The Australian psychosexual thriller Watching You is a bold take on a well-worn formula that aims to shock in some way. The sad reality is that it doesn't quite manage to shock, but it's still a pretty decent thriller, if only because it forces you to wonder who the guy behind the camera is. The premise is simple: a promiscuous woman gets into trouble when she discovers a history of infidelity and is blackmailed over it. But it's not just that; it seems this blackmailer is someone she knows, so we'll have to watch six episodes to find out.
When we first meet Lina and Cain, they're engaged in a healthy role-playing game where they pretend to be strangers who meet at a bar and end up going home together. "Home" here is a Nestshare, the Australian Airbnb, where they end up having sex on the kitchen counter. This is where the mask slips, and Cain can't continue with the fantasy that Lina is a committed stranger he wants to sleep with that night; After all, he's the love of her life, and the idea of her sleeping with strangers she meets in bars fills her with jealousy. That's when the series reveals a hidden camera in the kitchen that's been secretly recording them, violating their privacy.
Creators: Alexei Mizin, Ryan van Dijk
Stars: Aisha Dee, Josh Helman, Chai Hansen
In theory, Lina and Cain seem like a fairytale couple (not counting the things that aren't exactly family-friendly). Lina is a paramedic and drives an ambulance like a maniac, and Cain is a firefighter, though he's currently recovering from a wrist injury that limits him to office work. They've been together forever and are planning their wedding, though the preparations have dragged on for over a year and a half. The reason is that Lina's grandfather, whom she affectionately called "Pa," died during their first attempt at planning the wedding, and now that they're trying again, Lina is clearly the less interested of the couple, even before things start to go wrong between them. Furthermore, there's tension because Cain wants Lina to sell Pa's house, even going so far as to have it appraised without her consent.
There are times when Cain seems very sweet and affectionate, but there are also times when he acts brazenly and impulsively, easily influenced by his friends, which leads him to destructive behavior. This is what happens when Lina and Cain go to a party at a friend's house—but this isn't just any friend. Axel is Lina's ex and, moreover, Cain's best friend. The problem is that Lina cheated on Axel to be with Cain, and although they claim there's no bad blood, Lina suspects he's still disturbingly obsessed with her, and we see him taking several pictures of her when she's not looking. All of this suggests he might be a pervert, even secretly recording her on the Nestshare, but that hasn't come to light yet.
At the party, where Lina is supposed to help promote ForgeFit, an app designed by Axel and his wife, Clare, Lina ends up flirting with a man named Dan, convincing him to install it and create a profile for her. They start flirting shamelessly after he makes her a martini, but that's when Cain messes up. He knows he shouldn't drink while on medication, but he gets drunk and makes a scene, trying to start a fight, and Lina has to handle it. At the end of the night, Dan plays the gentleman and drives the couple home, and Lina, almost as revenge for Cain's antics at the party, taunts Dan while her fiancé is passed out in the back seat.
But it doesn't end there. When she gets home, she glares at Cain, passed out on the sofa, and the weight of all the resentment she harbors toward him crashes down on her. They've been together a long time, so they've made plenty of little mistakes over the years: embarrassing moments, hurtful words, inconsiderate gestures, and just plain blunders. At that moment, she decides to go see Dan, who's at the Nestshare she and Cain had recently visited. There's an exchange of ideas as Lina regains her confidence, loses it, and regains it again. But ultimately, she makes it clear that she expects Dan to make the first move, and he does, and they have sex, but the apartment's security cameras also capture this.
Later, Lina and Cain go up with Axel and Clare to her father's old country house, where Lina used to spend all her summer holidays. We see some of the tension between Axel and Lina, especially when he secretly takes a bunch of pictures of her. The way they all talk about renovating the house without even consulting Lina is really contemptuous, especially after they suggest Dan come and do some repairs, and Lina has no choice but to agree so as not to seem suspicious.
All the while, Lina feels trapped, a victim of her own actions, waiting for the situation to escalate. Around this time, she starts receiving threatening messages, including videos of her stay in the Nesting Box with Dan. When Dan finally shows up, he surreptitiously gives her the engagement ring, which he had found by the bed earlier, but she tells him she doesn't want to see him again. Another night, the two couples go out to dinner together with Tess, but Dan shows up unexpectedly, and Lina is not at all happy.
That's when she receives her most threatening message yet: the blackmailer threatens to send the video to everyone she knows if she doesn't tell Cain what she did. Ironically, this message arrives just as Axel and Clare are talking on the phone at the table. She's talking to Dan at the bar about the threatening messages, and Axel gives her a menacing look from nearby before finally leaving. Cain also notices that something is wrong with Lina, but he doesn't say anything yet; it's clear to everyone else that she's slowly falling apart.
Finally, Lina ends up asking one of her coworkers to help her trace the phone number, and he takes her to his hacker friend, Glenn. He says he can trace the number, but there's a catch: he wants her to bring him fentanyl, and that's when Lina's friend gives in and says she'll kill Glenn if he agrees. Lina ends up stealing fentanyl from one of the ambulances, but decides not to give it to him. Instead, she tells Glenn that she can prioritize her surgery so she can get her knee repaired and not have to live a life of pain. He gives her the information, and she sees that the number is registered to Axel, meaning he was the one blackmailing her.
Immediately, Lina texts Axel, telling him to come see her at the Nestshare. At the time, he's with Cain and the other firefighters (he was one of them himself, before abruptly retiring and starting his own business), and Cain realizes she's being evasive. So, when the confrontation happens at the Nestshare, and Lina calls Axel a "pervert" after showing him the video and the messages, they're not exactly alone. Cain is waiting outside in his car and watches them leave the shared house, convinced his fiancée has slept with his best friend. The next morning, guilt finally gets to Lina, and she works up the courage to tell Cain that she slept with someone. He tells her he knew all along and asks how she could have slept with her best friend, leaving Lina confused by his assumption for a moment.
She also notices a strange bruise on his forehead at that moment, but their argument is interrupted by a call from Clare; Axel has disappeared, and the police are searching for his body in the ocean. By the time Lina and Cain arrive to help her, the police are pulling Axel from the water, and he appears to have suffered a fatal head injury, though the police's initial theory is that he slipped on the rocks and died accidentally. Lina and Cain's argument has to be postponed for a while so they can be with Clare, who is clearly falling apart. Especially after discovering Axel's laptop and seeing a bunch of archived videos from his Nestshare, including one of Lina and Dan. At the funeral, Clare openly calls Axel a bad person during her eulogy, but that's not the most chaotic thing that happens. Dan also appears, and Cain, furious, physically assaults him. Furthermore, Clare sees the messages between Lina and Axel and realizes that she knew all along, feeling betrayed even by Lina.
They eventually meet up, but Lina has less and less time for her friends, especially Tess. Tess starts to suspect Dan at this point, and Lina ends up thinking her suspicions are justified after a man at a restaurant refers to Dan as Pete at one point. Lina and Tess follow Dan and discover he's been lying about where he's going, so she tracks down the man from the restaurant and learns from him that "Dan" had been with a woman named Heather in the past.
In short, Heather reveals how Dan, whom she knew as Pete, became obsessed with her to the point of stalking her and assaulting her male friends, which meant she had to change her name and go into hiding. Finally, Lina goes and forcibly opens a storage device Dan had been hiding and is horrified to discover that Dan has been recording what appears to be hundreds of people for who knows how long. But Dan receives a notification on his phone when she breaks into his secret hideout, and he rushes to the unit and ends up capturing her, though not before inadvertently injuring her. In his mind, he never meant to hurt her; after all, he was in love with her.
The ending of "Looking at You" is almost blurry. When Lina's friends, Tess and Clare, realize something is wrong, they tell Detective Brennan, and she goes to Pa's house. Meanwhile, Lina fakes a pregnancy to get Dan to leave so she can plan her escape, even using Tramadol to fake a positive pregnancy test, but it doesn't work. Clare ends up posting on social media about her friend's disappearance to get attention. When Brennan shows up at the house, Lina suggests showing her face so Brennan will leave, and Dan reluctantly agrees. Lina pretends everything is fine, but Brennan senses the tension. She gets Lina to move and tries to shoot Dan, but she's also injured. However, she tells Lina to run, and the girl does, until she realizes that Dan has set fire to her grandfather's house. She runs to save Brennan, but Dan has already escaped.
Suddenly, Dan is at a motel pretending his wife hurt him in the back so the receptionist will clean him up. She agrees to help, but discovers his identity thanks to Clare's video. She calls the police, but by the time they arrive, he's already been caught. He tries to grab the receptionist, but can't, so he escapes on foot. Meanwhile, Lina and Tess are also on their way, while Brennan discovers that Dan's real name is Andrew. The girls and the police narrowly miss it, and everything remains quiet for a while until Lina decides to take matters into her own hands.
Knowing she'll never escape this trauma as long as Dan is around, Lina decides to kill him. She lures him home with a video message where she tells him he's broken, while she's finally free. The bait works, and Dan shows up at the house, nearly killing her, but she injects him with the fentanyl from before. Finally, Lina gets closure, and she knows for sure he'll never come looking for her, but what does she do with the body? Well, I imagine she buried it in the same basement where he put her after kidnapping her—her grandfather's basement—and sealed it for good. Eventually, she finds herself restoring the house to its former glory, and Brennan even asks her if everything is okay. She says she's been sleeping like a baby now that the basement is sealed, but obviously that's because she knows for sure Dan is gone for good. She also gets closure with Cain, but I guess she'll be cautious about love from now on.
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