William Jackson Harper and Cristin Milioti should make a perfect pair in NBC’s mysterious new series The Resort. Both were in Charlie Brooker’s satire Death to 2021, both have been in high-concept sci-fi shows (The Good Place and Made for Love) and twisted vacation cautionary tales alike (Midsommar and Palm Springs).
But as married teachers Noah and Emma, they’re on the brink of break-up. She says “that ship has sailed” when a kindly hotel worker asks about their kids in the trailer below, and instead it seems that a long dormant mystery will take up most of their time on their 10th anniversary getaway. The Resort is available for TVNZ+ subscribers to watch from July 28.
As the story comes from Mr Robot creator Sam Esmail and Milioti’s Palm Springs scribe Andy Siara, you can bet there’ll be twists aplenty down the path, after the first three episodes are made available at once. The trailer below, however, sets the mystery out for us nice and plain. Losing touch with one another, Milioti and Harper’s characters become drawn into the story of a kid who went missing from the same resort 15 years ago.
He’s played by Licorice Pizza standout Skyler Gisondo, dumping his GF Debby Ryan for a spontaneous new romance while on Christmas vacay. What happened to him? Why is the now-missing mystery girl’s dad (Nick Offerman) back in the picture? And most frustratingly, as Noah dares to ask, “what if there aren’t any answers?”
Emma sets us at ease by seemingly promising that the show has a solid ending in mind: “Well there have to be, because otherwise what is the fucking point?”
Filmed in Puerto Rico but set in Mexico’s Mayan Riviera, The Resort will likely remind viewers of The White Lotus, another tale of foolish Westerners getting in way over their heads while visiting a seeming tropical paradise. The hotelier of that show seemed less sinister than this show’s one, played by Luis Gerardo Méndez. He drags a finger across his throat before some guy gets flung out of a window mere metres away from our married protagonists.
Will some marriage counselling and simple trust exercises be the last resort for Harper and Milioti, as they find a way back to each other and to the ominous answers we’re craving? Whether they end up together or not, it should be a trip worth taking for viewers, especially as The Resort‘s triple-premiere gets us nice and addicted to the central mystery.
