Hound’s Hill – Season 1 Episode 1 Recap & Review

The Fox

Episode 1 of Hound’s Hill begins 18 years ago, with the promise that this is a long story (well, five episodes that are 1 hour long so I guess it kinda is!) and that it won’t end well. We then cut across to a foggy night, when a a drunken teen called Mikolaj is picked up by his father Tomek by the side of the road. He’s upset because his girlfriend, Daria, has just broken up with him.

After driving him back home, Tomek receives a call about a body being found out in the woods, murdered. This is Daria, Mikolaj’s ex girlfriend and he races to the scene with his pa, where he sees her lifeless body for himself. She’s in a rough way.

Fast forward to the present, and Mikolaj is a famous published writer. He’s still haunted by Daria’s death, and he’s not on talking terms with his dad or many of the people from his childhood town. It turns out he’s thrown everyone from Zybork under the bus with his book, which doesn’t paint anyone in a particularly favourable light.

He shows up with his partner Justyna for Tomek’s birthday and things are awkwardly strained throughout. As we soon learn, Tomek had a heart attack not long back and Mikolaj was never told, given the estranged relationship between the two.

A lot of the hostility here stems from the book, not to mention Mikolaj and Tomek’s past ties. When his mother passed, Mikolaj never showed up at the funeral. Furthermore, Tomek is pissed that a character in Mikolaj’s book, who beat his mother, resembles Tomek but just with a different name. All round it’s just not a nice situation and they both leave with things unresolved in the middle of the night.

On the road, the pair drive back through the woods and slam on the brakes when they find a body lying across the road. The male is just lying across the road and it would appear to be Grazyna’s husband, Bernat. Tomek and the others are offered a pace to stay at Tomek’s for the night, given how late it is.

Mikolaj is determined to get to the bottom of all this and in the morning, heads off to visit Gizmo. This is the man arrested in connection with Daria’s death and also her brother. He has drawings scrawled up on the walls of animals – especially the fox – and he’s not of sane mind. He refers to Mikolaj as paleface and he utters the numbers “two, one, eight”. There’s also a postcard too, which Mikolaj is being blackmailed with and it appears to have written by Gizmo himself, despite the guy not able to read and write.

In the middle of this, we learn that Justyna is a journalist and it would appear that she’s having an affair with her editor, given we see messages on her phone about someone missing her but that’s not confirmed right now. What we do know is that the town is falling apart, as there’s dirty money flowing in.

Tomek is part of a faction in Zybork that’s fighting back against these ex-mobsters that seem to be running riot. Kalt is the one who seems to be running the show, and the play here is that they want to build a luxury hotel, whilst the infrastructure of the town is falling apart. Tomek is not happy and wants to try and stop it. Are the deaths in relation to this?

Well, Mikolaj and Justyna have their statements taken at the police station regarding Bernat’s death. In the midst of this, Tomek and Mikolaj do hug it out and kinda reconcile but it’s still quite tense between them. During Mikolaj’s interview, our protagonist realizes that Gizmo was onto something. Remember the 218? Well, it appears to be linked to the last page of his book.

When Mikolaj shows up to see Gizmo though, he’s dead having apparently chewed through his own veins.

The Episode Review

Hound’s Hill is a strange one so far because it’s undoubtedly a slow burn but it’s unclear exactly where the drama and thriller aspects are going to come into it. We do learn about the situation regarding this Kalt guy, which appears to be the main crux of the issue going forward, but the motive and antagonistic forces are still yet to be uncovered.

There hasn’t been an awful lot here to sink your teeth into but hopefully that will change as the episodes progress.

Aesthetically, the series is a bit of a mixed bag too. The music is a weird blend of chords that don’t really fit the mood or tone of the series and there’s quite a bit of shaky cam and zoom shots that feel bizarrely out of place as well.

However, the ending hints that we’re about to step it up a gear so hopefully this is a promising sign of things to come.