The Feed – Season 1 Episode 1 Recap & Review

A Changed World

Amazon Prime’s new show The Feed is a dystopian nightmare brought to life, with an opening episode used to set the scene for the season ahead. With a decent pacing and some nicely implemented exposition throughout, The Feed does well here to lay the foundation for the season ahead.

In this near-future world, everyone has access to a brain implant called “The Feed”. This allows people to share thoughts, emotions, play music and even visualise video feeds of different areas. It’s a revolutionary, break-through technology and we see this through our opening protagonist, Tom.

The wedding happens to be Ben Hatfield’s, and as the speeches begin, his brother Tom stands listening to music, blaring out the noise. He approaches a woman across the room and speaks to her about the music. She, in turn, introduces him to a couple of people working on The Feed, Max and Eve, before their talk is interrupted by a kitchen worker who shows just what can go wrong with The Feed. She claims to be hearing voices and after holding Ben up at knifepoint, she’s taken away and arrested.

The next day Tom wakes up next to his pregnant girlfriend and begins getting ready for the day ahead. On his Feed is an urgent message for him to head into the office, courtesy of his father Lawrence. Before he does, he heads into work where we learn he’s a Feed psychologist, someone who helps people with issues adjusting to life away from their feed. His latest patient is Danny and as we see from his point of view, his Feed is full of distractions. He tells Danny to control the flow of information and not let it control him. However, in doing this he begins mumbling; it looks like his addiction to the feed is causing serious consequences.

In the wake of this, Tom finally watches the message from Lawrence, who recruits Tom to find a man named Dimitri. With these words echoing in his mind, Tom heads out and speaks to Dimitri’s family, and in particular his son Anton, a boy who has gouged out his eye. He has societive amnesia but as Tom shares Anton’s feed, he sees several point-of-view shots of him with his Father. It turns out Dimitri was murdered by Anton. Out in the woods, where the body is found, he pleads with Tom to erase his Feed.

Back home, Tom questions just what happened with The Feed, toying with the idea that someone was in his head. This leads him out for dinner with the other programmers, Max and Eve, along with his girlfriend Kate, where he ponders whether there’s a connection between the kitchen worker and Anton. As they talk, their feeds suddenly switch on, uncontrollably, showing images of violence, famine, poverty and war. This hack is global too and as The Feed suddenly ends, it leaves the world shaken and turning to the Hatfield Family for answers.

While Tom prepares himself for the arrival of his baby, Meredith plays damage control and addresses everyone on The Feed, offering a free upgrade to stifle any unrest. Kate gives birth to a beautiful baby girl named Beatrice but this moment is tinged with fear as Kate refuses to let Tom hold the baby after initially failing to remember saying someone was inside her head.

As the episode closes out, Lawrence visits the kitchen worker, Sarah, in prison where he sees her painting dots on the wall.

With the foundation set for the season ahead, The Feed does a great job building its mystery up for the ensuing tension to fester. There’s plenty to digest here too and the early season doubts surrounding The Feed’s stability promises to explode into drama later on down the line. For now though, Amazon Prime’s new show gets off to a great start.