Even TV critics have their guilty pleasures, and I have a
soft spot for summer murder mysteries, the kind of shows that allow one to turn
off their brain, suspect everyone, and watch the chaos unfold. I’m probably the
only person you know who watched every mirthless episode of “Harper’s Island”
and I’m currently questioning why I watch MTV’s “Scream” on a weekly basis. In
other words, I am the target audience for CBS’s “American Gothic” (premiering Wednesday, June 22 at 10/9c), a murder
mystery about a powerful family with some deeply-buried secrets and a
connection to a serial killer. With that in mind, my modest recommendation for “American
Gothic” should also be considered a modest warning for most viewers. On the other hand, if
this barely works for me, it probably won’t work for you.
“American Gothic” has nothing to do with the 1995 CBS series
with which it shares a name, or the famous Grant Wood painting, or really
anything that could be defined as gothic. It is American, I guess. It centers
on the Hawthornes, a Boston family gathering together for the upcoming political
campaign being run by the most “together” daughter Alison (Juliet Rylance of “The
Knick”). Alison’s sister Tessa (Megan Ketch) is married to a cop named Brady (Elliot
Knight). In the opening scene, the nicest Hawthorne and her cop hubby are driving through a tunnel when the ceiling
collapses behind them, crushing a car. In the concrete, a belt is found that
links back to a series of serial killings years earlier, and it turns out that
the Hawthorne family helped build the tunnel.
At the same time, Tessa and her brother Cam (Justin Chatwin
of “Shameless”), who’s been dealing with some addiction demons for the last few
years and has a truly creepy son named Jack (Gabriel Bateman), happen upon some
evidence in the shed that links the Hawthorne patriarch to the same murders. As
if on cue, said papa has a heart attack, leaving everyone, including his wife
Madeline (Virginia Madsen), wondering what to do next. Although Madeline may
know more than she’s letting on, and it sure seems like black sheep Garrett
(Antony Starr) knows a thing or two. Was Mr. Hawthorne a serial killer? Did
Garrett come back to cover up his crimes or expose him? Was dad just protecting
one of his children? Why is Madeline acting so suspicious? And what will the
new cop do when he learns that his investigation is going to lead him to his
in-laws?
Clearly, “American Gothic” has enough plot for a summer
murder mystery, but it doesn’t quite have the style or cast to pull it off with
the flair that this kind of guilty pleasure needs. The show needs to be like
those books that people buy at the airport and read on the beach—easy to digest
but also paced well enough to keep the sun from putting them to sleep. The two
episodes sent to press of “American Gothic” feel clunky instead of confident. The
show seems to open with a dark sense of humor, but that disappears
for large stretches of time, and the cast is at the mercy of the plotting,
unable to develop full characters. Rylance does the
best with very little and Ketch certainly works as the most likable Hawthorne,
at least to start, but Chatwin and Starr are boring plot devices. And I’m not
sure what Madsen is doing here.
Will I watch the rest of “American Gothic”? Probably. Like I
said, it’s kind of beyond my control in the same sense that I can’t start reading
a murder mystery and not know who did
it. Although maybe I’ll wait till it’s done and skip to the end.
