In Netflix’s new miniseries “The Watcher”, a couple with their two children move into a new house. Now that is like the most popular staple when it comes to the horror genre but this one has a spin; it is actually based on a true story. The source material here is a 2018 article by Reeves Wiedeman which was published in The Cut, a section of the New York magazine.
Last month, Ryan Murphy and Ian Brennan adapted one of the most notorious serial killer stories in the form of “Dahmer: Monster, A Jeffrey Dahmer story” where Murphy took a rather grounded, documentary-style storytelling approach instead of his usual pulpiness and hyper-dramatization which worked brilliantly. The same duo is back at it again with another true story adaptation for Netflix but Murphy’s signature style is clearly visible in this one and that does seem like a decision that mostly works.
With Murphy and Brennan at the helm of it (both of them share most of the writing credits as well) and many other crew members from “Dahmer” returning (including Jennifer Lynch and Paris Barclay, the two of the most significant directors from that show), The Watcher is a chilling interpretation of a true story that stars Naomi Watts and Bobby Cannavale in the lead. The cause is further helped by an all-star supporting cast of talented actors with the likes of Mia Farrow, Noma Dumezweni, Joe Mantello, Richard Kind, Margo Martindale, and Jennifer Coolidge.
The Watcher (2022) Netflix Miniseries Recap:
Nora (Watts) and Dean (Cannavale) Brannock along with their teen daughter Ellie (Isabel Gravitt) and son Carter (Luke David Blumm) move into 657 boulevard, an absolutely gorgeous house in the Westfield neighborhood of New Jersey. Their goal is to have a plushy, quiet life in the suburbs after finally leaving the hustle and bustle of their humble city life in New York. They had to drain all their savings to buy their dream house but Dean is about to make a partner in his law firm so they hope to be alright financially.
The realtor of the open house, Karen (Coolidge) turns out to be an old friend of Nora and is elated to see the Brannocks buying the house. Nora soon joins the local country club and starts hanging out with her old friend.
But for the Brannock family, the bliss of their new home is short-lived as they start to receive strange letters from someone calling themself “The Watcher” and claiming to be obsessed with their house. The letters get creepier with each new one and start talking about “young blood” referring to the Brannock children and how greed has brought the family into the house.
The couple do every possible thing they can to eliminate this threat from their life. They hire Dakota, a 19-year-old African-American boy with his own home security company to install cameras and alarms all over the house as essential safety measures. The local police detective Chamberland (Christopher McDonald) doesn’t seem to be much of a help but he recommends a private investigator, Theodora Birch (Dumezweni) who is eventually hired by Dean. Through Theodora, Dean meets Andrew (Seth Gabel) who is the previous owner of the house. Andrew tells Dean the horrifying story of moving into that house with his wife and infant son and then receiving similar kinds of letters from “The Watcher”. He also mentions that neighbors Mitch and Mo (Kind and Martindale) are involved in some sort of blood cult.
Dean has his own moment of extremely unpleasant, argumentative encounters with Mitch and Mo and their other closest neighbor Jasper (Terry Kinney), and his sister Pearl (Farrow). These four seem like suspects although no hard evidence is found against any of them. However, thanks to an unfortunate murder-suicide, Mitch and Mo die soon. But that turns out to be a scam run by their loose cannon son Christopher to get insurance money.
A strange visit from a man named John (Mantello) who claims to be the building inspector further confuses Dean when he finds out from the contractor who is looking after the renovation that there is no such man. When Theodora tells him about a man named John Graff who used to live in the house and murdered his entire family before disappearing back in 1995, Dean is convinced that the man he met is none other than the same John Graff himself.
Ellie takes an interest in Dakota and the two soon start a secretive relationship. Upon finding out, Dean and Nora ground Ellie and based on Theodora’s assumption, accuse Dakota as “The Watcher”. But this heavily backfires as Ellie releases a video of her father disapproving of her relationship because he is a racist. Dakota is also cleared by the police and as an act of retaliation, he releases a video of Dean sleeping alone and a teenage girl entering his room to perform sexual acts.
This stains both his reputation at his work and his marriage with Nora and he is even more surprised to find out the girl in the video is wearing the exact same clothes that John Graff’s daughter Pat Graff was wearing at the time of her death. To make matters worse, Theodora suspects Dean of being The Watcher, and Nora seems to be really convinced by her theory.
Dean eventually makes amends with Dakota and with his help, he manages to prove his innocence regarding the video. Although he does admit to writing the last letter as an attempt to scare Nora and the kids away from the house and sell it because that eventually ensures their safety.
Meanwhile, Karen keeps persuading Nora to sell the house at a lower price and upon seeing Karen with Chamberland at the country club Nora suspects the two of them of being together in it. She calls Dean and the two of them publicly accuse Karen and Chamberland of everything. They soon find a hidden tunnel under their house along with a room that seems like someone is living in it. To the audience, someone is revealed to be the man named John who visited Dean, and Pearl also seems to be involved in it. Thanks to their fight, Chamberland refuses to help Nora and Dean further regarding the hidden tunnel or anything else.
The Watcher (2022) Netflix Miniseries Ending, Explained:
Theodora finds out about a retired English teacher, Roger Kaplan (Michael Nouri) who has this obsession with beautiful houses as he always wanted to live in one. Roger’s ex-wife and a woman named Carol Flannagan who lives in another house that Roger once used to obsess over claim that The Watcher has to be Roger. Carol tells her account of the story where Roger sends flattering letters about the house initially and then starts to call himself “The Watcher” as the letters gradually become dark and violent. In Spite of Theodora asking them not to, Nora and Dean confront Roger in the Supermarket. That doesn’t go well as Roger flatly denies everything and no proper evidence is found against him really being “The Watcher”.
Unable to deal with incessant troubles regarding the house which was supposed to bring them peace, the couple decide to sell it. But they find it hard because sinister rumors about the house have become public thanks to Karen who is taking it out against them for obvious reasons. Karen eventually manages to buy the house but she is soon terrorized by someone and starts receiving a threatening letter from “The Watcher”. This eventually makes her sell the house as well.
Who was The Watcher?
In the true story on which the series is based, The Watcher is never really found. A man is eventually suspected but then he is cleared of all charges by the police.
Staying faithful to the source material, the show also doesn’t reveal anyone to be “The Watcher” and in the end, it becomes more about the anxiety and paranoia all the house owners had to go through and how it affected them.
Even though Dean and Nora, along with their family, move on with their lives after getting back to the city, the trauma never really leaves them. Especially for Dean, it becomes terribly hard and not being able to find who it really was, takes a huge toll on him. Theodora, right before dying of her cancer tries to pin everything on herself to help Dean find some closure but that doesn’t work out. With the help of regular therapy, Dean does become functional but he keeps visiting the house and even meets the new owner of it and introduces himself as “John”.
Nora handles things much better than her husband. She thrives in her career as a pottery artist and seems to leave everything regarding “The Watcher” behind. But it is very much possible for her to be the one who is traumatizing Karen and sending her the letter.
In the final scene of the show, both Nora and Dean lie to each other on phone about their whereabouts while we see Nora following Dean who is visiting the house.
If we really have to predict then the four members of the Brannock family and Theodora can be ruled out. But every other remaining character can be “The Watcher” as all of them have given the audience certain indicative moments of endless speculation.
Review:
In a story where the suspense and action are completely built upon a “whodunit”, it is always risky to do the big reveal as more often than not, it disappoints the audience. The Watcher, based on an unsolved mystery, didn’t have the burden and Murphy makes the right choice to not put one on it. Not revealing who is the “Watcher” actually works in its favor as the newly formed fanbase of the show will now keep discussing all the possible theories, just like Nora, Dean and Theodora did in the show.
While remaining mostly faithful to the original source material other than changing the name of the family to Brannock from Broaddus; Murphy and Brennan do make some creative changes here for the sake of keeping the narrative exciting and engaging for the viewers, which seems to be fitting in the context of the show.
Embracing his signature style of infusing jump scares, flashy twists, catchy dialogues, and eccentric characters and blending that with the right amount of sensitivity required to adapt a true story could have been really tricky, but Murphy handles that pretty well. What makes things easier for him is the believable performances of Watts and Cannavale. As a terribly flawed, hotheaded, dumb lead man with good intentions to save his family Cannavale is fantastic here and most definitely the standout performer.
The writing and editing of the show could have been a little better though as some of the supporting characters and story arcs are not fully fleshed. But the absolutely wonderful supporting cast makes up for that with their performances. Coolidge, Farrow, Dumezweni, Mantello, and Martindale are particularly brilliant although Kind is pretty much wasted.
With the amount of content Ryan Murphy is delivering in a very short span of time (American Horror Stories, Dahmer, Mr. Harrigan’s Phone, and the upcoming season 11 of American Horror story; all within two months) there is always a risk in maintaining quality, but The Watcher turns out to be yet another winner by Murphy. There is no stopping this man from scaring the shit out of the audience in the season of Halloween, after all.
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Trailer
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5HDkw100sXQ
