Warning: This article contains slight spoilers for Channel Zero season 2.

“No-End House”‘s second episode, “Nice Neighborhood,” sets aside more overt horror for surreal, more ominous thriller fare. Creeping along at a slow (but not glacial) pace, the episode starts to contend with complex dialogues over grief, identity, family, ambition, and guilt. Indeed, the episode behaves more like a character study and saves the bulk of its actual horror for the closing sequence.

The tonal shift feels less sudden though, and more like what the slowly unnerving edges to everything that came before were leading toward. Equally, it’s been a minute since I’ve watched something that actually startled me the way “Nice Neighborhood”‘s closing scene did. I’m pleased to be able to say it panned out.

Unfortunately though, the individual characters’ stories feel somewhat disjointed from each other, at least for now. It seems a bit unusual for what was initially presented as a cohesive ensemble cast. Still, I’m interested enough in each to stick it out and see how (or if) they will weave together in the episodes to follow.

The only character I don’t really “get,” right now, is Seth; which isn’t an enormous problem for me. Personally I’m overall more interested in Margot and Jules. So far, though, his role seems to be that of the voice of reason. However, there’s not much we’ve seen of his interior or exterior life to identify why that would be, or why he seems less affected than everyone else. It’s enough of a disjoint to make me wary of him, and I’m both wondering if that’s the point, and wondering if I’m mistrusting him unfairly.

At the time of writing, the backbone of the season continues to be an obvious delighting in bizarre, unearthly visuals and an eerie soundtrack. It’s a choice that largely works and has hooked me in as an audience member, particularly when these capitalize on their effectiveness as the backdrop to compelling acting.

On the other hand, this makes it a little hard to gauge my feelings about “No-End House” as a whole. These first two episodes have raised more questions than answers and the acting is a little undercut by the isolation of the characters, for now.

The actors are at their strongest when the characters get to play off of (or even confront) each other, rather than being sequestered in their own subplots. At the same time, the point is obvious: everyone’s “room 6” in the haunted house is different. It will wear on their ability to communicate or band together to confront what lies underneath as the season progresses.

All in all, though, I remain intrigued enough to stick with it and see where the unanswered questions may lead. If “Channel Zero” was a trial run, “No-End House” seems to have taken the training wheels off. I look forward to watching where the show goes and what it becomes as it truly comes into its own.

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Channel Zero

8

Score

8.0/10

Pros

• Compelling cast
• Intriguingly ominous visuals and score
• Overall solid sense of pace

Cons

• Subplots seem a bit disconnected