Kevin Williamson is best known for penning the Scream franchise, as well as I Know What You Did Last Summer. And given the opening scene of “Stalker,” his new CBS drama, he’s still up to his same old trick: scaring the bejesus out of audiences.
Let’s just say the opening scene of “Stalker” does for being doused in gasoline what Jaws did for sharks.
A woman, on her way home from the gym, craving some guacamole, gets burned alive by a masked stalker reminiscent of the one that ruined Drew Barrymore’s movie night back in the ‘90s. He even dangles her car keys playfully once she realizes she’s trapped in her own car with nowhere to go (he may as well have said, “What’s your favorite scary movie, Sidney?). And who was this masked person? A stalker.
After this opening scene, this show lets you know EVERYTHING you ever wanted to know about stalking, almost like it’s orientation. Maggie Q’s Beth speaks at a college campus, spouting off stats like she’s friggin’ Wikipedia.
“Social media is the No. 1 reason stalking has tripled.” No shit. Going on Facebook IS stalking, after all.
But oh there’s a twist! The new stalker investigator Jack (Dylan McDermott) is also a stalker, spying on a blond woman—that’s not Scarlet Johansson, despite his jokey confession that she was the reason he got into the business. He had an affair with this woman, which produced a child (so some stalkers have good intentions).
What’s interesting is that this show appears to be a take on the #YesAllWomen campaign that grew in popularity back in May, following the shooting near UC Santa Barbara. The campaign was meant to raise awareness of misogyny and violence against women, especially when many men took to Twitter to scold women for not pity-dating the shooter which in turn would have prevented the tragedy from taking place.
This show feels like a strange reaction to that. The whole show has an air of discomfort when it comes to being a woman. Watch out who you meet at the gym because he could end up coming up from the floorboards in your bedroom. Despite the message being that these stalkers are crazy, all women on the show are mistreated. The female characters introduced become victims for not wanting to date the men who would go on to stalk them. Even Maggie Q’s Beth gets admonished by Jack (McDermott) for treating him poorly because he looked at her breasts. While stalking affects women more than men, “Stalker” rarely shows the good guys out there. Everyone is a suspect and kind of a dick—even the guys going after the stalkers.
Kate Edwards, the guacamole-loving lady who died in the opening scene, couldn’t seem to get a break from meeting creeps, as her trips to the gym introduced her to a ring of stalkers, including a middle-aged married man who was so not in her league and a personal trainer who did soft-core porn when he first came to California. (If you are moving to the West Coast, avoid joining the Urban Burn gym at all costs.)
While there’s a subplot in this episode involving two dueling male roommates (who may or may not have done each other—jury’s still out on that one), this show is definitely geared toward portraying women as the victims both in the stalking and professional world.
The good news for the show is that there are probably an infinite amount of stalker stories out there, so the places this show could go is limitless, even more than—dare I say—“How to Get Away with Murder.” Sure, it may not be Shonda Rhimes quality, but it’s something to watch in between scrolling through your ex’s Facebook page.
