Stream It Or Skip It: ‘Devil In Ohio’ On Netflix, Where Emily Deschanel Is A Psychiatrist Who Brings A Cult Victim Into Her Home

It feels like Bones was on for a full generation, and it did have a good, long 12-year run. But it’s been five years since the show ended, and aside from a run on Animal Kingdom, star Emily Deschanel has laid relatively low since then. She’s back top-lining a series, this time a cult-themed thriller on Netflix, but her role doesn’t seem all that dissimilar to the one she played opposite David Boreanaz.

DEVIL IN OHIO: STREAM IT OR SKIP IT?

Opening Shot: A large house late at night. There’s a lot of noise, including a struggle and screaming. Then a teenage girl runs from the house in a white nightgown, with someone running after her.

The Gist: Dr. Suzanne Mathis (Emily Deschanel) is a psychiatrist at a hospital in Remmingham, Ohio, a suburb of Cleveland. She and her family lead busy lives, and when she’s called in early one morning to see an unidentified patient who isn’t talking, she has to dash out in the morning. Her real estate flipper husband Peter (Sam Jager), blazer-wearing oldest daughter Helen (Alisha Newton) and moody middle daughter Jules (Xaria Dotson) seem to be used to it, but youngest daughter Dani (Naomi Tan) still gets upset. “Why is mom always working?” a downhearted Dani asks. “Because, she tries to save everyone,” says Jules.

The patient at the hospital is the teen girl (Madeline Arthur) who was ran out of the house. She’s not talking, and has massive cuts on her back; she’s from neighboring Amon County, where there is an isolated, Amish-like community. She’s obviously been through massive and ongoing abuse. She won’t even give anyone her name, so she’s dubbed “Lauren Trauma”. But Suzanne gets through to her, and she reveals that her name is Mae. When the hospital is about to discharge her, Suzanne decides to have her stay with her family until she can find Mae a foster home.

Suzanne’s family might not be ready for such a disruption, though; Jules, a thoughtful photographer, finds herself struggling socially at school, to the point where even her older sister doesn’t let her sit with her at lunch. And the buyer of the house that Peter was renovating suddenly backed out of the deal, leaving Peter deep in debt with a high-priced house he needs to unload. There are also external factors: The creepy Amon county sheriff (Bradley Stryker) is looking for her, as is Detective Lopez (Gerardo Celasco) from the Remmingham PD.

What Shows Will It Remind You Of? Devil In Ohio gives us similar vibes to The Following, though instead of cops investigating a cult leader’s minions, one of the cult’s victims appears to turn lives upside down.

Our Take: Daria Polatin created and wrote Devil In Ohio based on her novel; since Polatin has extensive TV experience (Jack Ryan, Condor, Heels), she doesn’t suffer from first-time showrunner rookie mistakes. She’s also not fallen in love with her own material when it came to adapting her novel; the first episode moves with the pacing of a quality network thriller (one of the reasons why we compared it to The Following) that doesn’t tend to dwell on things for too long before moving the story forward.

At first glance, it seems that the story asides Polatin indulges in during the first episode, like Jules’ inability to fit in at school or Peter’s business quickly sinking into debt. It feels like the central story is Suzanne’s efforts to try to save Mae, who is on the run from a deadly cult. But it’s Mae’s presence in the Mathis family’s life that’s going to upend everything, which is why these side stories need to be introduced while Suzanne intertwining herself with Mae is also introduced.

Of course, anyone who watched Bones for the 12 years it was on Fox knows that Deschanel is very capable of playing a woman of science who keeps her cool and seems to be able to compartmentalize. Suzanne may be a bit more emotional than Dr. Temperance Brennan, but the way Deschanel portrays her still makes her look like she’s achieving the impossible dream of “having it all.” She has a high-stakes, demanding career, is a loving wife, can still make a family dinner after a busy day, give loving advice to Jules, and still have time to take in this strange girl and somehow convince her family that this is the right thing to do.

It’s all a little bit contrived, especially in the 2020s. The only reason we can discern that Suzanne is set up in such an unrealistic way so that there’s a lot that gets torn away when things with Mae get complicated. If that’s the case, we’ll be able to forget about how “perfect” Suzanne seems at the start as the flaws in her personality and family life are exposed.

Sex and Skin: Nothing in the first episode.

Parting Shot: After she looks at her back in the mirror, showing the full extent of what was carved there, Mae turns, looks at her reflection, smiles slightly and says to herself, “You deserve this.”

Sleeper Star: Xaria Dotson is intriguing as Jules, who totes around her Pentax K1000 (which means a lot to film camera buffs like us) and has her own darkroom. She seems to be more mature than her years, which is why she doesn’t fit in, but she does seem to be finding a simpatico personality in Sebastian (Evan Ellison), who wants her to write a photography column for the school paper.

Most Pilot-y Line: When Dani is introduced to Mae and is told that she’s staying until Suzanne finds her a foster home, Dani says, “I was a foster kid. Do you remember that big tornado outbreak?” Now, this may be a line that becomes important in a few episodes, but it seems like such a random thing to ask, because we’re not sure what it has to do with being in the foster care system.

Our Call: STREAM IT. Devil In Ohio is a perfectly serviceable show that should keep audiences entertained for eight episodes. But at times it feels like something that’s a bit too slick and a bit too uncomplicated for a show that’s about a cult victim that ruins lives, especially a show for Netflix.

Joel Keller (@joelkeller) writes about food, entertainment, parenting and tech, but he doesn’t kid himself: he’s a TV junkie. His writing has appeared in the New York Times, Slate, Salon, RollingStone.com, VanityFair.com, Fast Company and elsewhere.