Premiering February 12th at 9pm comes NBC's latest series "The Slap". The show centres on a complex family, who were already a dysfunctional group of people before a small incident occurs that makes an impact on everybody's lives.
The show has many characters, perhaps too many for me to list, but the main one being Hector (Peter Sarsgaard). The opening 15 minutes is spent focusing on Hector, as it's his birthday. His wife Aisha (Thandie Newton) is preparing for his birthday party, the party is also meant for celebrating his promotion from his job. They invite a dozen relatives round to their house to celebrate Hector's birthday including Hector's parents Manoulis (Brian Cox) & Koula (Maria Tucci). They are Greek.
Hector is captivated by a young woman Connie (Mackenzie Leigh) and you will see a lot of their complicated relationship during the pilot, whether he acts on his feelings or not you will have to wait and see. The family seem reasonably normal whilst at the party, but tensions begin to rise between a number of characters who aren't exactly on the best of terms already.
Most of the episode (around 30 minutes) was spent on the build-up to the big moment. When the moment did come around it was worth it as the aftermath especially was explosive, and full of family drama with threats, and stunned reactions everywhere. This was when the cast were at their best, especially Zachary Quinto, who easily was the standout performer among the stellar cast. He was a brilliant choice for Harry, as he was outstanding. The things he said was powerful and they came with real meaning. Brian Cox, Uma Thurman, Lucas Hedges and Peter Sarsgaard were all good in their respective roles as well.
The boy who the incident involved is named Hugo. Throughout the pilot you will witness him being disruptive, rude and unbearable to watch, I have never seen a more irritating child than him. The parents of the boy are extremely weak, and can't control their child; you will see this on countless occasions throughout the pilot.
Many of the characters have to pick a side after the incident; some agree that it was the right thing to do, whilst some think it was wrong. There wasn't too much shown in the pilot of the aftermath of the incident as so much of it was focused on Hector and Aisha, which was quite disappointing. I expect episode two to be fully focused on what happened though, and the effect it will have on these characters.
One of the most disappointing things though about the episode was the underusing of some of its cast. Uma Thurman in particular barely had anything to say or do which was a shame as she is extremely talented. I hope that changes, otherwise it would have been a waste of using an award winning actress to portray one of the shows characters.
Another bad point about the pilot was the narrator. During the pilot there was narrator speaking over the footage as if it was a documentary on someone's life. His voice was extremely depressing, and hearing it whilst I was trying to see what was happening really irritated me. At one point I muted my TV, because I couldn't stand to listen to him for a second more.
Summary
The episode was full of drama, and heated arguments. Most of the cast did a wonderful job at portraying their individual characters. Zachary Quinto as Harry was fantastic; he made every scene he was in excellent. However most of the episode was uninteresting and I was extremely close to turning it off. If it wasn't for the second half of the episode where the slap took place, and the aftermath of that it would have been an awful pilot. 6/10
As always, thank you for reading! You can catch "Hector" this Thursday at 9pm on NBC.
