Before: Season 1 – Review | If Only The Beginning and End Weren’t The Best Parts

Spoiler Alert: This post may contain spoilers. Additionally, some images and text may include affiliate links, meaning we may earn a commission or receive products if you make a purchase.

Plot Summary

Eli Adler is nearing the end of his career when an associate, Gail, asks him to help with her case involving a boy named Noah. Eli has long worked with children in psychiatry, making him one of the most qualified. Also, with the death of his wife, Lynn, in the past year, it was thought this could be good for him.

However, over the course of 10 episodes, we learn Noah’s case is far from normal, are given many reasons to question how Eli hasn’t lost his license by now, and find ourselves questioning: How much of what is wrong with Noah might be Eli’s fault and is Eli by any means responsible for his wife’s death?

Before: Season 1 Details

Review

Our Rating (72/100): Mixed (Stick Around)

By the time you finish season 1 of “Before,” you’ll likely find yourself reflecting on all it could have done to live up to its premiere and finale. For all the drama, all the weird hallucinations, and how it dances around and avoids what could have been interesting, it makes you feel like you got 8 episodes of filler.

Audience

If you like mystery shows and have a decent amount of patience, “Before” might interest you.

Highlights

It Starts Interesting and Ends Good

The mystery when it is presented early on, and the answers as to what happened and why, some could say, compensate for the slug, which is the episodes in between. For when the show starts, you have the familiar faces of Billy Crystal, Judith Light, and Rosie Perez as hooks. You want to know about Noah’s situation, see a male psychologist like Eli help this young man, and show a sort of vulnerability and empathy we don’t see men show kids often.

Alongside that, Lynn’s death is traumatic, and you want to know why she ended her life. Was it just being sick and being tired of vomiting and pain? Could she have felt trapped in her marriage, with the only escape being death? Heck, could Eli have killed her and, knowing the psychology of the courts from his work, using that to make a murder seem like a suicide?

Then with Noah and Rosie Perez’s character, Denise, could something be there? While Denise is just a caretaker, Noah presents the idea he has some kind of connection to Eli. Could he be a kid that Eli’s daughter, Barbara gave up? Maybe Eli had an affair and that was the last straw for Lynn? Could it be something spiritual considering there are weird shadows and entities that go unexplained?

There is a lot of potential built up in the beginning, and the ending of the season may not deliver the best possible outcome, but it is one you can accept. I’d say it makes you wish the middle episodes had built up better to the answers to what happened to Lynn and Noah.

Low Points

It Often Avoids Interesting Topics That Could Be Explored

Taking note of the season finale, which we won’t spoil here, there can be a feeling that Eli avoiding certain things, like spiritualism or the idea of an afterlife, should have been explored more. On top of that, considering Eli was in therapy, his granddaughter Sophie claimed she was able to speak with Lynn, and then considering the connections Noah had to a past patient of Eli’s, you’d hope for someone like Eli, who is a doctor, he’d want to really explore and study more.

Sadly, despite all that science couldn’t explain easily, Eli’s attitude, if not ego, cut off how much the show could have explored what is possible beyond the known sciences. In our mind, even if Eli was curious but hesitant, that could have done so much for the show, rather than us watching Eli damn near torture Noah from episode to episode.

The Constant Cliffhangers That Don’t Pay Off

Nearly every episode of “Before” starts off at a low point, builds itself up, and then skyrockets at the end with a cliffhanger that makes it seem the next episode is when things will pick up and get interesting. The promise of something better is only fulfilled once, in the transition from episode 5 to 6, but from episodes 7 to 9, it seems to be a slow descent back into the mediocrity of the first half of the season that can understandably test a viewer’s willingness to see this through versus dropping “Before” due to too many broken promises.

Check Out Our Coverage Of This Season

Check out our page for this series, which features more recaps, reviews, and articles, or our TV series page for our latest recaps, reviews, and recommendations.