30-.06 outlawcountry

I too have been a fan of Anne Rice‘s novels and have been looking forward to someone doing this storyline as a series or a movie since the first time I read it. Having said that, I knew they would take some creative license with it. It’s just the way of the beast, unfortunately. However, the creative license taken with this particular story, has completely butchered not just the characters and their personalities, but also the premise that even creates these characters and their stories to begin with. So just a few of my major peeves with this series… For starters, cutting Michael Curry was a huge mistake. He is technically a Mayfair too and his story is essential to Rowan Mayfair and Lasher, as well as Mona Mayfair and their daughter, not to mention Julian! Michael Curry Is the only reason the Mayfair family can continue into The next generation, considering he fathers it, through centuries of generational planning by Lasher himself! Cutting him out, removed a pivotal part of the genealogy of the Mayfair family and deleted an entire storyline that would’ve made the Mayfair witches’ story make sense. Because he’s missing as a character, the story no longer makes any sense. As far as Aaron Lighteners character, yes, he’s pivotal to the story in the books, and to the history we learned, but honestly he could be taken out of the story without a huge amount of damage as long as the Talamasca in general is still a part of the story. Taking out the entire family history the way they have removes a huge part of the story that helps everything add up and make sense. Because of that, we are left with no sense to be made in the series unfortunately. The casting of Rowan Mayfair, though I love the actress, she is wrong for this part. There is a reason Rowan Mayfair was of Scottish descent with ash blonde hair. She is also very cold, and has more of a Man-ish, coarse presence. And she is extremely intelligent, obviously, she’s a brain surgeon. Who, as a child and into her adulthood, discovers she has the ability to kill or heal someone internally. Removing these parts of Rowan, and basically rewriting her character completely destroys the series. The same liberties have been taken with Lasher as well as the rest of the Mayfair family. Lasher is supposed to have blonde hair, be very strikingly handsome. Like extremely chiseled and gorgeous. Instead, we get a skeevy, greasy, pervy looking guy who acts (and looks) like a sexual predator. His character in the series is extremely one dimensional, whereas in the books, he’s almost like a background character for the first half of the first book. We only know about him through witness testimony, rather than actually seeing or hearing him ourselves. That doesn’t happen until much later, when Rowan finally gives in to him, and he bonds with her. But not in this TV series. The Character they cast for Lasher in this series, makes me want to turn the TV off. Basically, AMC created a completely different story with completely different characters. The only thing they did that had anything to do with the original storyline was use the characters names. The show doesn’t make any sense now. To me, this series feels like it was written by somebody who never read the books at all. A commenter above said it seemed like this series was based off of someone reading the book cover synopsis rather than the full works, I couldn’t agree more. I think that was one of the best comments out of any of these comments.

This is one of my favorite Stephen King books, for me rated right up there with Duma Key, The Talisman, Black House, The Stand etc. The book was so creepy and beautifully moving at the same time, and even though there were some drawn out parts, it was difficult to put the book down once you started reading it. I kept waiting for the series to feel like that, so I stuck with it, but unfortunately it never came. The piebald boy, which was the monster from the book, does not translate well in the series at all. In fact they didn’t even try to follow the description of the creature from the book, and I found that very disappointing as it was unrealistic and not really creepy at all. Looked more like a giant badly formed robot. Secondly, they didn’t really put any focus on the fact that in the book, Lisey had a hard time looking into mirrors as did Scott because they could see Boo Ya Moon and Lisey never wanted to acknowledge that she had gone there, her psyche couldn’t handle it. That was lacking in the series completely. They didn’t foreshadow enough in the series that Scott always felt the piebald boy nipping at his heels which had a big part in the books. Also the scenes about his brother Paul, the series completely crapped all over that segment and took it in a different turn all together. If they had followed the book a little closer on that section of the story, it might have made more sense translated into the series. As it is, it felt out of place and lacking in reasoning which made it more confusing than anything. Also Scott’s childhood had a lot to do with why he had found boo ya moon and why he had escaped to boo ya moon all the time and they didn’t touch on that enough or in enough detail to really explain that to people who hadn’t already read the book. they could’ve made this series a lot scarier and creepier by following the book better without making it boring and drawn out, which I sort of found it to be while watching the series, because all of those details were removed or barely hinted that. This series would’ve been a hell of a lot better if they had followed the book. As it is, I think three stars is a little higher than I really think of the series, but I like the overall actors, except for the actor who played the deep space cowboy Jim Dandy. I found him to be flat and lifeless and not at all like the Jim Dandy of the book. I didn’t like his character. I thought he was violent enough for sure, but the creep factor and the weirdness factor? It just wasn’t there. I found him very monotone and one dimensional. Why is it that every time Stephen King has anything to do with the screenplay part of turning one of his books into a series/movie, it always falls very short of the mark? Why do people feel the need to change the book when they spent so much time and effort on it and their target audience already really enjoyed the story the way it was originally written? It’s like these guys are their own worst enemy when translating from book to screen. In short, if you like Stephen King, give the show a try but don’t expect the same reaction at the end that you felt when you finished the book, and don’t expect the same story or you will be disappointing.

Edit: WHAT’S WITH THE HIATUS BETWEEN EPISODES?!? . I would’ve given the show three stars, however the virtue signaling and race dividing BS the show has chosen to focus on the last two or three episodes is steadily driving my rating down. We all know that there were particular biases in the 80s that aren’t as prevalent today as they are being portrayed on television. But the reason we watch TV, is to escape reality, not immerse ourselves in it. I am tired of the race thing constantly being shoved down my throat, I am tired of the transgender thing being completely shoved down my throat, I’m tired of white people being absolutely demonized in everything I see, watch, listen to and read. Now onto my issues with the show… The girl playing Clarice Starling doesn’t have the character down properly, her accent is completely ridiculous and she has very clear pronunciation issues with the place she was allegedly born and raised. As an actor that is something you research in order to play your role properly, and clearly CBS did not help Miss Rebecca do her research. There is absolutely zero mention of the character of Dr. Lecter, which is a very important character that allowed Clarice Starling to evolve as an FBI agent and as a person. I’m sure there’s some silence (of the lambs lol) contract that may prevent them from mentioning the good Doctor Lecter due to the fact that there’s another show based on his character, however I don’t think Clarice Starling at this stage can evolve without some nods to the Dr. Lecter character, or some larger, better nods I should say. Also, this hass turned into “just another FBI/criminal” schtick (as if we didn’t have an overload of those types of programs already). Not even close to being in the silence of the lambs category. Overall I find myself really disappointed. The actors and characters do great with what they have to work with, but what they have to work with is obviously subpar. The writing and dialogue are awful. And if you’re going to be just another FBI show why don’t you focus on solving FBI cases rather than on race baiting, community dividing, cat fighting BS.