Teacup Premiere Recap: A Mysterious Evil Goes Bump In The Night — Grade It!
A biological threat? Aliens? Some sort of grotesque creature thing? By the end of Peacock's series premiere of Teacup, the mystery has only begun.
In its first few seconds, a woman desperately tries to free her zip-tied hands in the middle of the woods. Something takes control of her and seemingly possessed, she mumbles: "Murder-maker." She snaps out of it, frees her hands and immediately gets out of Dodge after hearing the snarl of a crazed wolf or dog.
This all happens steps away from the Chenoweth family farm where mom Maggie (Yvonne Strahovski) traps a wasp in a teacup (hey, that's the name of the show!) against her son Arlo's window. She tells him it's a "tempest in a teacup." There's something a little strange about the boy — he doesn't want to go outside to free the insect with her — but it's unclear what.
Outside, Maggie chats with her husband James (Scott Speedman), who says the animals are all spooked for some reason. He asks if she's made peace with his mom yet. Maggie promises she will. James also says it's weird that they aren't talking about what's really going on between them. She's not ready for that convo yet. When she enters the barn, the horses are bucking in their stalls. Something's afoot! When mom isn't looking, Arlo follows the sounds of a bleating goat into the woods... where the maybe-possessed woman leaves a bloody handprint on a tree.
The family lives with Maggie's mother-in-law, Ellen (Kathy Baker), who hears a strange, high-pitched sound emitting from her radio. And that's not the first of this eerie sound we hear throughout the episode. Maggie apologizes to Ellen for calling her a pothead with an addled brain (Ellen has MS), and while the two women seem like very different people, they find enough common ground for the moment.
It's dark and dinnertime by the time the family realizes Arlo is missing. It's right then that a truck barrels down their driveway honking its horn. It's their neighbors, the Shanleys, and their horse needs immediate medical attention. (Maggie's an equine veterinarian.) The horse got spooked and impaled itself on a fence. While Maggie gets to work, neighbor Valeria is on edge. James asks her if she told her husband... something. Shady! Later, it's confirmed that James did have an affair with Valeria. Maggie knows he was unfaithful, but she doesn't know who it was with. Double shady!
In the woods, Arlo has a scary run-in with the maybe-possessed "murder-maker" lady. The bleeding woman stands over the boy after he's been knocked on the ground. A spectrum of colors swarm throughout her eyeballs and the colors somehow transfer over to Arlo's eyes.
Another neighbor, Donald (Boris McGiver) arrives to warn everyone about a rabid dog he saw, and it's then that a stunned Arlo wanders back home with scratch marks all over his arms. He's mumbling nonsense: "Buzz-goat, wasp-find, men-strange, murder-maker, run-ran-hide." The exhausted boy collapses in his mother's arms.
Back in the woods, the bloody lady is attacked by the rabid wolf-dog, while a car pulls up just down the road from the farm. A figure emerges and draws a line in paint separating the farm land from the rest of the area. When we finally catch a glimpse at the figure's face, he's wearing a gas mask, which raises a whooole lotta questions about whatever the hell is going on.
So what did you think of Teacup's creepy premiere? Any initial thoughts or theories? Grade the episode, then drop 'em below!