‘I Know What You Did Last Summer’: The First Four Episodes Struggle to Balance Characters and Story
Joe Lipsett
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Each week Joe Lipsett deep dives into a spoiler-filled review of the latest episode of Amazon Prime’s I Know What You Did Last Summer. First up: episodes one through four.
What I Know What You Did Last Summer Is About
The first half of season one of Amazon Prime’s I Know What You Did Last Summer introduces a friend group of graduating high schoolers: mean bitch Lennon (Madison Iseman), her quiet, reserved twin sister Alison (also Iseman), social media influencer Margo (Brianne Tju), her queer bestie Johnny (Sebastian Amoruso), drug dealer Riley (Ashley Moore) and Dylan (Ezekiel Goodman) who is lovesick for Alison.
After an eventful party, in which Lennon sleeps with Dylan, everyone piles into Alison’s jeep. They mistake her for Lennon, who they inadvertently run over on the highway. The group leaves Lennon’s body in the Hawaiian caves. Alison then assumes her sister’s identity, unbeknownst to everyone except her father Bruce (Bill Heck).
One year later Alison-as-Lennon returns to find a threatening message in her closet. Johnny and his fiancé are killed in episode two. Then, pervy convenience store employee Dale (Spencer Sutherland) in episode three; and Deputy Doug and the Snack Shack cook in episode four.
I Know What You Did Last Summer: “IP vs “Adaptation”
Strangely enough, this new “adaptation” of Lois Duncan’s 1973 text is even further removed from the source material than the 1997 film that precedes it. Not only are none of the characters named Barry, Helen, Julie or Ray, but the death of one of the twins displaces the focus on grief and responsibility from external (a completely different, unconnected family) to internal.
While the use of the iconic name makes sense from an IP perspective, the lack of connection will undoubtedly negatively affect viewers’ reactions, at least for this initial first four-episode drop. It’s unclear if dropping half of the season at once will help to hook viewers. This means that the IP grab is actually more of a gamble than a certainty.
Double Trouble
As mentioned, the use of twins completely changes the narrative of the Amazon Prime series. Not only is the death of Lennon more personal for the friend group, but the identity swap means that Iseman has the opportunity to deliver two distinct performances.
Alas, unlike her spiritual predecessor Sarah Michelle Gellar, who similarly portrayed twins who swap lives in The CW’s one-season wonder Ringer, I Know What You Did Last Summer struggles to effectively distinguish between the sisters.
Repeated flashbacks to the grad party paint Lennon as a psychopath who delights in teasing and torturing her friends, while her less outgoing sister, present-day Alison-as-Lennon barely exhibits any personality. Still, it’s clear that Alison is grieving the loss of her sister’s and, to a lesser extent, her own life. But the result is a flat, uninspired performance that doesn’t convincingly embody either girl.
This trickles down into small details. In episode four, “Hot Shrimp Salad,” Alison-as-Lennon is repeatedly caught publicly smoking (this is an Alison trait, not a Lennon one). Certainly it can be seen as evidence of Alison’s fraying nerves as she tries to embody the mannerisms of a sister who hated her and has eclipsed her own personality. But the smoking doesn’t gel with a character who has been playing this game for nearly a year at this point.
Shallow Friends
The lack of distinguishing characteristics between Alison and Lennon is but one of the myriad issues plaguing these characters. The first episode does a reasonable job of introducing the central players and establishing the series’ dual timelines. Subsequent episodes, though, fail to flesh them out and/or encourage audience investment. Episodes three and four each dedicate ample time to unpack Dylan, then Margo, with Riley stealing a few scenes along the way. Despite this, most of the characters feel shallow, obvious or both.
Dylan’s obsession with the supposed dead twin and Margo’s love for Lennon are clearly played as heart-breaking, emotion-infused casualties of vehicular manslaughter; but neither storyline is fleshed out. This is due, in part, to showrunner Sara Goodman and her writing team getting mired in a dual timeline format that requires all of the characters’ relationships to include a significant moment at the graduation party.
Meanwhile, in the present, between Alison-as-Lennon’s gap year (which stalled all of their relationships), plus the suspicion, paranoia and distrust that accompanies the accumulation of bodies, none of these characters have a moment to breathe. It’s an unintended complication of using flashbacks so fervently. But in keeping the action tied to fixed moments in time in both the past and the present, no one has any time to grow or change.
Unlikeable Characters
Not helping matters is the frequently grating, on the nose and inauthentic-sounding dialogue. Margo tends to get the worst of it. Most of her dialogue comes off as both desperate to be edgy and obviously written by an adult. A quick example: in episode three, a stalker is described as “tres Swimfan”, which is then referred to as a “classic” older film. It’s the equivalent of “get it, these are teenagers!”
In addition to this, few of the present-day reactions feel authentic. While Margo remains upset about Johnny’s demise for a few episodes, in the immediate aftermath of discovering Dale’s asphyxiated body, flushed blue by slushy, Margo pukes. Then she goes right back to making quippy one-liners.
The bitchy, frequently campy dialogue and behavior exhibited by these teens are evocative of the worst impulses of 80s slashers. So-called friends seemed, at best, to have nothing in common and, at worst, outright hated each other. While likable protagonists aren’t essential for media to be enjoyable, there’s a strong likelihood that audiences will be turned off by this new crop of teens.
Father/Daughter Chemistry
One of the best decisions that the new series makes is that Alison confides to her father Bruce about both the murder and the identity swap immediately. It doesn’t hurt that there’s good chemistry between Iseman and Heck. The scenes between them, charged with love, friction and simmering resentment, are among the best moments of the series, particularly episode two, “It’s Not Just For Dogshit”.
With that said the series could stand to lose the recurring sex bit where Alison repeatedly finds herself stumbling into details about Bruce’s (honestly tepid) BDSM sex life with Sheriff Lyla (Fiona Rene). I Know What You Did Last Summer treats this as slight comedy, as well as character development for its adult cast. But it’s mostly just narrative padding.
Where’s The Gore?
Heading into the back half of the season, the most glaring issue with the series aside from the shallow characterizations is the lack of gore. Thus far I Know What You Did Last Summer has predominantly featured off-screen kills. Too often the series only highlights the aftermath of a murder, with nary a chase scene or attack sequence in sight (also: three of the five deaths in recent episodes have been of secondary characters).
The lone exception is the death of Johnny and his adult fiance Coach in the high school gym. This is the only true “chase” set piece of the series. Johnny discovers Coach choking to death under a bench press before the teen is pitched through a railing and falls to the gymnasium floor below. The blink-and-you’ll-miss-it gore effect of the Coach losing his jaw as the weight crashes down is great, but too often the action cuts away (such as when Johnny is subsequently decapitated).
Ironically the lack of traditional slasher set pieces reinforces the fact that, halfway through the series, we’ve yet to catch sight of the killer. At this point, it’s not even clear if there’s a signature costume or murder weapon for this iteration!
Future Focus
Where I Know What You Did Last Summer goes in the back half is uncertain. Right now the whole town is on high alert after the high-profile double murder that ends episode four. The list of suspects/red herrings remains quite long, particularly among the adult cast. There’s Coach’s bitter ex-wife Kelly (Chrissie Fit) to Riley’s loudmouth mother Courtney (Cassie Beck). Or there’s mysterious sea witch Clara (Brooke Bloom), who held onto Lennon’s body for a full year. Hell, even Bruce himself is a suspect. Though it seems more likely than not that the killer is one of the core teens.
My guess? The killer is Dylan: he stands to benefit the most from eliminating individuals keeping the truth from coming out. This requires that he not only knows Alison is play-acting as Lennon, but also that he still wants to be with her, which his discussion with Riley at his family’s sugar/goat farm in episode four suggests. So – for now – my money is on Dylan.
Check back next week as the show eases back to weekly episodes with “Mukbang.”
I Know What You Did Last Summer streams Friday on Amazon Prime.
