J_Carls

If you've looked into the history of this movie, you will know that Val Lewton and Jacques Tourneur tried very hard to resist the studio's insistence that they show a "monster," (i.e., a black panther at large) to provide a more mainstream audience-friendly explanation for what the main character is going through.

However, they were able to minimize the overt "monster of the week" approach, and the movie reveals a woman whose problem isn't the folk tale on the surface but instead a struggle with her lack of physical attraction to a man. Thus, the true monster in this movie is the suffocating social norms of the 20th century and how it devours those whose identity clashes with them. If there is any doubt of this, one only need wait until the restaurant scene where Irina meets another "of her kind," who calls her "sister."

Lewton and Tourneur not only created one of early Hollywood's most atmospheric horror films (but not the horror audiences believed) but slipped one of the most subversive past the moral busybodies of that era.

One of the most fun things that a series can do after dozens of episodes is to let its writers get creative with a "meta" episode. Here, the interplay between the "fictionalized" version of a fictional character creates great character comedy while it comments on the whole idea of acting versus reality.

This is a great series, well acted with an intriguing premise, but I'm tired unto death of series that do not at least have a major, COMPLETE story arc in each season. The last episode is called "How It All Ends" and that is about as misleading a title as I've ever come across, a rude joke on the viewer. This ISN'T about short attention spans or anything shallow like that: It's about reading a very fine novel only to discover you've only been sold the first quarter of it. Give this a pass until there is a complete story to watch. You will be 1) horribly frustrated and 2) forget half the details by the time the next part is available.