Netflix’s Slasher
Season 2, Episode 1: “Six Feet Under”
Directed by Felipe Rodriguez
Written by Aaron Martin

* For a recap & review of Season 1 episodes, click here.
* For a recap & review of the next episode, “Between Good and Evil” – click here
5 years ago at Camp Motega. A group of friends head into the woods, drinking, having fun. They’re counsellors at the camp together. Yet there’s something sinister about to happen. Talvinder (Melinda Shankar) walks into a clearing where there are torches lit. One of the other girls tells her she’s “on trial” for being a “nasty bitch.”
Uh oh. Not looking good.
Cut to everyone dragging a bloody body out into the deep woods, some are taking it better than others. Only Talvinder isn’t dead, she starts screaming, bleeding from the face. Peter (Lovell Adams-Gray) tries to take her out of there, to the hospital, but his buddy jumps him. Then the dying girl is dragged back into the dark.
Present day. Simon (Kyle Buchanan) wakes up with Andi (Rebecca Liddiard); she’s one of the young women who were in those woods that night. He wonders what keeps plaguing her. It’s very obvious she’s keeping a big secret from him, ever since they got together.
And everyone else from the woods that fateful night seems to be headed back there to the camp. In the midst of winter, they go back to where they all lost a part of their soul. Noah (Jim Watson) tries cheering up the mood in the car but nobody wants to hear it. They get to a station on the way up, a man named Gene (Jefferson Brown) helping them gear up and planning on guiding them to their “old stomping ground.” There’s a lot of tension in the air, though Gene doesn’t realise he’s hanging around with a bunch of murderers.
What’s very clear is that Andi is having the hardest time, everyone’s concerned; also obvious there was something going on, to some degree, between her and Peter, as he apologises for how things were after what happened five years ago.
On they go, up to the We Live As One retreat house. Cut back to five years prior. Andi’s breaking Tal into the whole counsellor job at Camp Motega. Now we see Andi and Peter were a couple. Perfectly, they have a movie night complete with a – you guessed it – slasher.
Back to present day. At the retreat are a bunch of people doing yoga, led by a friendly couple, Antoine and Renée (Christopher Jacot & Joanne Vannicola). Nice “corpse pose” before the lesson’s finished, too. They run a nice retreat, everybody does their part to stay, a happy little family. The reason why the friends are there? A resort’s being constructed, and a tennis court is likely to be built right over where they buried Tal. They further mention someone named Owen, who was a suspect in the girl’s disappearance. Certainly their arrival brings the curiosity of their hosts, Gene particularly wonders why they’ve come up in the dead of winter. A woman there named Judith (Leslie Hope) feels bad energy with the strangers around. Rightfully so. Although no one else worries, and they should. Such is the way with the yoga hippie-types.
Poor Gene is trying to relax in the sauna when snowballs start pelting from outside. From nowhere, someone in a hooded parka attacks him. Chainsaw to the guts, running the blade right up through him to the shoulders. A nice cut takes us from spilling guts to a steak slapping into a frying pan.
Glenn (Ty Olsson) is a member of the community at We Live As One, barely there two months. He’s not a vegan like the others, he doesn’t dig yoga. Renée tries her best with him but it’s kind of a lost cause. He is also immediately a bit suspicious about the friends when Noah comes around stuttering nervously like a dummy.
The friends get out into the woods where they left Tal’s body. However, after they move the rocks from the hiding place they find nothing; no skeleton, no remains of any kind. Somebody’s moved her corpse. But whom?
We’re discovering more of the people at the retreat, as well. Judith has a self-harm problem. She and another man named Wren (Sebastian Pigott) discuss the group of strangers, believing they need to be on guard, at least until they find out more about them. And, well, we know they’re right. We watch the group, frantically discussing what to do now that Tal’s body has vanished. Peter suggests going to the cops, he thinks it’s the only way to find “closure,” or else they’ll all be haunted. Susan (Kaitlyn Leeb) doesn’t agree, she’s married with a child. Nobody other than Andi and Peter feels confessing would do them any good. So, they’re all divided.
More about others at the retreat. Mark (Paulino Nunes) has scars on his back that look like bullet holes. In true Slasher style, this is only seen on the surface level. Those revelations are best left for later.

“This secret has killed every single relationship in my life“

Back to five years ago, slasher movie night. Tal sits with Peter while Andi heads for more popcorn. They chat and get to know each other a bit better. They actually get physically closer. You can see where this is headed, as she’s obviously trying to worm her way between the couple. Cutting to present day, Peter just wants to come clean and face their fate, whereas Andi’s beginning to wonder if that’s the right thing after all. And an argument starts splitting them apart, too.
Andi goes for a smoke alone outside, she winds up talking with Mark awhile. He tries to give her some of that enlightened-type advice. He parallels some of what Peter says about her, that she spends her time in a victim mentality. It’s partly true. Also partly clear that she’s strong, if she wasn’t she’d have cracked long ago. Will she take this “second chance” in all respects? Will she do what’s right, or what’s best for her?
She heads out to the woods with a shovel. There, she sees foot prints. Farther in she discovers Tal’s remains strung up from the streets, smiling its deathly grin. From behind, the killer in the parka attacks Andi. Simultaneously, Peter looks for her, wondering where she’s gone.
Andi wakes with her four limbs tied to posts. She screams for help. Nobody there but the killer, who cuts her throat open from each side as she gargles on her own blood, choking. Peter soon comes to find her bled out. Back at the retreat, everyone is shaken up by the news, they try to call out and get some help. Meanwhile, the friends are all stressed and full of fear. A message left on their wall, a warning.
Go back to five years ago. The friends argue before finishing Tal off, Dawn (Paula Brancati) leading the charge. Until Andi deals the finishing, nasty blow.
WOW. I didn’t expect this good of an episode, honestly. I loved Season 1, more than a lot of people. Yet this opened so strong, so vicious, full of the good stuff. Lots of interesting characters, their various motivations, so on.
“Between Good and Evil” is next.