Under the Bridge Season 1 Episodes 1 and 2 Review: Looking Glass / The John Gotti of Seven Oaks (2024)

Under the Bridge sets the tone immediately when Riley Keough’s character Rebecca Godfrey gives a gripping monologue about the dark side of fairy tales and how this story is a lot like one. She accurately describes them as stories about, “girls punished for selfishness or for no reason at all.”

Under the Bridge Season 1 Episode 1, “Looking Glass,” and Episode 2, “The John Gotti of Seven Oaks,” bring you into the unsettling world of Victoria on Vancouver Island off the coast of Canada.

It’s a place that some tout as idyllic meanwhile troubled girls are called BICs by the police, named after the disposable lighters because of them also being seen as disposable.

Adapting the book of the same name and chronicling the true story of the 1997 murder of fourteen-year-old Reena Virk, Hulu’s new limited series seems custom-made for viewers who love watching an emotionally damaged woman get too close to the small-town case she’s trying to solve.

Take the writer and the detective at the center, played respectively by Keough and Lily Gladstone, each with their own troubled past they’re trying to move on from when they get sucked into the case. It’s hard not to think of Under the Bridge as the next successor to a long line of shows like Sharp Objects and Mare of Easttown.

What makes Under the Bridge inherently different is its true-crime source material. Although it took some creative liberties with the story, it still handles a real case well-known to Canadians.

This takes us back to the premiere’s opening monologue about fairy tales. Rebecca describes them as “… tales of horror and wonder. Of innocence and beauty. Of violence and sin.”

In a twisted way, the true crime genre has become our modern-day book of fairy tales, where we go to try to make sense of morality in an unforgiving world while also being titillated.

Under the Bridge carries the weight of that burden while still trying to do justice by the real-life victim involved. Only two episodes in you can’t judge yet how well it achieves that, but there are plenty of reasons to recommend the show for its creative merits.

One of the few shows filmed in British Columbia and actually set in British Columbia, Under the Bridge makes the best of its gloomy setting where you can feel the cold seeping in just from watching your television. Beneath the reflection of the sparkling water, you sense something murky hiding and the tension about to break.

Keough and Gladstone’s performances work well off each other and elevate the characters beyond what could have been flat stereotypes of the crime genre.

Rebecca is a closed-off writer who returns home for the first time in a decade to write a book about growing up in Victoria. She carries the weight of her brother’s death and holds loose a childhood connection to police officer Cam Bentland (Gladstone).

Cam’s initial competitiveness and humor belies her loneliness in an adopted family. She is also eager to put her past behind her but must first prove herself on the job to get a transfer to Vancouver and escape her small town.

Both women get tangled in the same web when local teen Reena Virk (Vritika Gupta) goes missing after a party. Rebecca grows too close to the suspicious teen girls of the Seven Oaks foster home while interviewing them for her book, while Cam’s conscience and own past as a troubled teen drive her to take Reena’s case seriously.

These characters could feel like copies of ones you’ve seen before, but each actress sells them as believably fleshed-out. They deliver subtle performances that blend into the story but that are still powerful enough to reel you in.

Keough plays Rebecca as the perfect balance of impulsive yet still sinking with depression, her exterior cool not matching her inner demons. She’s someone willing to bend the rules if it means getting the story she wants but not so immoral she doesn’t start to question her part in all of it.

Gladstone’s portrayal of Cam starts out hardened and uncaring but softens as Reena’s case gets under her skin and she gets to know the family. Clearly there’s more to her that the first two episodes uncover and Gladstone leaves you wanting to know more about her.

There are strong performances from the younger cast as well, especially Chloe Guidry as Seven Oaks’ resident Josephine Bell, a mean girl who wants to be more like John Gotti than Regina George. Hints of her troubled past make her somewhat empathetic but Guidry doesn’t lower the sociopathic mask her character wears until the end.

Josephine confesses to Rebecca she killed Reena by pushing her off the bridge, but those paying attention to details will know not everything adds up. Josepehine’s shock at the end of Episode 2 when it’s revealed Reena’s body has been found leaves you spinning, as it opens up more questions than answers.

If you weren’t already questioning the story she tells Rebecca, you will be as the credits roll. Although the show is made more for appointment viewing rather than a weekly overnight streaming drop, Under the Bridge is well worth tuning into and will leave you hooked.

What did you think of the premiere of Under the Bridge? Share your thoughts in the comments below!

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Under the Bridge airs Wednesdays on Hulu.

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