I’m not quite sure what to make of The Rain’s new season premiere. Oh, the stuff I loved the first time around is still there: the cast (in addition to the Andersen siblings, Jessica Dinnage as the cherub-cheeked Lea and Mikkel Følsgard as Simone’s love interest Martin are also standouts), the fundamental gentleness of the core characters, the unswerving sense that hurting other people to protect your own is Bad, Actually.
But the pacing has been dialed up to Ludicrous Speed even by The Rain‘s standards. So have the sci-fi elements, which have gone from “unscrupulous corporation creates miracle cure that turns into a biblical plague when unleashed” to “there are infected trees now and they can communicate with people” and “this one guy’s bodily fluids have all been replaced by liquid virus that explodes out of him like that oil rig in There Will Be Blood.” It’s…a lot, is what it is. Maybe too much.
(Note: I’m playing catch-up with links so these review summaries will be brief. I guess you’ll just have to read the reviews!)