OK, I was getting a tad worried there for a second. You see, despite an opening episode that suggested Friday The 13th origin/reboot show, Crystal Lake, was going to be an absolute explosion of nostalgia, murder and a complete reworking of Jason Voorhees lore, episode 2 seemed to go off mission a bit. While episode 1 had introduced the various players of the town, the main thrust of the tale was the drowing of little Jason and the subsequent murderous breakdown of his mother Pamela. But with the following episode, the show actually now had to find little subplots to give these various characters something to do, and the result – along with an odd plot featuring Pamela going to a self help seminar – just felt frustratingly slow compared to that stellar opening installment. However, with “Part III” (gotta love those titles) we find some much needed equilibrium returning to Crystal Lake, as the various threads of each of those characters have already gone to some sinister places.
After a prologue that leaps back a bit in time and shows us more of the relationship between young Jason Voorhees and fellow outcast, Grace, we find them discovering an abandoned shack in the woods that probably was once owned by moonshiners. Those savvy of their F13 history will probably recognise this as potentially being Jason’s dilapidated lair/shrine in the second movie, but discovering that the disfigured boy doesn’t feel pain like we do, we don’t linger too long before returning to the “present” of 1972.
After her trip with Rita to “The Experience” self help seminar, we find that the whole twisted event has actually unlocked something within Pamela that makes her feel freer about both the loss of Jason and her recent double murder. Finally taking some advice about letting go, she starts to pack away some of Jason’s things in order to try to move on with the help of Sheriff Levon, who is still infatuated with this strong woman. But elsewhere, Officer Dorf hasn’t exactly been keeping the news of human remains discovered in the woods quiet, and this leads to the more gung-ho members of town wanting to go on a bear hunt to keep the area safe. Of course, we know that it wasn’t any bear who did this (although one was used by Pam to eat some fleshy evidence), but that doesn’t stop the townsfolk ignoring Levon and heading into the woods with guns.
Meanwhile, in an attempt to thank Grace for being a friend to her son, Pamela discovers that the girl’s mother, Valerie, is fairly abusive to her child and doesn’t take kindly to someone interfering with her brand of harsh parenting. Thanks to her recent epiphany opening up her eyes to her growing taste for homicide, Pamela decides to school Grace’s mother on the finer points of raising a child with a meat tenderizing mallet and a deep fat fryer. But while she covers her bloody tracks once more, the hunters in the woods discover that there’s more than bears wandering out in the wilderness of Crystal Lake.
While “Part III” still hasn’t got the same momentum of that first episode (I’d imagine that won’t happen for another couple of installments, if it achieves it at all), we still find that it brings everything back sharply into focus after that rather jarring side mission to that seminar. In the show’s defence, it makes that narrative pit-stop count by having the experience seemingly be the trigger that allows Pamela to fully embrace her future as an absolute lunatic. At first, Pam does indeed seem lighter, and even feels comfortable enough to finally put the death of her beloved son behind her and start cleaning out his things. What’s more, while she sets boundaries with Levon, you can tell that if it wasn’t for the recent, external stresses on her life, she would probably take the widowed lawman up on his offers and the growing bond between them provides the sort of heart the franchise doesn’t usually get to express unless Jason’s punching it out of someone’s chest.
However, we’re not here to see Pamela move on with her life and lead a balanced existence; we’re here to she her become the woman who massacres an entire camp, and we get to see her growing, psychotic urges fully take hold when it comes to her attitude to Grace’s mother. After trying to give Grace’s some of Jason’s belongings as thanks for treating him nicely, Pamela figures out that Valerie’s parenting standards aren’t up to her own; but rather than calling child services, we get a fascinating insight into the iconic killer when she ultimately opts to pulverise Val’s lower mandible bone and fry her alive. While some may call foul that Pam is killing bad people in an effort for the show to give her more of a sympathetic view, righteously fucking up Valerie makes perfect sense when it comes to what we already know about the unstable Ms. Voorhees. Everyone Pam has killed (and will go on to kill) is out of a deranged love for her child, and by extention, watching another struggling single mother botch that responsibity that’s been so tragically taken from her makes Pam’s enraged assault of Val utterly within character.
Elsewhere, we’re finally getting some interesting progression with all those other plot threads that encompasses the folks of Crystal Lake. Grace is herself is getting into something of an escalating feud with Claudette at school after she wrongly got the blame for breaking boyfriend Barry’s car window the night before (we think it was Jason). Elsewhere, Dorf’s rather lax approach to police work goes far beyond just amusingly nicknaming those tattered remains “Elvis the pelvis” as he’s blabbed about the existence of a man-eating bear to just about anyone who’ll listen. This leads to some locals wanting to put together a hunting party to make the area safer and as a result, we get to see some underlying racial tensions that comes from being a black sheriff in a rustic town in New Jersey in the early 70s. While we get some early, darkly numerous clues when a crossword Levon is doing describes Martin Luther King as a communist agitator, we see a distinct lack of respect from the locals,when they refuse to disperse when the sheriff attempts to quell the impromptu bear hunting trip.
Of course, this leads to an inevitable incident when Enos accidently ends up catching some friendly fire from one of his idiot friends. But as he lay bleeding on the ground, we get our second sighting of what appears to be a grown (or at least, bigger) Jason, who looms over him. Will news that there’s a disfigured person living in the woods completely throw off Pamela’s “composed” frame of mind (well, composed for someone who has already killed three people)? We’ll discover soon enough, but what I do know is that after the fluctuating pace of the first two episodes, Crystal Lake is getting increased traction to go with that rising body count.
After the speed bump of “Part II”, “Part III” gets things back on track with a literally jaw-dropping kill, more Jason sightings and an episode that makes the community of Crystal Lake more of a living, breathing entity. At times, it seems that the show was veering a bit close to Bates Motel territory (not exactly a bad thing), but after that total banger of a premiere and the damp squib episode 2, the normally silent Jason his finding his voice pretty quick.
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Where to watch Crystal Lake – Season 1, Episode 3: Part III: