'A Brief Rant on Netflix's The Hollow'

A couple weeks ago, my brother and I binge-watched a new show on Netflix called The Hollow. We didn't have the highest expectations of the show, especially with the animation, but it seemed cool and mysterious so we decided to try it out. I don't know if this is good or bad though, but we managed to inadvertently predict the plot twist within the first 10 minutes of the first episode. It wasn't a theory or anything. We just joked around and commentated, Mystery Science Theater style, and had a running gag of video game and RPG references since we thought the show felt more like a video game to us than a show. BUT YOU'LL NEVER GUESS WHAT THE PLOT TWIST WAS! That's right! We managed to not only predict the whole premise of the show, but also managed to depress ourselves by making jokes that may actually have just been accurate, like "Take this health potion" or "time for a boss battle!" But aside from that. Let's rant!

Now I like a good plot twist as much as the next guy, but to me it felt more like the overused and incredibly awful "it was all a dream" twist, which angers me to no end. The show could've had a lot of potential. Three kids, each with unique powers, find themselves lost in a strange otherworld but can't remember anything. I could think of a lot of good ways to go with that. Found a mystic portal, captured by an evil lunatic (who may as well have been Weird Guy), trapped inside a mindscape, and so on and so forth. And honestly, I would have been fine with it being a video game if it hadn't been just a harmless gameshow where nothing would be at stake if anyone lost or died. They could've been trapped in a simulation by a psychotic scientist, they could have been test subjects in some dystopian suspended animation, but the fact that it was a gameshow makes it seem like it was all done for nothing. No one would've died if they died in the game. No one would've met an unfortunate peril if they messed up. If you're going to make a suspenseful show, at least make it so there's incentive to not screw up, whether the characters know there's something at stake or not.

Which brings me to my next topic. What was up with all of those glitches at the end? They had literally no impact on the ending at all. Last episode, during the final battle, all the glitches are at their worst, and Weird Guy seems extremely scared and worried. We find out later that Weird Guy is the gameshow host, so if something like that was meant to happen in the game, he wouldn't have been concerned. But after Adam, Mira, and Kai beat the boss (which, allow me to go off topic for a second, may be the lamest final boss battle in the history of video games--real or not) they wake up, win the game, and the host washes his hands of the whole affair, brushing aside the alleged world-ending glitch. Why would you want to build up suspense if it A) won't be explained at all, and B) will just be ignored after the main plot is over?

It seems like this show is a series of build-ups that the writer seemed to just forget about because he's apparently a goldfish. "Whoa, Kai! You didn't get hurt by that electric fence!" a few episodes later, "Why don't I have any cool power?!" He can apparently control fire, so the logical thing would be to think, "Oh, it's like the Last Airbender, where if you control fire, you could also control electricity," but no. Nowhere else in the show does he control electricity. The final boss used electricity, so the logical thing would be to think, "Oh, so we're finally gonna go back to the fence incident and Kai's gonna be the dark horse hero," but, no, wrong again. Remember Benjamin and Benjamini? Yeah, unfortunately. Remember when they ominously said "We'll meet again!"? Well, one would think, "Oh, they're definitely gonna come back and be evil, right?" No! Wrong again! They meet them at the carnival again and just say hi and leave. And those three witches saying something as mysterious and apparently meaningful as "Death is your friend" had no significance except for the one episode that showcased the Grim Reaper who turned out to be friendly. Nowhere else in the show does that quote mean anything else, and the way they said it and the way the kids were discussing it would make you think it has some deep climactic meaning that the whole story revolves around. No. Death is a good guy. Appears in one episode. That's it.

Allow me to go a little off-topic for a second and bring some video game logic into this. One thing that shows lazy writing is when Mira loses the key to the door that makes you win the game, and when they finally approach that door, Adam just smashes it open. Yeah, okay, pretty cool thing to see and think of if it weren't a game, but it is! Game designers would purposely give you keys to unlock doors. Link can't use his Master Sword to slash open the door to Ganon if he doesn't have the key. He needs the key. Now you may say, "But it would totally be possible to break open a wooden door," to which I would respond, "Yes it is, but they're in a video game, where you need specific items to do specific things, and also, why would you make the door to end the game made out of wood if you specifically needed the keys to open it?" Why even lose the keys? The ending would've been the exact same if they had the keys on hand or if they didn't

Ho ho ho, now let's talk about characters! Whoo boy. I can describe each character using one descriptive word or phrase, and you'll know who I'm talking about right away. The serious leader. The comic relief. The girl. The chaotic neutral one. The rivals with no personality whatsoever. The evil love interest who makes the main character want to turn to the bad side. Seriously. All the characters are more flat than the side of Adam's face (the character, not me. That goes without saying, but I just felt the need to clarify). The best and most round character is Death, and, like I said before, was only in one episode! Adam always acted like a serious stick in the mud who only wants to find out where they are and why. Kai is annoying. Seriously, when he said his first line ever, I already hated him. Mira has no personality whatsoever. She's the girl, and I mean that in a making-fun-of-weak-writing-and-not-at-all-making-fun-of-females-in-society kind of way. And Weird Guy... my brother and I have coined the term "Bill Cipher Character" to describe people like him. You know, the mysterious oddball who's fun to watch and acts like a jerk. And the three rivals, who are so bland, I don't know any of their names by the way, have literally no personality or redeeming quality. They're bland jerks whose only goal is to win. And not to input some rude editorial, but the girl is a jerk and ugly and Kai can honestly do so much better.

And none of the kids can think! When Team 2 is trapped in the ice and the one guy is holding that stick you need to win, Kai and Adam were arguing whether to free the kids or just take the stick. Why not both? You know it's a video game by now and you know you need the stick to win and you know those three are your rivals. Kai or Adam could have easily melted or broken the part with the stick in it, grabbed it, and then freed the others.

Alright, time to be extremely nitpicky now! At the end of the last episode when the kids were choosing their special powers, all Kai chose was fire, so how did he know how to build spaceships and how machinery works? You could tell me it's like Jumanji 2 where each character has their own strengths, weaknesses, and knowhow, but all they showed was them choosing their powers and going into the game. And also, Mira chose the ability to talk to animals, which in no way also correlates to being able to breathe underwater. Nitpick point #2! When the three start out in the room with the typewriter, they typed in an H, which made them advance a little in the puzzle. But then they tried to come up with words starting with E. And then the word that solved the puzzle was "help," without acknowledging any change of starting letter. What?! In what video game hollow otherworld does that make any sense? "Oh we typed in H, so let's come up with words starting with E. Oh, I got one! How about 'help'?!"

And one more thing complaining about what they could've done. In one of the last scenes of the show, Adam, Kai, and Mira are brought back to the room where they first started, so I thought "Oh no, is this going to be like The Good Place season 2 where Eleanor has to redo everything she's done in season 1?" I worried about that, but now after seeing the ending, it may have actually been better than being in a gameshow. They have to keep replaying the game until they do something right. Like a message. A moral they have to learn. Something they have to do. That would have been cool. But no. Wake up. Gameshow. They win. Trophy. Other team is angry. The end.

Now you may read this rant after season 2 comes out if it does and think that I'm totally insane, because everything I mentioned earlier may come into play if they do make a season 2. After all, we're left off with the cliffhanger that Rival Girl--who looks just as bad in live action as she did animated--had some glitch in her eye. So maybe the live action gameshow is just Level 2 of a maybe torturous dystopian video game simulation, or maybe she's an evil robot or something. And apparently the live action actors aren't the same people as the animation voice actors, so if they do continue it as a live action, that would be very interesting. Plus, my brother and I decided that the live action part just reeks of Nickelodeon movie. And if they do continue it with live action, if the character designs and acting are any indication, the special effects will suck. At least with animation, you can make it seem like it's happening, but with live special effects, you know if it looks fake or not.

Well... that was long. Yeah, I did think the ending was somewhat clever, but I also sort of predicted it too. No, it's not the worst thing ever, and you can give it a watch if you're not nitpicky, but it's also a bit bland anyway. Whatever. That's my opinion overload for the day. See ya.

Addendum 5/20/19: I was thinking about this the other day. "Death is your friend" could've actually been really meaningful given the circumstances. Let's say that this wasn't just a gameshow. What if the kids were trapped in a nightmare video game world where something horrible would keep happening to them in the game. The only way they could escape the madness would be to die in the game to wake up and return to normal. God, this show's unused potential