Naomie Harris in “The Third Day” —PHOTOS COURTESY OF HBO
In “The Third Day,” Jude Law and Naomie Harris take viewers on a mind-bending trip to a rustic island off the British coast. The six-part psychological thriller, which debuts at 9 a.m. and 10 p.m. on HBO and HBO Go tomorrow, thrusts Jude and Naomie at front and center even if their characters’ individual tales, spun a year apart from each other, initially seem unrelated.
But, as with the troubled souls lurking underneath their cool exterior, things aren’t always what they seem in this brooding psychological maze.
“Summer,” the series’ highly imaginative and deeply contemplative first half, is made up of three gorgeously photographed episodes directed by Marc Munden (“Utopia,” “The Mark of Cain”).
Paddy Considine (left) and Emily Watson
It recounts how Sam Dawson (Jude) is drawn to Osea, a little-known island that is separated from the mainland by an unpredictable causeway, after he foils the suicide attempt of a teenage girl, Epona (Jessie Ross).
“Winter,” the second half of the show helmed by Philippa Lowthorpe (“The Crown,” “Three Girls”), charts the creepy events that transpire soon after former veterinarian Helen (Naomie), with her daughters 13-year-old Ellie (Nico Parker) and 9-year-old Talulah (Charlotte Gairdner-Mihell) in tow, arrives on the island seeking answers.
Osea may look as enchanting as all get-out, but hiding behind its unthreatening allure are secrets that are being guarded by its residents, led by pub owners Mr. and Mrs. Martin (Paddy Considine, Emily Watson), who are dead set on preserving the community’s religious traditions at any cost.
But the islanders of Osea aren’t the only ones concealing a grim past: Sam is still licking his wounds, not only from “misplacing” £40,000 meant to bribe a government planning officer, but also from the pain of losing his 6-year-old son Nathan, who was reportedly kidnapped and killed by an asylum seeker in London.
Jude Law (left) and Katherine Waterston
Awkward complications ensue when Sam crosses paths with Jess (Katherine Waterston), a troubled American historian who’s on the island to watch Osea’s upcoming religious festival, a special holiday that commemorates not just its Celtic roots, but also deeply disturbing tales, both tall and true, about a certain serial killer in London who mutilated his victims in 1888.
Things take a turn for the twisted when Jess meets Helen on Osea a year later and figures out the true identity of the spunky visitor from London. But that’s just one of the many shocking secrets that the show unravels when fiction finally fuses with facts on the third day of the festival. INQ