What it all means isn’t abundantly clear, but the longer “Lisey’s Story” goes, the more it succeeds as a sensory experience than one governed by logic.
Lisey considers the boxes of unpublished pages that her husband left behind, waiting for some sort of sign to help guide her through a suddenly lonely existence.
Whether fueled by a passion for Scott’s novels or a frustrated desire to exert power, Jim is the embodiment of all the ugliness that “Lisey’s Story” tries to thrive on.
If the cruelty of trauma is the goal, there are only so many ways that someone can be shown bleeding from their face or wrist before it becomes less of a metaphorical purge and more of a rote exercise in depicting pain.
There’s something to be said for King at least trying to take on the idea of toxic fandom through Jim, particularly in a character that in its original written form predates the latest trend of hypercharged entitlement that now permeates the entertainment world.
Repetitive as it may get over the course of the series, the visual representation for the crossing between reality and dreams is effective in its simplicity and its execution.
But, this being King, there’s a frequent tug-of-war between those eerie, otherworldly tableaus and the too-cute-by-half simplistic terminology that are so much of an author staple they often play like self-parody.
Lisey has her share of defeated, enervated moments to go along with shrieks of grief echoing through the open fields of the sprawling Landon estate.
While the rest of the show’s main cast doesn’t get quite as many of those opportunities — Owen is at a preternaturally even keel for almost all of his screen time — their collective accomplishment is de-emphasizing all the fantastical jargon and selling the actual emotion underneath as best they can.
Yet even with its characters bundled up for the chilly weather of the Northeast , cinematographer Darius Khondji brings a much-needed brightness to cozy fireside flashbacks and sunlit attic-trapped mornings.
Lisey is at her most relatable when, towards the show’s midway point, she responds to one particular harrowing flashback with a pointed “Why would you make me remember that?” As the show progresses and the logistics of her journey come into sharper relief, it’s natural to wonder if all of this is worth it.