11/22/63 - Rabbit Hole

I admit, this was meant for my IMDb account but it went on too long. I wasn't anticipating a long-winded monstrosity as this. I doubt I'll include the remaining seven episode reviews but who knows?

Jake Epping (James Franco) is just a laboring teacher with little upward mobility in his career as millennials in his class either couldn’t be bothered to care or are bored to the point that they’d rather spend time on their cells. He has a night class with older folks looking to get their diplomas and with a far greater attention span, but when one particular student, his psyche still shattered after his father killed his entire family back in 1960 (the year of significance later to come into play), is denied the chance to teach, Jake realizes that life just offers very little for those handicapped by pratfalls of life. Just a brief mention goes to Leon Tippy, one of my favorite character actors who has been a little bit of everything during his lengthy career—including another Stephen King series, Under the Dome—as Harry, the numb, shaky older graduate who provides the opening monologue written for a project he gets an A+.

Chris Cooper has a guest starring role as Al Templeton, the owner/cook/waiter/proprietor of a diner in his home town, and the one who introduces Jake to a time portal in the closet of his diner’s kitchen! The portal leads him to 1960, Maine, and he realizes that the time portal is actually legit, Jake returning to the diner thrown for a loop. Diagnosed with cancer when he returns from spending time back in the early 60s, Al needs Jake to replace him, hoping he’ll accept a mission to try and stop the Kennedy assassination. Al seems motivated by his time in Vietnam and all of the terrible results of JFK’s death, wanting Jake to right those wrongs while not doing too much to influence other anything else while in the 60s. Al has done a lot of research, giving Jake plenty of information and details to use when he returns, including a mission to verify if Lee Harvey Oswald was responsible for the near assassination of a potential political hopeful in Texas, General Edwin Walker (Gregory North)…considering the same gun was used in the attempt that ultimately killed JFK, it is possible Oswald was responsible. This could very well be the reason needed to execute Oswald before he reaches Dallas, if he is proven to be the one who tried to kill Walker.

But Jake would need to acclimate himself into the 60s, through the haircut, shave, suit, and eventual behavioral alterations (including the difficulty in trying not to reveal future events like movies that haven’t been made or released yet among other things), certainly to give him the occasional snafus he’ll have to navigate around. Al, working through the harsh health deterioration, tries to leave behind orders and advice in order to adapt to an era in time he doesn’t belong. Time travel is right up my alley, so this Stephen King adaptation series is in my wheelhouse, and Franco surprisingly feels like a solid casting choice as the fish out of water needing to find his groove in the 60s where making gambling bets in back alley bars after showing up in a yellow convertible immediately places him in harm’s way. After escaping that, he flees to rural America for a while, removing himself from what could have been a disaster. So after averting that danger, Jake drives on.

The Nixon sign as he journeys ahead (“No one licks our Dick”), the very tasty pie delivered by a younger newly-graduated Alice he knows much later as a disappointed teacher, getting a juicy corn on the cob, using the money he makes on a boxing match (that nearly got him killed) to provide him some room to go to the next destination, the Yellow Card Man who keeps telling him he “doesn’t belong here”, the period cars (including a Christine lookalike), clothes that folks wear, and locations; the 60s brought back to life allows us to follow down the “rabbit hole” with Jake into the time warp as he faces the unenviable task of not causing a butterfly effect sending the future into disarray.

Introduced is a nugget revealed by Al to Jake regarding the past “pushing back”, as if offering resistance towards any attempts to change its outcome. Like following George de Mohrenschildt (Jonny Coyne), a potential backer of Oswald, one of those that used him as a lackey, as Al informs Jake that going to (and into) a club to verify if he’s responsible for funding an assassination doesn’t come without complications and danger…a streetfight, sudden accidental fire, and a falling chandelier all threaten to harm Jake (Al was burned and nearly caught in a fight during his travels in time trying to tail George!). Previously when Jake attempts to call his father, the phone booth seems to thwart such efforts as hearing muffles, lights flicker, and the voice on the other side goes in and out…walking away a car crashes right into the booth seconds after Jake leaves it, finding a victim who tells him he shouldn’t be here! Also avoiding a catastrophe is Jake when eventually caught by JFK campaign security at a rally when the Senator and future President was giving a speech to a packed, enthusiastic house, saying he was part of George’s entourage, convincing them he was Kennedy’s “number one fan”. Al’s Vietnam knife (with a date of 1961) Jake is able to grab before the security get a gander, using the overt faux enthusiasm for JFK as a means to annoy them into letting him go with a warning.

The pilot seems to indicate that time isn’t just willy-nilly with anyone intruding upon the past in order to alter the future. And intruders with an agenda are invaders that time will give grief to. Events of the past that have shaped the present/future are what they are so someone visiting the 60s with plans to “update” what has always been could be viewed as a threat not a salvation. So can Jake avoid the stumbling blocks of time trying to halt his efforts?

4/5