'The Mist' Episode 6: 'The Devil You Know'

As the series/season(?) enters its second half, one might expect tensions to increase, the pacing to pick up, you might even anticipate a big reveal.  This episode delivers...well none of that, really.

Even the meetup between "Bryan" and Bryan turns out anticlimactic as the two immediately come to blows.  I guess I can't fault the real Bryan for his reaction, but it's another missed opportunity for the writers.

Admittedly, it was a good fight, with both parties landing some solid hits before Bryan/Jonah ends it, but the kill is especially strange as Jonah wanted answers and killed the best lead he's had since he woke up in the woods.

From there, the episode just kind of lollygags.  It's a good long while before anything of note happens. You'd think that with 10 episodes and such a large cast, that things would be moving a bit faster, but such is not the case.

Thankfully, the episode does eventually get around to moving the plot forward, as Kevin is taken hostage by the doctor to be a test subject.  I can understand the doctor's desire to try to study the mist in order to better protect people, but looking at it from the viewer's perspective, it's clear that this is a futile endeavor.  The mist does whatever it wants whenever it wants with no particular rhyme or reason.  I did get a kick out of his assertion that he's not crazy.  He might be right, his reasoning was somewhat sound, but from Kevin's perspective, the issue was rather moot.  Once again, though, the mist itself doesn't seem to do anything so everybody's insistence that they can't let it touch them really seems unwarranted.

Mia's plot goes down as the episode's highlight.  Not only does it give us a brief glimpse into her history, but the scenes with the apparition of her mother are also fairly creepy.  It's not enough to turn the episode, or the show around, but it's something at least.

On the plus side, the episode doesn't really give us anything mindbogglingly stupid, like the last episode did.  The owl hallucination was weird and out of place, but that seemed somewhat intentional and gave the episode at least a brief dose of levity.

Odd as it may sound, there's not much else to say.  I mean, there were other subplots, but nothing that really stood out to me as warranting a mention.  I'm trying to care, and the show has moments, but this has been an underwhelming adaptation thus far.

As much as I'd love to say that we're coming to the conclusion, I have a suspicion that this will be spread out over 2 or 3 seasons.  Maybe it'll get better, but it doesn't seem like that's in the cards.

Click here to join our Patreon campaign