Summary
Teacup makes up for some its premiere’s downsides with a much-improved episode that makes the stakes clearer in brutal fashion.
Freed from the clunky expositional approach of its premiere, Teacup feels like it’s coming together in Episode 2, “My Little Lighthouse”. The predicament feels more defined, there’s some grisly – albeit cheap-looking – body horror, and quite a compelling mystery underpinning everything. It’s amazing what can be achieved by just settling things down and killing off a couple of characters.
It was smart of Peacock to release this outing with Episode 1 out of the gate since it’s much better. It does follow on pretty directly, though. With Arlo having just staggered from the woods in some visible distress, Maggie and James want to take him to the hospital, but that’s a no-go. Everything is on the fritz, from the cars to the lights. They’re trapped.
Being trapped inside allows some subplots to percolate. We’ve got a vaguely flirtatious relationship between Meryl and Nicholas, and the subplot about James’s affair. Trapped in such close proximity with Valeria, it was only a matter of time before Maggie heard something that tipped her off. I suspect this is going to lead to some kind of dramatic confrontation down the line but it is, admittedly, less interesting than the other stuff happening.
Of particular note is Arlo, who spends the entirety of Teacup Episode 2 flitting between his normal self and an incomprehensible possessed version who communes with a man in his head and talks in garbled gobbledygook. With the help of a dictionary, he’s eventually able to translate some of the gibberish – he’s saying everyone is trapped, which by the point in the episode that he reveals it is rather obvious, and also says that the man in his head is telling him they should run and hide.
Theory time! I think the possession plot and the blue-line plot are distinct, and that the voice in Arlo’s head is genuinely trying to help him and his family escape whoever has encircled the house. I haven’t read the book the show is based on so this could be complete nonsense, but it’s the vibe I get.
Either way, Arlo remains unpredictable – at one point he even attacks Maggie with a pair of scissors. It’s hard to tell whether he’s being influenced to do certain things or is lashing out in confusion and frustration. More clarity will, I suspect, be provided in subsequent episodes.
Teacup | Image via Peacock
But the more pressing problem is the blue line that the mysterious man in a gas mask has drawn around the property. Don, being a staunch gun-toting Republican, goes marching into the woods to shoot something – muttering stuff about COVID all the while – and runs into the dog that we caught glimpses of in the premiere. The mutt chases him out of the forest.
While this is going on, James and Reuben are trying to get some sense out of the dude in the gasmask, who has written a simple message for them on a whiteboard – “Don’t cross the line.” It’s a simple enough warning, but the dog doesn’t comprehend it, since after chasing Don it legs it beyond the barrier and then messily turns inside-out.
I’d much rather human characters died than dogs, but the point is made. It’s hard to tell at this point if the man in the gas mask is just laying down the rules, or drew the line to be helpful. There’s a following message on the whiteboard before he departs – “Don’t trust anyone” – that has a slightly helpful connotation, but is this guy isn’t a villain, and neither is the guy in Arlo’s head, then who is?
These questions are fun to ponder, at the very least, and make Teacup a more interesting show than the premiere suggested it would be. And it isn’t afraid to up the stakes, either. Episode 2 ends with Don’s wife, Claire, crossing the barrier herself, not buying into the danger of it, and she finds herself, like the dog, ripped apart from the inside. Poor Don, who is forced to watch, even loses the hand he reached out to try and stop her.
With the threat clearly established now but the motives much more obscure, Teacup has gotten off to a surprisingly strong start and I’m intrigued to see where it goes next.
