There are times when you can see the major points of a thriller’s story coming, but don’t mind as much because the acting is solid and the writing provides enough tense moments. That’s what we get with Hulu’s new thriller Innate.
INNATE: STREAM IT OR SKIP IT?
Opening Shot: A teenager is lying in bed and is awakened by a noise. She calls “Dad?” repeatedly, then sees her dad in the bathroom in his fire fighter’s coat, washing blood off his burned hands.
The Gist: “25 YEARS LATER.” Sara Gonzalez (Elena Anaya) has been living with the acts of her father, Félix Garay (Imanol Arias) since he was arrested for multiple murders when she was a teenager. He became known as “the Diesel Killer” and his case was splashed across the news media in Spain.
Sara has tried to run and hide from that past by moving from her small town, changing her last name, and not mentioning anything about her past to her husband Aitor (Roberto Álamo) and son Sebas (Teo Soler). She’s built a career as a psychologist. But when she gets a text that Félix has completed his sentence and is out of prison, it all comes flooding back.
As we see in flashbacks, the teenage Sara (Celia Lopera) had a close relationship with her father, who was raising her on his own. But after his arrest and trial, she’s tried to separate herself from him as much as possible. What she wonders is why he decided to go back to the house where she grew up, now covered in graffiti calling him a killer — and worse.
With Félix out and trying to put his life back together, Sara wonders if he’s going to try to reconnect with her; she also wonders if it’s time to finally tell her family that this famous serial killer is actually her father. But as she contemplates it, Arias (Emma Suárez), a police detective who helped Sara when her father was arrested, comes to Sara’s house to tell her that there has been a murder that has the same MO as the killings her father committed in the early 2000s. In the meantime, Sebas gets closer to connecting his mother to the Diesel Killer on his own.
What Shows Will It Remind You Of? Innate has the same feel as one of the many Harlan Coben psychological thrillers out there, like The Innocent or Just One Look. This series is not a Coben series, though; it was created by Fran Carballal and Enrique Lojo.
Our Take: Innate has the potential to be a solid psychological thriller, though we wonder how many twists and turns this story is really going to take. The way the story is laid out in the first episode isn’t exactly predictable, but the story’s beats are not exactly a mystery.
The killings, which usually consist of the victim being trapped in something that’s set on fire. Félix will be accused, and that will force Sara back into his life. Likely the killings are copycat murders, and after Félix is cleared, the person that ends up being accused after will likely be someone in Sara’s life.
The first episode seems to dance around a lot of this, showing us things like Sebas accidentally-on-purpose starting a fight between his rowing teammates so he slides into a starting spot. Are we seeing this to show that he’s got a bit of sociopathic nature in his blood? Even though he doesn’t know it yet, he’s Félix’s grandson, and as the title of the series indicates, some of his grandfather’s proclivities may be dormant in Sebas and ready to come out.
We’re also wondering where the flashbacks are going to go. We see a little bit of the relationship between Félix and Sara before he was arrested, but we wonder if we’ll see more of why she decided to distance herself from him, to the point where she buries her past with her own family.
There is also the matter of Jaime (Fernando Guallar), a lawyer who was sent to Sara for mandatory therapy after a violent incident at his workplace. He seems reluctant to talk, and his violent tendencies indicate that there may be more we’re going to find out. But, again, there just isn’t enough info to latch onto these aspects of the story, at least not yet.
Performance Worth Watching: Elena Anaya’s performance effectively shows how Sara’s past keeps haunting her, even when she’s being an engaged wife, mother and therapist.
Sex And Skin: None.
Parting Shot: Félix uses a power washer to clean off graffiti that directly insults Sara. He leaves the rest of it up.
Sleeper Star: There certainly seems to be more going on with Teo Soler’s character Sebas than we were initially being led to believe.
Most Pilot-y Line: We’re supposed to assume that both Sara and Aitor are in their early-to-mid 40s, given that they were somewhere between 17-20 in 2001. But both Anaya and Álamo are both in their 50s, and the disconnect between their characters’ age and the actors’ age is distracting.
Our Call: STREAM IT. Innate is certainly slow to develop, and we wonder if the major beats of the story are just too easy to see coming. But the series is well-acted and provides at least some tense moments, which is enough to keep us watching.
How To Watch Innate
If you’re new to Hulu, you can get started with a 30-day free trial on the streamer’s basic (with ads) plan. After the trial period, you’ll pay $10.99/month. If you want to upgrade to Hulu ad-free, it costs $18.99/month.
If you want to stream even more and save a few bucks a month while you’re at it, we recommend subscribing to one of the Disney+ Bundles, all of which include Hulu. These bundles start at $12.99/month for ad-supported Disney+ and Hulu and goes up to $32.99/month for Disney+, Hulu, and Max, all ad-free.
Joel Keller (@joelkeller) writes about food, entertainment, parenting and tech, but he doesn’t kid himself: he’s a TV junkie. His writing has appeared in the New York Times, Slate, Salon, RollingStone.com, VanityFair.com, Fast Company and elsewhere.
