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The Red Road Series Premiere Review: “Arise My Love, Shake Off This Dream” (Season 1, Episode 1)

Whether this finely acted slow-burner can unravel the exhausting amount of mysteries introduced in its pilot remains to be seen, but I'm looking forward to travelling down The Red Road.

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Starting with the good, the acting on display in The Red Road is strong throughout, particularly where Momoa is concerned. His intimidating frame is surely part of it, but the actor is downright terrifying as Phillip. His menacing line delivery paints the character as a massive powder-keg capable of going off at any moment. Momoa gets to show off more acting chops here than he did on Game of Thrones, and his portrayal is undoubtedly my favorite part of The Red Road so far.

Meanwhile, Henderson does a fine job with his sheriff character, communicating the character’s conflicted morals over his family situation. Harold’s love for his wife is clear from Henderson’s expressions, but the finely sketched undercurrent of agony to his performance also demonstrates his constant fears about her mental state. And for her part, Nicholson does unhinged very well. There’s definitely the chance that her performance could go over the top and bring the rest of The Red Road sliding into treacly melodrama, but Nicholson isn’t at that point yet.

The teen actors, Gonino and Gordon, pair well together, though both of them falter a bit when contrasted with Momoa’s almost unbearable intensity (which may well have been the point). The jury’s still out on whether their Romeo and Juliet-style romance has legs, but the duo are able to hold their own in the two scenes they have in the pilot.

So far, I’m not all that impressed by the writing on The Red Road; with only six episodes in this season, the pilot’s pace seems oddly unhurried. The problem with keeping a leisurely pace in a show with as much story to tell as this is that the tempo is then forced to shift, sometimes wildly. Certain scenes move at a breakneck pace, while others are drawn out too long. Hopefully The Red Road will settle into a groove next week, but the amount of mysteries established in “Arise My Love, Shake Off This Dream” make me think that the rest of the series could remain similarly messy in attempting to untangle them.

The pilot succeeds in getting a lot of balls in the air, but the main question remaining is whether The Red Road will actually be able to juggle them in an organic, interesting way without running out of steam. My first impression of The Red Road? Between messy plotting and fine acting, it’s a pretty evenly mixed bag. It works in this first episode, albeit in an everything-but-the-kitchen-sink kind of way.