted desperation. Mark responds by insisting, “that’s not who you are.”
Next, it’s Mark’s turn to demand answers from Eli. “Do you know how many people I’ve killed for you to live?” He shouts at her. Eli replies by asking, “why am I even alive if I can’t do anything?” For viewers, those are both questions that will have to go unanswered until the series airs.
Before it concludes, however, the trailer poses one last question for its audience. After three title cards announce in bold red font “Anything For Blood,” Bichir’s voice-over narration can be heard asking, “what was I supposed to do? Let my child suffer?” The hopelessness and anguish are undeniable in Mark’s agonizing query. In concluding on this moment, the trailer invites viewers to judge for themselves how far is too far when it comes to a father’s love for his daughter.
Showtime’s Let the Right One In marks the first small-screen adaptation of Swedish author John Ajvide Lindqvist’s 2004 novel of the same name. Previously, Lindqvist’s work inspired two cinematic adaptations, 2008’s Swedish production, Let the Right One In, and 2010’s American production, Let Me In. The creator and showrunner of the new series, Andrew Hinderaker (Pure Genius, Penny Dreadful), is also the creator of Netflix’s 2020 sci-fi drama series, Away. In his adaptation, Hinderaker’s Let the Right One In certainly borrows from its source material in a thematic and conceptual sense. Perhaps more significantly, it distinguishes itself from earlier iterations of the story by introducing new or redesigned characters, expanding on the central storyline through additional narrative threads, and relocating the setting to New York City.
Let the Right One In premieres on Showtime at 10 PM EST/PST on Sunday, October 9. Hinderaker shares executive producing credits with Ben Rosenblatt, Marty Adelstein, Alissa Bachner, Becky Clements, and Seith Mann. In addition to Rose, Bichir, Baez, Carroll, Foreman, Gummer and Ivanek, the cast includes Nick Stahl (Fear the Walking Dead, Sin City), Caroline Neff (Chicago P.D., The Red Line), Josh Wingate (World War Z, Priest) and Jimmie Saito (Power Book II: Ghost, Sweetbitter).
