First Impressions: 666 Park Avenue ‘Pilot’ – Please Forgive Me

In a fall full of unsurprisingly terrible new shows (wait – nobody wants to watch a show about an annoying gay guy or mob doctors?), 666 Park Avenue‘s first episode is a welcome departure from the norm. Sure, it relies on the same character vagueness and twisty, almost incoherent plot many high-profile network drama pilots fall privy to, but the confidence in the storytelling – along with the cast, who show quite a bit of promise – is definitely going to bring me back for a second episode.

Olivia and Gavin Duran are a wealthy NY power couple who own The Drake, a historic apartment building built on the corner of Park Ave. and 56th street in New York (in real life, The Drake was torn down in 2006). We don’t learn much about them (or anybody really) in the pilot, except that Olivia’s a bit stubborn, and Gavin’s an evil mutha who’s got some kind of big plan in the pipes, at times a cunning business man, and in a few spots, something completely different and sinister. They invite young couple Henry and Jane to become the resident managers of the hotel while they do some major renovations, a job the two happily accept, despite some of Jane’s early experiences in the hotel, which have ranged from slightly offputting (the little girl Nona walking around) to batshit crazy (the ‘dream’ she has at the end of the episode).

Now, we’ve seen dozens of these “devil incarnate” stories through the years, both on TV and film. Some are interesting (The Devil’s Advocate), others are just plain stupid (Bedazzled, anyone?) but the idea is the same: powerful men promise dreams of wealth and success through the sacrifice of the soul, corrupting those who are willing to give up anything for their dreams. Most of the time, these men are presented as an advantageous brand of evil, corrupting those who are searching for something in the pursuit of some unknown goal – or simply from gleaning a masochistic pleasure from fucking with the lives of mortals. Gavin Duran is definitely not one of those characters: sure, we may not understand why he sticks people inside his hotel walls just yet, but the details sprinkled throughout the episode do a great job of filling in some of the shadier areas of his character.

Gavin’s obviously a man who’s risen from the ashes (as he tells Henry, “Not bad for a college dropout?”), one whose ruthless honesty and charming disposition can certainly help to explain how. Unlike most devil characters, Terry O’Quinn doesn’t go over the top with the character, taking a laid back approach to Gavin’s more sinister scenes, bringing the same charm and life that made John Locke such a captivating character. It’s almost like the last season of Lost with better writing when he’s on screen: charming, but with an evil crawling underneath that the audience can’t quite understand yet while we watch his master plan play out.

At times, the episode does suffer from some heavy plot set-up: Gavin’s got his eyes on something big in the city, talking about “restoring The Drake to its original glory,” and putting the wheels in motion on a number of what appear to be assassinations on judges and other city officials (in the episode’s hokey C-plot, a man trades visits from his dead wife for Gavin’s instructions). One thing is clear: Gavin, for all his art connections and black and white business approach, is up to something shady – and somehow involves Henry, an up and coming legal-type who was hand-picked for the Mayor’s office out of college (a cryptic statement between Gavin and Olivia midway through the episode confirmed this belief).

It remains to be seen where the show is taking its story – which appears to involve a cult, and definitely is going to induce some silly ABC special effects, as we see in a few of the episode’s closing scenes, where a slow-building episode suddenly exploded into a series of cryptic scenes, flashes, and set up for the show moving forward. Don’t get me wrong: I’m not expecting 666 Park Avenue to become some nuanced look at evil and corruption, but with its interesting set of characters and clear goal of telling a serialized narrative, I’m more than intrigued. More thoughts on the pilot below, but overall, a solid episode that managed to leverage the painful, predictable note of a pilot into a fun, pulpy mystery that’s more than just Terry O’Quinn’s performance.

Grade: B

Other thoughts/observations:

– Brian and Louise were seperated from everything going on for the majority of the episode, and because of it, they feel out of place, even in the final minutes. Maybe its just the pretty boy writer who wears hipster glasses that bothered me, but their relationship dichotomy just didn’t interest me.

– On the flip side, the easy going chemistry between Henry and Jane makes them one of the only network couples that aren’t painful to watch on television – at least, not so far.

– How Gavin and Olivia got all their money and power is very important to the mythos of this show. Everybody makes a sacrifice to get what they want: how did the Durans get their power while Gavin was residential manager… what did he give up to get the job of his dreams?

– has signing a one-year work contract ever felt more important? I suppose after seeing the last manager get sucked through a door hole, this may become an important thread.

– lots of mentions of God and Heaven, the man with the blood on his hands… many small religious things are thrown into the episode along side the flickering lights and creaky sound effects that are obligatory with modern “horror”.

– We don’t see much of Nona, but she is another supernatural presence on the show, one I wonder if we need. Why can she future murders of people through their stolen jewelry, and how does that play into what Gavin does?

What did you think of 666 Park Avenue? Tuning in for a second episode, or skipping it? Feel free to leave your thoughts/comments below! With all the coverage I’m doing this fall, I don’t know if I’ll be able to write about the show on a weekly basis, although I’ll definitely keep tuning in, and will at least comment on interesting/important episodes through the first season. Thanks for reading!