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Cora’s interest in cryptozoology and knack for wearing pants pretty quickly lands her in hot water in Essex, where townsfolk become convinced she’s either an enchantress or an incurable source of bad luck. It doesn’t help that Cora arrives with a constellation of companions who defy the standards of a nuclear family. Along with her young son, she brings her politically active servant Martha (“In The Earth” actress Hayley Squires), and her experiment-prone physician friend, Dr. Luke Garnett (Frank Dillane, “Fear the Walking Dead”) soon follows.
The widow hasn’t been in Essex for longer than a few moments when she stumbles upon Will (Tom Hiddleston), a modest and taciturn pastor who’s struggling to free a trapped sheep from the watery muck that surrounds the town. Without hesitation, she muddies her clothes alongside him, and a partnership based on practicality, equality, and a strange sort of chemistry is born. Only Will’s married, and he’s not the only one around who’s drawn in by Cora’s enthusiasm and beauty.
Despite the great beast in its title, “The Essex Serpent” is a small story. It’s content to ruminate on the human connections between these people, the religious superstition of their community, and the vague spookiness of turn-of-the-century life itself. At times, it calls to mind the tales of Daphne du Maurier and the Bronte sisters. The drama’s loyalty to the deliberate pace and big emotions of Gothic fiction–which here ebb and flow like the waters along the town’s edge–will surely vex some viewers and entice others. Yet the show has enough impressive formal elements to keep it engaging, even when the story occasionally lags.
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