“Ooohhhhh The Rain?” My roommate’s voice echoes my own as we read the short, eerie description attached to the gloomy picture on the TV screen. We’re sitting in the dark. I’m on the left side of the couch, and she’s sunken into the cushion on the right. (If you’ve ever sat on my couch, you’d know that the right side will swallow your entire body if you sit there long enough.)
The phrases “Danish TV show,” “gritty” and “ominous” are three of the related terms accompanying the summary. We google the show and read one article that describes it as a “survival horror.” Satisfied that we will be entertained for at least one episode, we press play and are immediately transported to a predominantly blue and gray looking Denmark.
We get five minutes into the first episode before we realize that the actors are not speaking English but that the words we’re hearing are English. It feels slightly like a martial arts movie where the sound is out of sync with the lip movements of the actors. Except more Scandinavian and less martial arts. Subtitles become very necessary.
Over the next three hours, we are consumed with the backstory of seven incredibly unique and emotionally captivating characters. The first episode weaves the groundwork for the two main protagonists, Simone and Rasmus (pronounced wrath-moose or ras-moose, still unsure, really), whose father suddenly drives the whole family to a mysterious bunker in the middle of nowhere and tells them that the rain is dangerous, then conveniently disappears into the rain wearing a hazmat suit. Suspicious.
The remaining episodes pull viewers in further as they journey throughout Scandinavia with a small survival party, searching not only for a cure to the cryptic virus that is spread through the rain, but also on the hunt for Simone and Rasmus’ missing father.
Fast forward one week. Same seating arrangements, and my roommate and I are still in the dark. We’ve watched at least one episode a day and the ending credits are rolling as the last episode fades out and stereotypical menacing music drones on.
I give my roommate a panicked look. “Where’s the ‘Next episode beginning in 5 seconds’ button?!”
“There was only one season,” she replies.
And that is a short example of how Netflix creates brilliantly crafted television shows and savagely only puts out one season at a time.
P.S.: After conducting some marginally manic research, we have discovered that The Rain has been approved to film and produce a season two, so you may now proceed to Netflix with the fullest of hopes that season 1 episode 8 is not the last time you’ll have the great privilege of watching these delightful characters interact in post-apocalyptic Denmark/Sweden/that general area.