It wouldn’t be fall without a few shows produced by Ryan Murphy, and he’s been everywhere these months with the launch of American Sports Story: Aaron Hernandez, Monsters: The Story of Lyle and Erik Menendezand now Big questiona standalone horror story that attracted the most attention for being the acting debut of Travis Kelce (who does not appear in the show’s two-episode premiere). Somewhere between the camp of the American horror story franchise and the more grounded Murphy-verse projects like Sample exists this tonally confused drama, a series that was almost certainly pitched as ‘American horror story meet Seven.” It retains so much of the thematic and narrative DNA of David Fincher’s hit, but that kind of dark procedural doesn’t exactly play to the power of the Murphy brand, leading to a show that feels like it’s running after just two years . episodes.

Niecy Nash, who won an Emmy for her work on Monster: The Jeffrey Dahmer Storyreturns to the Murphy tableau as Detective Lois Tryon, who is going through a pretty rough chapter in this thing called life. When she’s not drinking or caring for her comatose husband Marshall (Courtney B. Vance), she investigates a gruesome new case. It opens with a call to an unimaginable scene in which a family of five is brutally murdered and tortured in a way that would make most sociopaths recoil. Tryon later reveals that the patriarch was cooked, cut, and fed to his own family before their deaths. No wonder there was a cop vomiting on the flowers outside (which is perhaps the most Murphy-esque image in the show, a mix of beautiful and gross).

The premiere then reveals a little more about Lois’ personal life, including a daughter named Merritt (Raven Goodwin) who is trying to gain enough weight to get on a reality TV show. Mother drinks, daughter eats and the stabilizing force in the family lies in a hospital bed. Every scene in the two-part premiere where Lois goes to visit Marshall feels disastrously atonal to the rest of the program, and these moments are the closest the series gets. There we meet the crazed nurse Redd (Lesley Manville), a character who seems to have wandered in from Murphy’s. Frayeda healthcare provider who could be politely called insulting. In her first scene she talks about wiping her patient’s butt, and later she appears to ‘manipulate’ him during a sponge bath. Despite Manville’s undeniable talent, these scenes are genuinely weird, likely setting Redd up for a future victim, but they are clumsily written and poorly paced, with the show feeling most caught between camp and realism.

More effective is the introduction of a young nun named Sister Megan (series MVP Micaela Diamond), who becomes Tryon’s religious advisor when the case begins to reflect religious beliefs and concepts of sin. Megan is a true crime junkie in a nun’s habit, one who is almost turned on by the details of the case that Tryon unrealistically reveals. (In one piece, she calls on Megan to essentially give an exposition dump on the way to a possible arrest, which is just one of the few points where any attempt at realism here is punctured.)

Sister Megan represents a form of modern religion where a religious figure can’t just use a smartphone, but drop the word “orgasmic” in a conversation with a priest. She notes that the murdered family believed in social justice and embodied a more progressive branch of the church that the killer may have offended. She doesn’t just tell Tryon about the religious details of the crimes in these two episodes; she offers a balance to Tryon’s world-weariness, playing someone who seems almost thrilled by the crimes and their connection to a religious world at war with itself.

Of course, there’s another murder before the first episode is over: a few junkies are mutilated and pinned to the wall like crucifixes for the police to discover. There is again a mysterious liquid on site that later turns out to be sulfur dioxide, also called sulphur. How awful John Doe.

The second episode opens with a flashback to happier days in the Tryon family…well, hardly happier. Merritt begins her voracious reality TV show campaign while Lois is already a full-time alcoholic. In this den of mundane sin, the writers reveal that Marshall had an affair just before he fell into a coma. The interweaving of gluttony, addiction, pride (trying to get on reality TV), and infidelity through one of the few scenes of domesticity doesn’t feel coincidental because this show is about sin, atonement, and religious violence.



Just as it seems Big question is about to build up thematic steam, it begins that common problem of Murphy shows: spinning the wheel to obvious conclusions. Tryon thinks the killer may be connected to the university where the cannibalized father worked, but what would be the connection to the trap house? Proceedings are given a granular level of investigative detail that this show just isn’t interested in. Even Sister Megan actually makes fun of Detective Tryon’s half-hearted investigation, noting that she needs to look at all of this in more biblical, comprehensive terms. “To understand this monster, you must reach the ecstatic,” she says.

More effective is the introduction of a new priest (suspect?) named Father Charlie (Nicholas Chavez), who delivers a sermon on pride and faith, re-foregrounding some of the show’s themes. Sister Megan gets sucked into the handsome man’s worldview, perhaps not paying enough attention to lines like “I want to remove the cancer from their soul.” Hey, suspect number 1! And our suspicions would only grow stronger if we see what Father Charlie does in his spare time, including flogging himself after masturbating. Before then, Charlie and Megan reveal they’re true crime junkies, complete with a nod to Ed Gein, a bit of early promotion for the next episode of Sample. Megan’s favorite serial killer is a clever deep cut, Sister Mariam Soulakiotis, a Greek nun who allegedly murdered hundreds of people in her abbey. Is this the writers’ way of telling us to take a closer look at Megan herself?

The police catch a suspect, but arrive at his house to discover another vicious scene, this time with a survivor quoting Psalms on the way out. “The Lord abhors the bloodthirsty and deceitful man” allows Megan to theorize that the killer believes in a hateful god. In the closing moments, Lois takes a puzzle box found at the scene to her daughter to solve – chain of evidence, lady! The Last Supper. It’s certainly a striking image in a show that’s lacking, and it reveals the name of this series’ maniac: Grotesquerie. Is that you, Travis?!

Stray observations

• • Even the opening credits feel a bit muddled in this tonally rudderless show. Remember all those great things AHS credit series? This one is just a red background that quickly runs through cast and crew like a half-hearted obligation.
• • The first episode features many shots of eating, highlighting the sin of gluttony in a way that feels like clever foreshadowing.
• • There’s a faint, dark color palette here that gives it more of a look Sample than AHS feeling.
• • There are words on the wall among the victims in the trap house. Most are hard to make out, but the flashlight is about “dereliquisto,” which means “abandon” in Latin, if you’re curious.
• • Sister Megan says the killer playing Mozart’s Requiem on the night of the family murders is important because it is a song about death, including Mozart’s. If you’re curious about that, this is interesting to read about the origin and meaning of the famous piece.
• • Lois claims she has never seen it Dateline. Don’t you think most cops have done that at least a few times? Just to compare techniques?
• • These episodes are directed by Max Winkler, who has become a reliable part of the Murphy-verse, underlying chapters of The watchman, American horror story, FeudAnd Monsters.
• • A show rich in true crime language includes a reference to the Chicago Ripper Crew, a group not as well known as someone like Gein, but one that is absolutely terrifying. You can read more about their cannibalistic rituals here.
• • Father Charlie ends his homily with a hymn that feels important called, “There Is Power in the Blood.” It’s about how Jesus sacrificed himself to save us. Will Father Charlie do the same or is he the one leading the people to “a cleansing to Calvary’s tide”?