The Crowded Room Episode 1 Review
Episode 1: Exodus –9.0/10
The Crowded Room’s first episode really does open with a bang as we get to see the crime that the show is revolved around take place. While we have no context to what is taking place, the opening has a tense feel to it with the audience getting the sense that something bad is going to happen. I was intrigued by the first frame and was curious of what was to come with this show. I knew nothing about the show before starting it having seen a trailer once but having no context as to what it was about.
Before I get into more thoughts about this first episode I thought the intro, which I watched in full for the first episode, was interesting because it has a sad and ominous vibe, and used what I would describe as crayon art as the style. This ties nicely in with our protagonist Danny, who is an artist using that same type of crayon in his portraits.
This first episode is all setup. It poses many questions that will be answered later and some that have yet to be answered. Be careful to pay attention to almost everything in this show as I’ll admit I had to rewind twice in the first episode, as I had missed something that would be brought up later. Just know all the conversations in this will come back or be expanded upon later.
The framing device for this show after the opening is quite straightforward, we have our main character Danny Sullivan (Tom Holland) who has been arrested for the events in the opening and is being questioned by a psychologist named Rya Goodwin (Amanda Seyfried). This allows the show to have a structure where it can leave the story and go back to the conversation between Danny and Rya and allows the story to be able to shift focus while still continuing the story and the relationship between the characters. Also, the show takes place in the 1970’s so that allows it to be contained because the crime that we see at the beginning would certainly be on the internet nowadays.
Through this first episode the focus of this story is completely on Danny. I appreciate this as many shows will have so many characters and none of them get enough screentime for you to care about or understand them. Danny is our main character and he carries us through the story. We see all the events through his perspective and how other interact with him. He’s awkward, timid, not popular, only has two friends, has a rough home situation, and he’s bullied.
He’s the sort of tragic character that we can see being drawn down a dark path but with no support to steer him in a better direction. In the scenes at his home, with his stepfather and mother, we see he struggles to be comfortable, being actually scared of his stepfather. He has no safe place to retreat to. Tom Holland plays the part brilliantly, and this is distinctly different to any of his previous performances, and I find it intriguing in his reserved manner. I am excited to see how it continues.
So yeah, overall I thought this was a pretty good opening episode with lots of questions that spark curiosity about how they will be resolved in the following episodes.
