Episode 1 (The Father) 

At the outset, the show doesn’t seem particularly eerie. It's got a crime-drama feel, at least up until the girl in the woods trying to off herself is rescued by the lead character but refuses to acknowledge the existence of the young boy she was very obviously talking to before noosing herself. Depressing much?

Jude Law’s Sam Dawson, The Father, is secretive and shady right from the beginning. He insists on taking the girl, Epona, back to her home - which turns out to be on the island of Osea, connected to the mainland by a causeway that has a strict opening and flooding time governed by the tide.

He is uncomfortable right off the bat in the strange islandic community. The pub owner is friendly with overtones of creepiness, with a tongue-lashing wife. He explores the island and becomes privy to possibly conspiratorial information, courtesy of his dead son's vision leading him on. Returning to the pub, he is surprised to find another mainlander, Jess, in the bed that was supposedly earmarked for him. He makes an important call from her cellphone, but it doesn't go as he'd planned.

By the late evening, he is (quite predictably) forced to stay the night without communicating with his wife. Alcohol in good quantities loosens his stiff upper lip though, and the last scene of his booze-fueled revelry reveals a surprisingly well-hidden secret.

Episode 2 (The Son) begins with surreal, disturbing, nightmarish dream sequences.

Oseans know the causeway’s opening and closing down to the minute, so reliable are the tides - gentle reminder that the moon spirals endlessly as the earth hurtles to and fro chasing the sun that is being flung from the Milky Way.

Thin characters, eccentric plot. Thick as thieves, Osea and its people are. Island for the most part, I wonder how the festival will feel. 

Compact close ups of faces (mostly Jude Law’s sanguine ruddiness, down to the pores) and surprisingly few shots of the wide expanse of the surrounding seas. Even in the beachside scenes of Sam and Jess spilling secrets. 

Goltan is the name of The Son’s killer. Sam is right, sounds like a super villain. Celtic myth entwined with Christian fanaticism and social outcasts makes for a potent potion that’s easy to swallow for gullible, fractured minds like The Father’s. Quite conveniently, his son’s apparition leads him to many revelations among the island’s rowdy revelers. 

Gaslighting is cool and all, but have you tried being at the receiving end of it? Sam is convinced by the pub people that his mind is the problem. Oh, and having no phones is great, too! Not.

Halfway across the causeway (Pink Floyd, when whilst thou release me from harkening back to your lyrics? This one is reminiscent of “Along the Long Road and on down the Causeway, Do they still meet there by the Cut?” in High Hopes), the barrage of messages blows him back to Osea. 

Alcohol is not the wind in his sails on this night of festivities, though. Always a good choice. Drugs, however, are a bad choice, and “dropping acid” is not a phrase to be dropped lightly.

The trip does not go too well for Sam, but he is alive (even though he's taken captive) as we reach The Third Day.

Episode 3 (The Ghost) that wraps up this "Summer" storyline dropped on September 28. It brought the story full circle, in that Sam was destined for Osea. Reminds me of Hotel California: "You can check out any time you like, but you can never leave... <hugely uplifting guitar solo>"

Check out the trailer & teaser: