{"id":6783,"date":"2022-08-22T15:44:56","date_gmt":"2022-08-22T19:44:56","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.levraphael.com\/blog\/?p=6783"},"modified":"2024-11-08T17:17:42","modified_gmt":"2024-11-08T22:17:42","slug":"echoes-on-netflix-is-dumb","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.levraphael.com\/blog\/echoes-on-netflix-is-dumb\/","title":{"rendered":"“Echoes” on Netflix is Dumber than Dumb"},"content":{"rendered":"\r\n

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Now and then I stick with a mystery novel or series not because it’s engrossing but because it’s such a mess I keep wondering if the writer or writers can possibly fix it by the end.\u00a0 And I also wonder if it’s going to get much worse, which I guess could be classified as morbid curiosity.<\/p>\r\n

That’s the case with the new Netflix miniseries Echoes<\/em>, which is the dumbest mystery I’ve seen this year.<\/p>\r\n

The twin sisters in Echoes<\/em> aren’t just close, they’re interchangeable. Or so they believe. One lives in LA, the other in Virginia and every year they have a birthday together someplace fun like Paris.\u00a0 Before they leave their joint celebration, the twins change clothes and identities. Then they go back home for a year until the next birthday bash and the next switch.<\/p>\r\n

Okay–without any spoilers–we’re supposed to believe that each one sleeps with the other’s husband and neither husband notices the slightest difference in how they’re touched, kissed, fondled, whispered or cried out to.\u00a0 Let’s forget sex for a moment. What about how they move, smile, laugh, read, walk and every other element of being themselves?\u00a0 Are we supposed to believe the husbands are stupid and grossly unobservant?

It’s not just their husbands who seem completely blind. Their elderly father can’t seem to tell them apart either, and just as bizarrely, Leni’s daughter Mattie doesn’t notice that one year her mother is Gina and the next one it’s Leni.\u00a0 One twin says their mother was the only one who could ever tell them\u00a0 apart.\u00a0 Yeah, right.<\/p>\r\n

When the switching is finally revealed, one of the people affected by it actually thinks it’s just fine and all about “self-discovery.”\u00a0 That scene is laughable and psychologically ridiculous.<\/p>\r\n

The whole miniseries feels badly edited, badly written and badly thought out, with Michelle Monaghan looking as vexed as viewers might be when they wonder “What?\u00a0 Seriously<\/em>?”\u00a0 time and again.\u00a0 There’s a plot, apparently, involving a stolen horse that never makes much sense because it’s not clear why the horse is in Leni and Jack’s stable.\u00a0 And they have money troubles that everybody in town seems to know about but are never fully explained.\u00a0 Oh yeah, Gina goes missing, sort of.\u00a0 There are thugs and jarring, cryptic flashbacks too.\u00a0 And a murder.\u00a0 Of course.\u00a0 And a third sister who is never fully integrated into the story.<\/p>\r\n

Just as bad as the general vagueness and unbelievability is the obnoxious score that says “This is ominous!” every few minutes no matter what Leni or Gina are doing.\u00a0 You want to say to the composer: Give it a rest, dude.<\/p>\r\n

The cast of Monaghan, Matt Bomer, Daniel Sunjata and Karen Robinson are wasted on very thin material that might have worked better as a 2-hour TV movie than a 7-episode miniseries.\u00a0 Might have–without the totally ridiculous ending.<\/p>\r\n

Lev Raphael is the former crime fiction review for The Detroit Free Press<\/em> and author of 27 books including 10 crime novels.<\/strong><\/p>\r\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Now and then I stick with a mystery novel or series not because it’s engrossing but because it’s such a mess I keep wondering if the writer or writers can possibly fix it by the end.\u00a0 And I also wonder if it’s going to get much worse, which I guess could be classified as morbid … Read more<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2572],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-6783","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-tv-miniseries"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.levraphael.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6783","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.levraphael.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.levraphael.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.levraphael.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.levraphael.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=6783"}],"version-history":[{"count":10,"href":"https:\/\/www.levraphael.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6783\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":8197,"href":"https:\/\/www.levraphael.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6783\/revisions\/8197"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.levraphael.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=6783"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.levraphael.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=6783"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.levraphael.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=6783"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}