Stream It Or Skip It: ‘The Clearing’ On Hulu, About A Woman Who Tries To Stop Her Former Cult From Kidnapping Children

There are certain shows that bend time effectively and there are shows that do it in a way that just makes viewers more confused and the story more inaccessible. The Clearing, a new Hulu series created by Elise McCredie and Matt Cameron and based on a real life case, falls in the latter category.

THE CLEARING: STREAM IT OR SKIP IT?

Opening Shot: A woman is in the water, and stares at a jetty about 100 feet away. Then she goes under the surface.

The Gist: A girl named Sara (Lily LaTorre) walks down an isolated road on the way home from school, and she’s distracted by a bleach-blond 13-year-old named Amy (Julia Savage) carving her name into a tree. As they’re talking, suddenly a white van pulls up, someone comes out and grabs Sara. Amy gets in and they speed away.

She’s brought to a house in the woods, and introduced as “Asha” to a group of bleach-blonde children. The woman who took her, Tasmin (Kate Mulvany) tells the group that Asha is “your new sister.” Another woman, Hannah (Anna Lise Phillips), looks at Asha and asks, “Tasmin, what have you done?”

Meanwhile, Freya Heywood (Teresa Palmer) is a single mother to her son Billy (Flynn Wandin), living in a large house in the middle of the woods that looks eerily familiar. When she’s in town and hears that a girl has been kidnapped nearby, something in her gets set off, including visions of a white van. She makes sure that Billy is near her at all times, and turns down an invite for a playdate from another parent.

Back at the house with the blonde children, Amy shows Asha/Sara around; of course, all Asha wants to know is when she can see her mom again. Tasmin comes to prepare Asha for a visit from “Mommy,” which includes bleaching her hair to match the other kids. Amy has her own issues; in the morning it’s discovered that she’s wet her bed, and when she comes out for morning exercises, something Tasmin has done has made her sob.

Freya is surprised at school pickup by Christine (Doris Younane), whom Billy calls “Gran” but Freya just calls her by her first name. She’s there to give her some mail, and wants to visit, since she’s never been to Freya’s house. She’s surprised by how big and nice it is. When Billy acts up and locks himself in a cupboard, Hannah accidentally hits him in the face with the door as she tries to get it open. She goes outside to get fresh air and sees the white van again.

A police detective, Yusuf “Joe” Saad (Hazem Shammas), comes by to enquire about the abduction of Sara; he encounters Henrik Wilczek (Erroll Shand), the caretaker of the property. He’s told that a white van was seen near the scene of the abduction. Henrik and Hannah talk about how dangerous the methods they’ve used to “collect” the children in their household. Dr. Bryce Latham (Guy Pearce) tells Tasmin that she’s put “The Kindred” in great danger.

But soon Adrienne Beaufort (Miranda Otto), aka “Mattrea”, known to the children as “Mama” or “Mommy”, shows up; she and Dr. Latham determine that Asha needs to “become one of us” in order for her to forget about her family, and she puts Amy in charge of that. She calls Amy “my special one.”

Asha keeps resisting Tasmin, and when Adrienne calls and tells her that she’s her mother, Asha hands the phone back immediately; Amy gets punished for Asha’s resistance. Eventually, Asha escapes. Freya, who keeps seeing the white van near her house and in her dreams, sees the girl as she’s closing a flapping door on her property and chases after her. But not everything is what it seems.

What Shows Will It Remind You Of? The Clearing, based on a real-life case in Australia, has a very creepy Children Of The Corn feeling to it.

Our Take: There is certainly a tense cult-related thriller in this narrative somewhere, but the first episode was so confounding that we had to watch it twice to even figure out who everyone was and what was going on.

The show has no real characters, at least not in the way we’re used to seeing them, where they’re introduced and there’s some sort of exposition to tell viewers who each person is in relation to the others. The Clearing doesn’t give viewers this; it drops them smack in the middle of this cult, fumbling around to try to figure out not only who these blonde kids are but what the function of Tasmin, Hannah, Henrik and Dr. Latham are.

We’re not even 100% sure why Adrienne, who seems to be the leader of this cult, is called “Mattrea” or “Mama” or “Mommy”. All we really know is the broad strokes of cultiness, where most of the kids (but not all) have the same strange hairstyle, and they wear matching Heavens’ Gate-style jogging suits when they go our for morning exercises.

Then there’s Freya, whose story is purposely sketchy so it makes her look like she’s living in the same timeframe as Sara/Asha’s kidnapping. We know that seeing the white van sets her off, so we know she might have been involved in The Kindred at one time or another, but it’s not until the end of the episode when we find out just how involved she was.

Sure, there are clues, like the fact that she’s living in the same looking house The Kindred lived in. You also see hints of the bunk beds that the blonde kids slept in when we see Billy’s room. But when the twist is revealed, it actually brings up more questions than it answers, especially when it comes to just why Freya has the name she has and is living in the house she’s living in.

It’s a frustrating plot to see unfold, and the revelation at the end of the episode left us more frustrated than anything else. It was one of those instances where the show’s writers purposely held information from the audience in order to propel their story, instead of just telling the story in a straightforward manner, and we found it highly annoying. Will it be that annoying now that we know about Freya’s past? Maybe not. But the first episode got us so frustrated we’re reluctant to press on and find out.

Sex and Skin: None.

Parting Shot: The parting shot is way too much of a spoiler, so we won’t reveal it here.

Sleeper Star: Julia Savage is equally creepy and empathetic as Amy, who has bought into Adrienne’s message but still has her doubts.

Most Pilot-y Line: “You’re a dead bird” Adrienne says at the end of the episode, but then switches her tune because, um, she’s not well.

Our Call: SKIP IT. The first episode of The Clearing left us too frustrated and confused for us to want to watch any more of this creepy cult thriller.

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.