How the hell did I never hear about The Third Day?
The six-episode HBO series came out in 2020, stars Jude Law, and somehow completely passed me by. I wasn’t even looking for it. I was poking around HBO Max to check out its shiny new thing, Youth, when a preview for The Third Day sitting about three rows down completely stole my attention.
That’s the thrill of the browse. And like I always say, there are no rules at PTC. I have a watchpile. I circle back to it. But just when I think I’m going to watch something shiny and new, Jude Law flashes across my screen and there goes the plan.
I love him. He’s weird. And The Third Day looked weird.
Sold.
Something Is Very Wrong on Osea
The Third Day S1E1: “Friday — The Father” doesn’t waste much time establishing that Sam (Jude Law) is already a mess before he ever reaches the mysterious British island of Osea.
He’s sitting on the side of a country road talking on the phone about a burglary, £40,000 hidden at home and someone named Aday. Then he walks into the woods, kneels beside a river and tearfully releases what appears to be a young boy’s shirt into the water.
Clearly, there’s a tragedy in this man’s past. Then he hears a girl crying.
Sam follows the sound and finds two kids who initially look like they’re rigging up some kind of makeshift bungee jump. Nope. The girl puts a rope around her neck and jumps.
Holy shit.
Sam races over, gets her down and discovers she’s still alive. Her name is Epona (Jessie Ross), and she doesn’t want a doctor or the police because she says someone will kill her if she talks.
At this point, Sam could probably use one quiet afternoon. Instead, he drives her home to Osea.
Fantastic choice, Sam.
Osea is a tiny island community of just 93 people, accessible by a causeway that disappears beneath the water when the tide comes in. Epona tells him they’re preparing for a festival called Jesus and the Sea, talks about old traditions and beliefs, and casually warns him that he wouldn’t believe what these people are capable of.
Sir. Turn the f*cking car around.
But Sam doesn’t. And the deeper he gets into Osea, the more the place starts giving off serious The Wicker Man energy.
There are strange masks. Salt everywhere. Stories about the Sjora coming from the sea to find evil. Creepy photographs hanging in the pub, including dead children and people with white, demonic-looking eyes. The islanders are preparing for a festival rooted in traditions Sam doesn’t understand.
The causeway alone would have done it for me.
If I enter a town knowing the only road out is about to disappear under the fucking sea, I’m keeping one eye on my watch.
Sam apparently has other plans.
Sam, Why Are You Telling These People Anything?
One of the things that drove me crazy about this episode is also one of the reasons I never considered turning it off.
Sam makes some spectacularly stupid decisions.
After dropping Epona at the pub, he meets its owner, Mr. Martin, and practically starts handing this complete stranger his autobiography.
The burglary. The missing money. Aday. His business. His family.
Why?
Martin has already shown some ugly assumptions about Aday based largely on his belief that Aday is Nigerian, yet Sam continues telling him things he has absolutely no reason to know.
Eventually Martin plants the idea that Aday must have stolen the £40,000 because he knew about the money. And Sam lets it get into his head.
Later, when Sam finally reaches Aday by phone, he actually accuses him of stealing it — only to learn that Aday had been at the hospital with his wife and couldn’t have done it.
Nice work, Sam.
That’s part of what makes Osea so effective, though. Sam arrives emotionally vulnerable. Whatever happened to his child is still eating him alive. His home has just been burglarized. He has watched Epona nearly hang herself. He’s rattled before these people even start working on him.
And they absolutely start working on him.
The Martins know more about Sam than they should. Mrs. Martin recognizes him from television because of the tragedy involving his child. Mr. Martin knows where Sam was earlier. Epona’s father arrives with a gun. Somebody conveniently blocks Sam’s car long enough for him to miss his opportunity to leave.
Every time Sam gets another sign that something isn’t right, he responds by becoming more involved.
He chases a mysterious boy into the marsh.
He spies on Epona’s armed father and some other men.
He keeps asking about Epona after repeatedly being warned away from the situation.
At one point he’s hiding close enough to these guys that one of them wanders over to take a piss and nearly pisses on his head.
Sam.
Go sit in your f*cking car.
Weird Is Doing a Lot of Work Here
What saves “Friday — The Father” from Sam’s occasional absence of common sense is that Osea is genuinely compelling.
The episode keeps dropping strange details without immediately explaining them. Salt. Sand. Masks. The tide. The festival. The island’s mythology. The way everyone seems to know everyone — and the way outsiders are treated as both necessary and suspect.
That’s the kind of storytelling I like.
There are clearly ideas here about outsiders, difference, prejudice and isolation. The Martins aren’t exactly subtle when they start talking about immigrants, and I don’t need the show beating me over the head with any of it. Give me the behavior. Give me the rituals. Give me an isolated community obsessed with maintaining its traditions while simultaneously needing outsiders and their money.
I’ll put the pieces together myself.
And so far, The Third Day gives me enough weird shit to keep doing exactly that.
At one point Sam meets Jess (Katherine Waterston), another visitor to the island who’s studying the Essex witch trials. She tells him about the history behind the festival, including an idea that criminals and addicts could come to the island, blow off steam and somehow return to normal life afterward.
So now I’m getting The Wicker Man with a little The Purge thrown in.
Sure. Why not?
Then Sam does exactly what any sensible person would do after spending the day discovering that this isolated island is full of people who know too much about him.
He gets completely f*cked up with them.
Drinking. Smoking some kind of herb. Having a grand old time while the pub fills with people.
SAM.
Just Get Through the Night, Buddy
By this point, Sam is so out of it that everyone starts chanting “Swim, Sam” while he wanders away with a huge grin on his face.
Then things get even stranger.
He sees the little boy again. There’s a lighthouse. The floor appears covered with charred body parts. The boy is wearing one of the Sjora masks and holding shears. Sam is bloody and screaming.
Then he wakes up in his car.
Dream? Drug-induced hallucination? Warning? Who the hell knows.
But when Sam checks his car, he finds a bag filled with rolled-up cash that looks suspiciously like the missing £40,000.
So maybe the money was there all along.
Maybe Sam put it there.
Maybe something else is happening.
At this point, I’m not ruling out anything because Osea has spent an hour convincing me that absolutely nothing on this island should be taken at face value.
And that’s why The Third Day works for me despite the things that don’t.
There are moments when Sam’s choices make no logical sense. I spent a decent portion of the episode wanting to scream at the television the way you do during a horror movie when somebody hears a noise in the basement and decides they should absolutely investigate it alone.
But I never once thought about tapping out.
That’s the difference.
Bad character logic can kill a show when there’s nothing interesting waiting on the other side of it. Here, Sam’s questionable judgment keeps dragging him — and us — further into a place I desperately want explained.
What happened to his child?
What’s the deal with Epona?
Why did the Martins seem so determined to keep him there?
What the hell is really happening during this festival?
And most importantly:
Why does Sam keep following creepy children into places where creepy children should absolutely not be followed?
It’s only six episodes.
Yeah, I’m in.
🔥 The Verdict: WATCHABLE
The Third Day has some logic problems, mostly involving Sam making decisions no sensible person should make after approximately the fifteenth warning that something is deeply wrong with Osea.
But the weirdness wins.
“Friday — The Father” creates an isolated little world filled with rituals, folklore, unsettling people and just enough unanswered questions that I need to know what the hell is happening. Jude Law sells Sam’s grief and confusion even when I want to reach through the television and shake some common sense into him.
Sometimes that’s all I need from a premiere.
Give me something strange enough that I have to come back.
Osea definitely qualifies.
- ➝ 📡 Keep Exploring: Looking for more thriller mystery shows? Head into the Free TV Frontier for the good, the bad, the forgotten, and the stuff hiding in streaming’s weirdest corners.
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