'Saint X' Season 1 Episode 1 Review: Who is Emily Thomas? A cab ride brings back painful memories
Warning: Spoilers ahead for 'Saint X' Season 1 Episode 1
LOS ANGELES, CALIFORNIA : 'Saint X', the recently released psychological drama on Hulu, begins with the episode titled 'A Lovely Nowhere.' The storyline of the series' opening episode centres on a suspicious death during a vacation and the consequences of the incident in the present day. The plot shifts between different timelines.
The miniseries centres on documentarian Emily Thomas (Alycia Debnam-Carey), whose life takes an unexpected turn when she gets into a cab in New York City with Clive "Gogo" Richardson (Josh Bonzie), one of the two resort employees suspected of killing Alison (West Duchovny), Emily's older sister, nearly two decades ago on the last night of a family vacation in the Caribbean.So who is Emily Thomas? Let's dig deeper.
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Who is Emily Thomas?
While our protagonist, Emily, is forced to relive her traumatic history in the present, the opening episode opens with flashbacks set in the lovely Indigo Bay. The Thomas family, who are on holiday at this opulent resort, is introduced to us. Alison and Claire, with their parents bill and Mia, unload their luggage while admiring the area's natural splendour. The family is presented with prospective excursions the following day by hotel staffer, Edwin, who promotes Faraway Cay, a mystery island with its very own waterfall and eerie legend. Another flashback shows a detective telling Alison's parents that she went out drinking the night before with two men. Alison is still missing, despite the fact that the men were detained for drunk driving. Bill immediately accuses two employees, Gogo and Edwin.
In the present, viewers are introduced to Emily, an environmental documentary editor who has recently moved into a Brooklyn flat with her boyfriend, Josh. One day, Gogo, who is now operating under the name Clive Richardson, picks Emily up in a taxi. The moment Emily meets Gogo in person, she is overcome with recollections of her past, and it is soon made clear that Emily is actually Claire, Alison's younger sister. Alison was the one who died during that trip to the Caribbean all those years ago.
'Saint X' struggles with pacing and narrative building
Even though the limited series format gives Gerstein and her writing team the chance to spend more time in the idyllic and picturesque Caribbean setting, 'Saint X' struggles with pacing, awkwardly straddling the line between a mild psychological thriller and a dull family drama over the course of eight hours. Except for Alison, whose death is supposed to have had a traumatic ripple effect on her entire family and fellow vacationers, many of whom we never see in the present and don't really serve much of a narrative purpose, the show, interestingly, uses flashbacks outside of the week at the resort for every main character.
What starts out as an intriguing investigation into unconscious bias, sexual politics, true-crime entertainment and the media craze surrounding a missing young White women is drowned out by a story that takes on too much, demonstrating that some mysteries in life might be better left unsolved after all.