Frequency (2017) *series

(Season 1/ Series?)

On paper, Frequency is a terrrrrible idea. First of all, here is a list of people who remember the movie:

Me.
My mom (because I owned it on DVD).
That’s it.

Before we get into the TV show let’s talk about the movie so we’re all on the same page. The basic premise is a cop (Caviezel) lives in the same house that he grew up in and there’s a ham radio in the garage. Well one day, because of the Aurora Borealis (this is kinda important) the radio turns on and Caviezel hears a voice. Even though he doesn’t know anything about a ham radio he responds in kind and starts a conversation with the stranger. Well, as it turns out, the stranger is none other than Caviezel’s dead dad (Quaid). So C and Q (which is also the call sign a ham radio operator uses to see if anyone is listening…coincidence?) start conversing and eventually realize that they are crossing the time barrier. Q is a fireman who, in his timeline, is about to go into a burning building and die. So C decides to tell Q about this so he can change the past and low and behold Q takes a different approach and ends up living through the ordeal. C and Q are super excited about this new change of events and C even has new memories of all the years he got to spend with Q. But…and there is a but…now his mom is dead because she was killed by a serial killer known as the Nightingale killer. I mentioned that right? That there is a serial killer who hunts down nurses in the 70’s? So now Q and C have to figure out how to catch him before he kills the mom and bla bla bla it all turns out alright. But then someone decided it would be a good idea to take this INSANE premise and turn it into a television series. Well, I watched the entire first season and I have to tell you, it was entirely watchable with a few notable issues and changes.


Issue #1: There is no crazy atmospheric storm that makes the ham radio break the space/time continuum. Nope. You know what these writers came up with? A fucking bolt of lightning. That’s right. You know, the same bolt of lightning that makes people switch bodies or whatever. The same bolt of lightning that writers come up with at the last second when they can’t think of anything better.

Change #1: The cop is now a woman named Raimy. She’s exactly what you would expect. Tough-as-nails and no-nonsense kind of cop who doesn’t take shit from anyone.

Change #2: The fireman/dead dad is also a cop. This actually makes more sense because if you’re going to chase a serial killer it’s probably easier for a cop to do it than a fireman. However…

Issue #2: in the present timeline (when the show begins) Raimy’s dead dad is a DISGRACED cop who apparently was dirty and died doing something shameful. So, why would Raimy want to grow up to become a cop? I would understand if she wanted to follow in her dad’s footsteps but I’m not buying this. Also, there was little to no investigation into whether or not Frank (dead dad) was actually dirty. It all kind of comes from inside the police department which is filled with dirty cops. Which leads to …

Issue #3: Raimy HATES her dad. So when they start talking on the ham radio and she actually realizes she is talking to her DEAD DAD she is rude and shitty to him. I mean, really? If I could talk to Hitler on the ham radio I would still be super excited that I’m doing something no other human has ever done before. Raimy is less than enthusiastic but eventually Frank convinces her of his innocence and she tells him exactly how and when he dies so he can change the past.

Change #3: Raimy (ugh I hate this name) has a male best friend who lives across the street. I can’t remember his name so let’s call him BFF. He looks like a homeless person and is constantly drinking and talks about having a wife and newborn baby though we never actually see them which makes you think there’s something off about him (like maybe he’s the serial killer) but then you realize he would have been 8 years old when the killings started so maybe not but why is he even part of this series? Is it because Caviezel had a best friend in the movie? Even that character added zero to the plot. Anyway, just weird.

So where were we? Oh yeah, Frank lives and surprise! Now the mom is dead. She was killed by the Nightingale killer back in Frank’s timeline. So now we know what the rest of the season is going to be about.

Sidenote #1: Raimy’s mom looks EXACTLY like Michelle Monaghan who is 41 years old but is actually played by someone named Devin Kelley who is 31 years old. And this is super distracting for two reasons: 1) all you can think of is how does this actress get work by being a poor man’s Michelle Monaghan? She has the same mannerisms too! And 2) The actress that plays Raimy is EXACTLY THE SAME FUCKING AGE AS THE WOMAN WHO PLAYS HER MOTHER. And the thing is, when you first see the mom you are thinking…Oh, Raimy has a sister. But nope. It’s her mom. Sure she has some gray hair but it’s quite off-putting to say the least. But I got over it. Anyway, let’s continue shall we…?

Change #4: Raimy has a boyfriend that we care nothing about. In fact, if memory serves, the pilot opens with her and her man (let’s call him B for blank because I can’t remember his name. I DO remember that’s he’s supposedly South African even though at first I thought he had an English accent) going at it hot and heavy. They are clearly in love and then she finds an engagement ring and she’s all excited and he reminds her that they are going to meet his parents next week at So-And-So restaurant. Anyway, so flash forward to Frank living through his undercover ordeal (oh yeah, that’s a major part of the story too—Frank went undercover for 2 years and that was another reason his daughter hated him) so when Frank changes the timeline it affects Raimy in ways she never expected.

So, here we are: Frank survived but Raimy found out that her mother died because of the change and then she suddenly remembered that she had to be at So-and-So to meet B’s parents! So she runs to the restaurant and sees B sitting with his parents and goes up to the table and introduces herself and that’s when we realize…B isn’t her boyfriend in this timeline. You see, the reason they met in the first place was because her mom (who is the same age as her) introduced her to B because he was a patient of hers. But now that she died before that could happen, she and B never dated and therefore B doesn’t know who she is. Needless to say this causes QUITE the scene in the restaurant. Which leads to…

Issue #4: Okay. I’ll bite. I get that they are no longer together. I actually like that and it makes sense to some degree (putting aside the fact that time travel makes zero sense). But where I DO have a problem is that, in this entirely different timeline, B just happens to be eating dinner with his parents at the exact same restaurant on the exact same night? They don’t actually come out and say it but it is also very much implied that he is introducing his girlfriend (not Raimy) to his parents that night. I guess an argument could be made that even though the timeline changed fate still has a way of making things happen regardless. Whatever. We will circle back to this.

This would probably be a good time to mention Satch. Satch is Frank’s partner and is played by Mekhi Phifer. Satch is black. Satch always has Frank’s back and has known Raimy her entire life. So now Raimy and Satch are partners and they often talk about Frank and how proud he would have been. Oh yeah, one final mention before we move on to the rest of the season…Frank is still dead, it’s just that he died much later in a car accident. Does the show ever come back to this? No. Do they ever mention it again or try to figure out a way that he avoids it? No. He’s just dead. But he did get to live long enough to be his daughter’s training officer and work with her for a few years.

Make sense? Good.

In episode 2 we basically deal with Frank trying to “make it up” to his wife and daughter while Raimy struggles being single again.

Sidenote #2: I believe in the original movie the time difference was 30 years but the show decided to make it only 20 years. And maybe it’s because I was a child of the 70’s but 1996 just does not seem that long ago to me. Is it me? It’s probably just me. I mean, I know it’s still 20 years ago but for some reason every time they show us that it’s 1996 it just seems like pretty recent. Anyway…

At this point Raimy and Frank both realize that they have only a few weeks before the killer strikes and poor man’s Monaghan (PMM) is taken away from both of them forever so they start the hunt. This is the good part of the show. And sure you can nitpick the fact that changes don’t occur in Raimy’s timeline until Frank actually makes it happen in his timeline (because really, the past is the past) but then this entire series would have been three minutes long so…

Issue #5: There is a giant chuck of plot time directed at Frank’s undercover years which really doesn’t have anything to do with PMM being killed and frankly, isn’t interesting at all. Long story short, it’s a corrupt cop who set him up in the alternate timeline hoping that he would die so corrupt cop could continue to work with drug dealers so he can make money. When asked “why’d you do it?” he gives the most clichéd answer in the history of dirty cops: “It’s not fair that I play by the rules and the bad guys get all the money, bla bla bla”. Also it turns out, corrupt cop is sensitive because he and Frank have lived down the street from each other their entire lives but were never friends. He actually says this in the finale. And look, I get it. You have an entire season, hopefully more, so you’re going to need a bigger story arc but that’s where I would say, maybe, come up with an original story instead of stretching two hours into thirteen hours.

So, at this point there’s basically a few red herrings in the search for the nightingale. They DO, however, figure out what kind of car he drives so waaaaay back in 1996 Frank keeps an eye out for said car and eventually spots it near a park where PMM and little Raimy are playing.

Issue #6: The car is obviously stalking PMM (because she is the next victim) so what does Frank do? Does he quietly sneak up on the driver and put a fucking bullet in his brain? Nope. Does he sneak up on the driver and arrest him for some bullshit charge? Nope. He pulls out his gun, walks toward the car in the middle of the street and YELLS at the driver to get out. Now, I don’t know about you, but whether I was a serial killer or not, if someone is walking towards my car with a gun yelling at me to get out, I’m going to DRIVE AWAY. Which is exactly what Nightingale does. (I’m going to call him NG from here on out for brevity’s sake.)

Meanwhile (because, you know, just trying to save PMM isn’t enough to keep us interested) Raimy and B keep bumping into one another. And even though he should be totally creeped out and assume she is stalking him (this is the same girl who swore she was his girlfriend IN FRONT OF his parents and girlfriend) instead he starts to think maybe they belong together (this obviously goes back to the idea of fate).

Let’s cut through a few episodes because I cannot possible remember everything that happens. I didn’t take notes btw this is all from memory and if you know me, you know I have a terrible memory so this is either a testament to how good the show is or a testament to the fact that I do have a good memory when I actually care about something.

Eventually they figure out who ng is and Frank is left with quite the dilemma. And by dilemma I mean not a dilemma at all.

Issue #7: I am sooooo sick and tired of people trying to justify murder when it CLEARLY is the only option. There was no better example of this than on a recent episode of ARROW. Arrow and his team were on a rooftop chasing after a really evil dude. They literally kill 50 of his body guards and have him dead to rights but Arrow insists that they can’t kill him. It’s not their way. Really? But it’s okay to kill 50 dudes who are just doing their job?

Anyway, where was I? Oh yeah. So they finally know (or think they know) the identity of the ng and after way too much discussion about it, Frank finally decides that he is going to kidnap ng, throw him in the trunk of his car, take him out into the woods and put two in the brain. THANK GOD.

Meanwhile, now that Raimy knows this she is able to track down ng in the present time and since she knows that Frank’s gonna come through for her, nothing she does in this timeline matters anymore right? Right? So she does what anyone would do, she shoots ng dead. Of course, this is ILLEGAL and suddenly the show turns into the end of SE7EN but Raimy isn’t worried.

Issue #8: While Raimy is taken into custody the dead body of ng is still laying on the pavement and she keeps looking at it asking “why is the body still there?” Okay. I think I finally get the rules of this nonsense BUT if Frank did actually go through with killing ng then why does Raimy think she’s going to be handcuffed in the back of a cop car? Shouldn’t her question be “why am I still here?” Oh well. Can’t win them all.

And now, if I haven’t lost you completely, you’re wondering whether Frank came through or not. Well, he did and he didn’t.
He did manage to drug ng and toss him in the trunk of his car. And he did manage to drive out to the woods but what he didn’t count on was a drunk driver SMASHING into his car along the way. So, ng wakes up and escapes. The drunk driver takes off and Frank ends up right where he started.

I feel as though this would be a good time to explain why they are so damn sure that ng is ng. Well, the victims of the nightingale killer are all found with their hands and legs bound with rosaries. That’s what we in the crime writing genre call things only the killer would know. So, when they come across who they suspect is ng (and it is a looong and windy road that I will spare you from) they find the body of his wife (who has been missing for 20 years) in the walls of his house with…yep…you guessed it…the hands and legs tied with rosaries. Slam dunk, right? Well…sort of.

Ng is a bad dude. He beats the shit out of his wife and kids and tells them that he’s trying to “save them”. He’s also a preacher. He puts his daughter into a mental ward and both his wife and son go “missing” for 20 years. Well, it turns out that the wife is dead and the son isn’t missing at all. That’s right. If you’ve been keeping score you will have figured out by now that it’s the son who is the real ng, not the father.

In fact, during a flashback, we see the son walk in on the father just after he kills the mom. Then the father instructs the son to help him so they tie her hands and feet with rosaries so she can have a "good death". And of course, the mom was a nurse. So, like any budding serial killer, he got his start by assisting his father in killing his mom and hiding the body.

But now Frank is wise to the whole thing and is really pursing father ng. But father ng finally realizes that his son is the real ng so, in an attempt to save his son, he turns himself in as the ng.

You got that, right?

Meanwhile, back in the present timeline, as you will recall, Raimy is in a shitstorm because she, you know, murdered someone in cold blood. Well, as she is pleading her case to Satch (who, by the way, does have a big important role in the series but just not enough that it merits me mentioning any of it) Satch suddenly changes the subject and Raimy realizes that the timeline changed once again. She is no longer in trouble because ng (father ng) has been in prison for the last 20 years. She even goes home to find PMM still alive (and still looking the same age).

Issue #9: This should really be issues 9-45 because COME. ON. Okay, I get that the timeline changed suddenly. I will play by those rules. But the timeline changes so smoothly that she doesn’t even notice it? Not even for a second? Everyone is wearing the same clothes? The weather is the same? Both her and Satch are walking down the exact same hallway? I don’t know. If it were me I would at least have her groundhog day the thing. It’s tricky. And while we’re on the subject, just because her mom WASN’T murdered by ng doesn’t mean that she’s still alive 20 years later. I mean, she could AT LEAST have contracted some horrible disease. Anything. God I need help.

So, if you are still following along you may be asking…”but wait. If father ng isn’t the real ng then why is the mom alive?” Well, it’s simple. Because the father took the fall for all the killings, the son can no longer kill otherwise he will prove that father ng isn’t the real ng. Make sense? No? That’s because it’s stupid.

Issue #10: I’m sorry. But if you know anything about serial killers it’s that THEY HAVE TO KILL. Ng isn’t going to stop killing because his dad took the rap for him. And where is it written that he has to keep the same M.O.? Killers change their M.O. all the time. It’s called evolving! He could have totally still gotten his rocks off and just, you know, NOT USED ROSARIES. Okay. Clearly I am a sick individual.

Where were we? Oh yeah. So anyway, Raimy figures out (I can’t remember how) that the son is the real ng and that her mom is still in danger and it turns out she’s right. The son (now grown up so we can just refer to him as ng) comes after the mom after a 20 year hiatus…

Sidenote #3: To be fair, the son DID change his name and move away so at least there’s some credibility to why he is just now attempting to kill PMM after all this time.

Oddly, I can’t really remember what happens next other than by the time the season ends, everyone is okay, Raimy is getting engaged to B, PMM is still alive and looks exactly the same, and Frank is still dead.

Oh, and the final shot is grown up ng walking his dog late at night and watching the house ominously.

REQUIRED VIEWING: Fargo season 1 and 2