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CRITIC SCORE DISTRIBUTION | ||
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Positive:
7
Mixed:
12
Negative:
1
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Critic Reviews
The GuardianApr 13, 2021
Season 1 Review:
What marks out this portrayal of 50s prejudice (not unworked ground) is that, thanks to magnificent performances from Thomas and Ayorinde, you get a great sense of the cost to victims: the sheer amount of mental energy it takes to navigate a relentlessly hostile world, the consequent exhaustion, the constant abrading of the soul. If the series has a weakness as a horror story, it’s that the supernatural stuff is really a bagatelle.
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Apr 7, 2021
Season 1 Review:
It gets painfully uncomfortable, particularly in the two “Covenant” episodes, but although “trauma porn” is often used to describe such renderings, there is nothing gratuitous or pornographic in its depictions of Black trauma. Perhaps in this regard, the exceptional performances of the cast are both blessing and curse.
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The PlaylistMar 19, 2021
Season 1 Review:
If, as mentioned, the first episode feels like the set-up for a great movie, the second has the feeling of said movie being haphazardly adapted into a series, introducing all sorts of new strands and ideas and bits of backstory that have the cumulative effect of flattening that airtight first installment, and turning it into yet another flabby binge that overstays its welcome. Maybe “Them” recovers, or synthesizes its materials more smoothly. At this point, it could go either way.
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Apr 12, 2021
Season 1 Review:
Some people are going to love "Them" and some may be content to acknowledge its visceral potency while desiring to never watch it again. It may traumatize, and that doesn't make it bad or unworthy of your attention. Think of it as a provocation. Then decide if you have the stomach to be provoked, yet again.
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Apr 8, 2021
Season 1 Review:
Though it doesn’t lose sight of racism exactly, the show’s mind seems more firmly placed on the ways in which it might make us jump than make us think or feel. It’s an unfortunate reversal of the way series that look like it use genre to investigate race: “Them,” in the end, takes the far less interesting path of using race to investigate genre.
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Apr 7, 2021
Season 1 Review:
Them: Covenant, on the other hand, has a lot of promising things going for it, including strong lead performances and unnerving atmosphere in every scene. But it’s hard not to notice that the show spends 10 episodes dragging out a nearly identical story to what Lovecraft efficiently told in one. And after a while, the new show’s individual strengths crumble under the weight of its sheer size.
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IndieWireMar 18, 2021
Season 1 Review:
The first few episodes of “THEM” are the strongest and sharpest, diving headlong into the fragile mental states of both Henry and Lucky, while also dealing with the issues their children face. However, over the course of the show’s 10 episodes, the proceedings begin to drag. ... You don’t walk away from this feeling particularly good, and that’s perhaps what Little Marvin intended, but many people don’t want to watch suffering for the sake of suffering.
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Apr 9, 2021
Season 1 Review:
This is another rehashing of broad Black Lives Matter statements that are unsuccessfully contorted to try to fit into a genre piece. As a result, both the horror aspect and the sociopolitical commentary are shortchanged. There's no sense of mystery, no intrigue that keeps you guessing until the final credits.
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RogerEbert.comApr 5, 2021
Season 1 Review:
“Them” can be an incredibly tenuous series, whether one tries to watch it as brutal entertainment or an ornately shot way to honor traumatic experiences of racist violence in the past, present, and future. ... In depicting all of its history with equal bluntness and style, "Them" too often raises the question of whether this is at all the best way to be doing it.
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Apr 14, 2021
Season 1 Review:
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.
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