What happens when there’s just too much plot for one story? You get The Rapture, a British TV thriller adapted from the book by Liz Jensen.
At it’s core, the Rapture concerns Bethany Krall, a teenage girl locked up in a mental institution for the gruesome murder of her mother that she doesn’t remember. She’s treated by Dr. Gabby Fox, returning to her job as a clinical psychologist after a fatal car crash that killed her husband and confined her to a wheelchair.
Ordinarily that would be enough. We could sit back and enjoy a Silence of the Lambs psychological thriller; did or didn’t Bethany commit the crime? Or else a drama about a self-aware psychologist coming to terms with a life-changing injury, dealing with guilt after she caused the death of her husband.
Perhaps we could have a bonding drama between a patient and the doctor campaigning for her release? Or a who-dunnit thriller where the doctor tries to figure out who really murdered Bethany’s mother.
Far too simple
The country is gripped by a deadly heatwave caused by climate change. Gabby gets romantically involved with a geologist building a green-washing wind farm for a Big Oil company. Climate protesters threaten violence and anarchy.
Oh, and Bethany can see the future. She draws disturbing images of the future from premonitions; natural disasters, fires, suicides; new therapist. Bethany believes the end of days approaches, the Rapture in the Bible.
Why? Because her father is a charismatic social-media evangelist. And no one ever trusts those.
So Gabby begins an investigation into the mother’s death. That leads her to a disgraced journalist obsessed by conspiracy theories. Bethany draws a picture of a woman connected to her father’s church who mysteriously commits suicide.
Conspiracies pile up. Bethany is intelligent, mercurial, playful, sinister. Is she a psychopath or simply damaged by the system that let her down? Does she need help or is she playing the system?
What is the sinister connection between the local senator, the preacher and the oil company? Can Gabby trust her new boyfriend?
Are Bethany’s visions of the future true? Where do they come from? What do they mean? Can she and Gabby change the future? This becomes a Very Important Question that no one addresses.
Too many threads
The production is cheap, but very well edited, laden with tension. India Amarteifio as Bethany Krall is lightning in a bottle.
The biggest problem is the number of plot threads.
Is this a psychological drama? A conspiracy thriller? A paranormal thriller? A character drama? A climate-change thriller? A political and social-media cautionary tale?
The Rapture tries to be all of them at once and fails to land any of them. There are too many competing threads to hold onto. Some threads, like Bethany’s staggering pre-cognitive ability just fade away. The Big Oil conspiracy takes over. The personal dramas – Gabby’s fragile mental state, Bethany’s sanity, her family ties, the doctor-patient relationship – these fall away or are neatly tied up with a pink bow. We lose the entire Rapture. Forget about storm, fire and flood, Bethany’s apocalyptic visions, the end of the world.
We’re all for skillfully layered and textured stories, but The Rapture lacks clarity. It flips genre four or five times each episode. It can’t decide what it wants to be or where it wants to focus. It’s a show that attempts an ambitious genre mash-up but breaks the genre promise over and over.