The Innocents, aka The Innøcents (2018)
Released by: Netflix
Rating: TV-MA
Created by: Simon Duric and Hania Elkington
Number of episodes: 8
Why I Chose It: British accents are like catnip to me, as is the premise of body-swapping. Perhaps I watched the original Freaky Friday—the one starring Barbara Harris and a teenage Jodie Foster as the mother-daughter swapees—too many times as a child, but I’ve always found the idea of trading places with another person interesting and ripe for storytelling potential.
(I even fell for some Being John Malkovich viral marketing back in the day. A company promised the ability to swap bodies with anyone for a day. I still remember seeing the commercial for it, visiting the website, and filling out the questionnaire. I also recall my disappointment at receiving an email with link to a movie trailer for my troubles. What can I say? It was 1999.)
The premise:
Runaway teen lovers June McDaniel (Sorcha Groundsell) and Harry Polk (Percelle Ascott) find themselves swept up in a dangerous and confusing new world when June begins to display mysterious abilities.
Some minor spoilers ahead.
Discussion:
The show begins in media res, with Ben Halvorsen (Guy Pearce) following—perhaps chasing?—another man, Steinar (Jóhannes Hakur Jóhannesson), up a steep hill in Norway. Things happen, and we soon discover Steinar is not actually Steinar. Runa Gunderson (Ingunn Beate Øyen) simply appears as him. We know this because her reflection in a mirror shows her actual shape. But while Runa is wearing Steinar’s face and body, the actual man is slumped nearby on a couch, his eyes rolled back and vibrating. He’s seemingly catatonic and doesn’t return to himself until Runa “shifts” back into her true self.
The whole premise of “shifting” and the intricacies of the process are spooled out piecemeal as the series goes along. This works to the show’s benefit since the love story is fairly predictable.
It’s a tale as old as time. A young man and a young woman fall hopelessly in love and must run away in order to avoid separation. In this case, separation comes in the form of June’s insanely controlling stepfather. He drugs her in the mornings with a minor sedative (according to him, it’s to treat the “epilepsy” she inherited from her absentee mother). He drives her to school, keeps her cell phone in his car, walks her to her locker, and plans to move June and her agoraphobic, disabled brother Ryan to the remote Fair Isle in Scotland.
Ryan not only encourages his sister’s flight; he helps her out, giving her money and providing a timely distraction for the stepfather. But Harry’s decision to run away is a bit more fraught. His mother is a cop, and she’s barely home, but his father has some form of disability—something that renders him mostly nonresponsive to speech and physical interactions. Harry is gentle and patient with his father, yet he also decides to leave him with his absentee wife and his caretakers. It’s an interesting choice since it could put a serious ding in one of the lead characters’ likeability. It works, though, and I think this is due to Polk’s charisma and Harry’s obvious love for June.
Two things that don’t contribute to Harry and June’s star-crossed lover status are their social stations or their races. Harry is biracial—his mother is black, his father white—and June is white, but this is never mentioned, and since they meet by attending the same public school (in case you don’t watch quite as much British-produced TV as I do, “public schools” in the UK are what we would call “private schools” in the US), it’s assumed they’re of about the same social status. No, it’s simply June’s overbearing stepfather and his immediate plans to relocate their small, broken family that precipitates Harry and June’s wild, romantic flight into the night, and there’s a refreshing progressiveness to that aspect of the show.
Of course, Harry and June’s decision could never be as easy as running away to London, finding jobs, and living happily ever after. While they’re still on the run, June reveals to Harry the secret of her “epilepsy,” which he takes in relative stride. However, when a series of events results in June inadvertently shifting into Steinar, Harry’s quite a bit more shaken. Understandably so. I mean, most sixteen-year-old boys would be rather put out when their lithe, beautiful, blue-eyed girlfriend turns into a dirty, hulking Nordic man with a beard.
Not to mention, June doesn’t really break the news to Harry gently. Instead, she bursts into their motel room and forces him to look at her in the mirror of their bathroom, where she appears as herself. To be fair, they are both seriously freaked out by June’s shift—something that has never happened to her before—but eventually, Harry calms down and he talks June into shifting back to herself.
From this point on, their goals are twofold: 1) to reach London, and 2) to figure out what in the holy heck is happening to June.
This leads to a problematic aspect of the series. Namely, Harry and June SUCK at running away. First of all, they leave their stuff everywhere. Money, clothes, food, a cell phone bearing a precious message from June’s missing mom—they’re always willing to abandon their meager belongings at the drop of a hat if there’s the slightest whiff of danger. This might seem practical, but this both leaves a bread trail with which to follow them, and it’s used repeatedly as a means of driving the story forward and/or reuniting characters. Basically, it’s an overused device, one that becomes predictable pretty quickly.
Also, I know the show is called The Innocents, but there are a few points where both kids, especially June, make decisions that suggest they’re TSTL (too stupid to live). June never met a suspicious stranger she didn’t trust, and Harry often trails along after her like a very cute yet very dumb puppy. Most of these choices are made in the name of June finding out more about her newfound ability, but there were a few times I wanted to shake her for waltzing into yet another obvious trap. This, too, becomes predictable—June’s bad decision making abilities—and grates at times.
But while half of the show is set in Britain, the other half takes place in a beautiful, remote fjord of Norway. This is where Dr. Ben Halvorsen lives with his partner, Runa, as well as two other women afflicted by the strange shifting ability June shares. One of these women is Elena Askelaand (Laura Birn), June’s MIA mother (dun dun DUN!), and the other is Sigrid (Lise Risom Olsen). Ben has created a “sanctuary” for these women, a place where he can learn about their abilities while simultaneously teaching them how to control them. Sigrid is an example of his skill; she can control her shifting ability. And yet, despite the fact that she speaks often of leaving, she remains, not quite ready to leave this safe space.
Sounds nice, right? What if I told you Dr. Ben forces the women to speak only in English? This is ostensibly because, as a Brit—I think? There are times when Pearce’s Australian accent sneaks through.—he can only speak limited Norwegian, but he enforces the rule with a stern, taskmaster-like rigidity, scolding the women if they slip into their native tongue. Also, there can be no physical contact between the women (there must be skin-to-skin contact for shifting to occur), and the ladies are forced wear these childish, overall-type dress that fall to their shins. Oh, and our dear doctor calls the place Sanctum. SANCTUM.
(Apparently, they never got The Walking Dead in Norway. Sanctum?! Why not just call the place “Death Trap”?)
Anyway, it’s obviously a total cult-o-rama, but the doctor preys on the women’s fears. Elena can’t control her shifting yet, and Runa suffers from early onset dementia, which makes her formerly controlled power unpredictable and erratic. Sigrid…well, she drank Dr. Ben’s Kool-Aid, and it isn’t until he leaves the fjord for a bit that his domination over her wanes.
Speaking of Dr. Ben, Guy Pearce is the perfect choice for Dr. Ben for a number of reasons. He is 5’11,” but he’s also a slender man with fine, handsome features. Put a salt-and-pepper beard on him and a pair of thick glasses, and he looks incredibly unassuming and trustworthy. And when he’s not in drag, as he is in one of my all-time favorite movies: The Adventures of Priscilla, Queen of the Desert, he exudes a quiet charisma. I suppose I’m saying I find it plausible that vulnerable women would come to his remote fjord. Even if he does call it Sanctum.
SMH.
At any rate, Harry and June become runaways in every sense of the word in this series. At various times they’re either running from pursuers, themselves, or one another, but they come to learn, through some sweet moments and some heart-wrenching scenes, that it’s impossible to run forever.
In Conclusion: Despite its downfalls, The Innocents has several themes—the varied shapes and layers of love, identity, and trust—that it explores in interesting ways, and it does conjure a few twists and turns I didn’t see coming. This might seem like a huge diss, but I swear it isn’t: This show is kind of like if Orphan Black and Sense8 had a slightly clumsier, less compelling child.
Which is not to say that I recommend taking a pass! If you liked Orphan Black and/or Sense8, I do think you’ll enjoy The Innocents. The shifting ability has several interesting facets, and they’re not all revealed in this first season, providing decent fodder for future storytelling. I mostly liked the characters. I was definitely rooting for June and Harry, who are as cute as a bug’s ear, and Pearce’s understated performance is a standout. In addition, the writing is pretty good when it isn’t falling back on lazy plotting devices. The show is shot well—the scenes with Harry and June often feel cozy and intimate, while the scenes at Sanctum have a more hemmed in, claustrophobic vibe. Most importantly, the episodes went down easy; I watched all eight in a single day. And if there is one, I’ll definitely tune in for a second season.
According to the online scuttlebutt, Sorcha Groundsell (June) has already been signed for the first SIX seasons, so clearly Netflix expects big things from this little show.
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