On August 3, 1896, a mysterious event takes place in London, which transforms a seemingly random group of people from ordinary citizens into a subgroup with superpowers known as ‘the touched’.
What the affected do with their newfound abilities, and how society responds to them, is the basis for HBOs The Nevers, which premiered on HBO on Sunday. In a moment we want to know what you thought of the fantasy drama created by Buffy the Vampire Slayersee Joss Whedon. But first a quick summary of the first episode.
Mrs. Amalia True (played by ForeignerLaura Donnelly) manages St. Romaulda’s Orphanage, a refuge for other affected people – most of whom are female and many of whom have been rejected by their families. One of these is Miss Penance Adair (Vikings‘Ann Skelly), True’s inventive right-handed woman, who’s the ability to “see” energy helps advance her ingenious designs. Near the top of the episode, True and Adair leave for a girl whose family thinks a demon owns her.
Along the way we find out that a) there is a killer named Maladie on the loose, and she killed five male psychoanalysts, and b) True gets ‘wrinkles’ that show her vague snippets of the future. When the women arrive at the girl’s house, they find her chained in her room. Myrtle speaks an accident of languages - apparently unable to respond to English, but is certainly not under the devil’s swing. And while True and Adair explain that they can offer her a place to explore her new abilities, some men break into the house
True takes on an impressive hand-to-hand battle with the men, aided by a steampunk-y flash bomb and an umbrella-rotating taser designed by Adair. They recover Myrtle and start to get away, but the men – who are apparently devilish creatures – chase after them. The three ladies get away with a small carriage that Adair wants to drop out of their horse-drawn carriage at the right time, and their speed away to the orphanage.
“It’s strange to us, too,” True Myrtle reassures.
In other parts of the city we meet more players who will become important as the story progresses. It includes a council of government officials, including Lord Massen (The crownsays Pip Torrens) who fears that the affected – who number in the hundreds – are part of an ‘attack’ by an unknown entity. Then there’s Frank Mundi (The truth about cats and dogs), a grizzled police inspector on the hunt for Maladie; Augie Bidlow (Da vinci se demone‘Tom Riley), the gentle brother of the woman who bankrolls the orphanage; Hugo Swann (James Norton of ITVs Grantchester), a rich rake with plans to open a ‘pagan sex club’; and finally, Dr. Horatio Cousens (Seven seconds‘Zackary Momoh), the doctor who can heal wounds with his hands, making him a very valuable ally for True and her crew.
After True has a wrinkle that indicates she’s going to be at the opera, she and Adair are shaken up and leave. On the way, they are stopped by a gangster named the Beggar King (Truth Seekers‘Nick Frost), who’s angry that True summoned him for questioning. He often warns the orphanage of people who are touched, and she asks if he also tipped the demons trying to grab Myrtle. After it looks like he has not, she calls him in to find out who did it. He warns her that if she goes sideways, she will cut her face “to a mess”. She replied, “This is not my face.” Um … what?
At the evening’s performance of Faust, Maladie (One day‘s Amy Manson) makes a wonderful entrance by checking the throat of the actor playing the Devil. The killer is flanked by a man with a machine gun-type thing on his arm and a woman who can make fireballs appear between her palms. They terrorize the audience and cast until one red-headed woman on stage starts singing like a literal angel.
While the actress sings, certain members of the audience – including True, Adair and Augie Bidlow – are clearly more affected than others. But then Maladie grabs the singer and runs, and True follows them quickly. There’s a really cool chase-and-fight series that sees True step through a staircase and be rescued by her elaborate gown, which tears right off her before she lands on the bottom floor. She loses Maladie and the actress, whose name is Mary, as Maladie’s fireball-throwing accomplice knocks a big ball that enables them to get away.
When Adair finds her girlfriend, who is now only dressed in her corset and shift, she is shocked and dismayed. They talk about what they heard and felt when Mary’s heavenly song began. Penance says she interprets the tune in such a way that “we are woven into the fabric of the world and that we are meant to be who we are.” And then we flash back to the day, three years before, that we saw a glimpse at the beginning of the episode. A kind of flying ship crossed the city and released a sparkling substance that settled in certain people’s bodies. Those affected included Mary, Augie, Adair, dr. Cousens and Maladie, who at the time was a woman being transported to an asylum. After the ship leaves, everyone goes out of their way, apparently because they forgot the strange plane. Everyone, that is, except Madalie, who is shouting even louder.
Two more people were affected: the young daughter of Lord Massen, who collapses immediately after being affected, and True, who apparently tried to commit suicide by drowning a moment before she was affected. But after the spark sinks in her, she swims to the surface.
At the moment we see Amalia True sleeping on the floor of the orphanage’s common bedroom, the same place when we saw her waking up at the beginning of the hour. Meanwhile, Denis O’Hare, elsewhere in London (American horror story) emerges as a sadistic doctor drilling into someone’s brain and apparently searching for the secret of the affected’s special abilities.
Now it’s your turn. What did you think of the premiere? Rate it via the poll below and then print the comments!