From Angelica Jade Bastién’s review of Amazon’s new horror anthology series Them:
Them – showrun and created by Little Marvin and executive produced by Lena Waithe – isn’t just rote, flagrantly biting the aesthetics of other filmmakers. It isn’t just morally bankrupt. It isn’t just grating in its empty platitudes and kiddie-pool-deep proclamations. I am comfortable calling it one of the most anti-Black pieces of pop culture I’ve seen in the last few years, one that left me spent after the grueling process of watching its virulent imagery.
Later in the article:
Them primarily feels empty during the first half of its run. But episode five, “Covenant I” – which is, notably, directed by the show’s only Black director, Zola’s Janicza Bravo — turns the show from a grating, hollow depiction of Blackness in America to one that revels in degrading its Black characters in a way that left me questioning both the Black creators involved and the studio system that is eager for this kind of work.
I’ve heard a few different things about the show over the past few weeks. I was slightly interested at first, but it doesn’t sound like something I really need in my life right now.