★★★★ out of ★★★★★
Intensity 🩸🩸 1/2 out of 🩸🩸🩸🩸🩸
Directed by E.L. Katz
A mysterious, horrific threat and family drama combine in Peacock’s new fear-fare series Teacup.
Terror television boasts another fine new entry with Teacup, which premiered with its first two episodes on October 10, 2024 on Peacock. Inspired by the New York Times bestselling novel Stinger by Robert McCammon, the series, according to the official logline, “follows a disparate group of people in rural Georgia who must come together in the face of a mysterious threat in order to survive.” The first two episodes were written by showrunner Ian McCulloch, with Zoe Cooper receiving a Staff Writer credit. Out of common spoiler-free courtesy and following Peacock’s strict embargoed spoilers for press, you can read on about my thoughts regarding the first two episodes and without concern for having anything ruined for you.
Maggie Chenoweth (Yvonne Strahovski), generally calm tempered in the face of stress and danger, is a veterinarian who lives in rural Georgia with her family. Her relationship with her husband James (Scott Speedman) is strained — one of the things I really like about Teacup is that it gives subtle hints about circumstances like this rather than being immediately blunt about matters — and she isn’t overly fond of James’ mother Ellen (Kathy Baker), though the parents’ love for teen daughter Meryl (Emilie Bierre) and preteen son Arlo (Caleb Dolden) is clearly strong.
With farm animals and pets in the area acting strangely recently including inflicting self harm, the family and their neighbors are puzzled by a series of weird events. Not the least of these is a masked stranger (Rob Morgan) painting a line which he warns the locals not to cross — viewers get to see the gruesome results of doing so in chilling, escalating effects — and, by writing on a board, tells them to trust no one.
Episode 1, “Think About the Bubbles,” establishes the main and initial supporting characters highly effectively, and drops tantalizing breadcrumbs about what might be in store. The opening sequence involves a disheveled — to say the least — woman roaming the woods, mumbling something mysterious, before the show cuts to our initial meeting with members of the Chenoweth family.
Enough is laid out that episode 2, “My Little Lighthouse,” in which all communication with the outside world seems to be cut off, is greatly anticipated. It certainly delivers on paying off regarding world building, furthering suspense, heightening family drama and that of their neighbors, and delivering some shocking set pieces that boast impressive, gory effects.
The ensemble cast — which so far also includes Chaske Spencer, Diany Rodriguez, and Luciano Leroux as the neighboring Shanley family, and Boris McGiver as gun-toting neighbor Donald Kelly — all give fine performances. Strahovski stands out as a woman remaining strong even as her world is turned upside down both by the cold war between her and her husband and by the highly strange occurrences happening to all those around her.
It’s not yet clear exactly what is behind the horror suddenly affecting those characters, nor in an eight-episode series, should it be. The circumstances are gripping enough, the acting and characterization solid enough, and the writing, direction, and production values strong enough that the expectation of the following episodes’ reveals feel absolutely worth waiting for.
I plan to review as episodes are dropped. The schedule for upcoming episodes is two per week through Halloween.
Review by Joseph Perry
Teacup premiered with its first two episodes on Peacock on October 10, 2024. Two episodes debut each week through Halloween.
