With a plot that includes mediums, supernatural happenings and a place called “Christmasland,” I was surprised NOS4A2 was even adapted from Joe Hill’s novel of the same name. The book felt almost too weird to make into a TV show, where you can’t leave a world to the imagination and it must be shown on screen. But summertime is the perfect time to premiere a genre show with a slightly complex mythology that reminds people to be grateful for warmth instead of a lifetime of winter. And NOS4A2 is a solid TV show that’s ripe to watch when you need a day inside to take a break from the heat.
It’s refreshing in a TV landscape full of complicated antiheroes that the characters with the most interiority in NOS4A2 are the good guys. The hero of this story is Vic McQueen (Ashleigh Cummings), and she has a big heart, and big sad eyes. She has complicated relationships with her family and friends, and her choices and relationships are treated with surprising nuance. In her personal life, there is no one who is all good or all bad, and yet she loves them anyway. Her main goal is to get out of Haverhill, Mass., where her working class parents have lived most of their lives. Vic’s poor family is never treated as a joke, though the difference in her upbringing and opportunities compared with her wealthy friend are clear.
The Boston accents on NOS4A2 are noticeable in a way that accents should not be, and the dialogue is sometimes predictable—at least once I said a character’s lines before the character did. But the acting is solid, and that’s what grounds the show, even when it explores the supernatural and worlds of make-believe.
Charlie Manx (Zachary Quinto) is unequivocally the big bad—no nuance there. Manx has powers that allow him to create a world in his imagination that he can then make real. He uses his powers to kidnap children and take them to Christmasland, where they remain children forever but lose their souls and transform into something monstrous. To go between the real world and his imagination world, he uses his car, a 1938 Rolls-Royce Wraith that has magical powers he can harness. In his mind, he is saving the children from a bad home life and taking them to a place where they have the joys of Christmas forever. But his motivations are never portrayed as sympathetic; he is a monster that Vic needs to stop, and the children are clearly worse off with him than they were before. Quinto’s sharp gaze is a great contrast to Vic’s emotional, tear-filled eyes, but Quinto is better when he’s wearing less makeup and you can fully see the hardness in his expression. With that said, when Manx and Vic finally meet, it’s magnetic.
Vic discovers her own similar powers in a desperate moment when she’s riding her motorbike and comes across a bridge that can take her to find lost things. With the help of her friend Maggie, a medium with powers of her own, Vic attempts to figure out how she can use her bridge to find the lost children.