The Exorcist very well might be one of my favorite series from the decade. I didn’t watch it when it was originally aired because Fox did it no favors in advertising it. I was thinking that it was a reboot tv series, which that isn’t what it is. I won’t say anything until it happens in the series, but the connection to the movies is revealed early in the season.
I don’t really want to talk about the plots for both “Chapter One: And Let My Cry Come Unto Thee” and “Chapter Two: Lupus in Fabula” because they’re both basically all set up for the story. We get the characters getting where they’re supposed to be. We also get hints that there’s a greater conspiracy, which is something far more sinister than what you would expect when dealing with a singular possession.
The two leads, Alfonso Herrera and Ben Daniels, are compelling as all get out. The performances they put in throughout these episodes are outstanding. Both Geena Davis and Alan Ruck are great. They have interesting roles and play them incredibly well. I also really want to mention Hannah Kasulka’s performance in these episodes. The amount of unease that I felt whenever she shifted the way she played her character.
There are some mediocre visual effects, but considering the constraints shows have they fact that all of them don’t look like that is impressive. I mostly want to mention how good the music is in these episodes. There a variation on “Tubular Bells” in the first episode that’s interesting. The episode even ends with the song. The music for the second episode is good, they even show off the show’s theme throughout the episode. Daniel Hart knocked it out of the park in these episodes.
These episodes of The Exorcist are really good, but the story doesn’t really click into place until the next couple of episodes. When they click into place everything makes sense and I wasn’t prepared for what happened. Jeremy Slater did an amazing job of making a great horror tv series on network tv. I give the first two episodes of The Exorcist 8.5 bibles out of 10.