It’s hard to recall a time when Netflix Original indeed meant “original”. Lately, it’s been adaptation after adaptation. The output varies in quality, most coming in at a mid-level rating best described as “background noise while I do my laundry” but a few surpass all expectations (The Queen’s Gambit). Others make me reconsider my subscription for good (Echoes). The latest to throw its hat in the ring is Devil in Ohio, not to be confused with the streamer’s Robert Pattinson film The Devil All the Time, a sinister tale incidentally also set in Ohio.
The eight-episode series puts to screen Daria Polatin’s 2017 novel of the same name, itself inspired by a true story. Bones star Emily Deschanel plays Suzanne, a mother and psychiatrist who invites her new young patient (a believably wide-eyed Madeleine Arthur) into her home when she’s brought into the hospital after a traumatic episode. It’s an act of kindness that comes at the cost of annoying her daughter Jules (Xaria Dotson) who already feels overlooked at home and at school without this new, mysterious teenager in the spotlight. In another world, the plot stops there and Devil in Ohio is a thoughtful drama about trauma and what it means to belong. But this is not that world; this is Netflix world, and by those rules, there must be a nefarious cult or creepy cop waiting in the wings. Appropriately, this has both.
