It's not often that a show's title features such a blunt tease about what to expect, but Netflix's new horror drama Something Very Bad Is Going to Happen doesn't beat around the bush. Rachel (Camila Morrone) and Nicky (Adam DiMarco) prepare for their wedding day, and the show's title warns us that, well, something very bad is going to happen at some point before or after they say "I do."
The series opens with Rachel slowly walking down the aisle in her wedding dress. We briefly see from her point of view, through her veil, as she breathes heavily and takes in all the people staring at her. When she meets Nicky at the altar, they share a grin, but ominous music and clips from the past make way to screams and a large animal strutting down a bloody hallway.
Following that chilling flash-forward, Something Very Bad Is Going to Happen episode 1 flashes back to five days before the wedding as Rachel and Nicky drive to Nicky's parents' home. Rachel dozes off while driving, nearly sending them right into a school bus. To keep her alert, Nicky talks to her about the local frozen custard shop called Coldies and its founder, Larry Poole, who killed three women.
They listen to a podcast from a survivor who explains her encounter with Larry Poole. She mentions finding a Barbie doll shoe, trying to save herself by telling Larry she was pregnant with a girl, and pulling over to a rest stop where a young couple saved her. Rachel and Nicky get gas and lunch at a diner, and Nicky's surprised when Rachel perfectly draws the Coldies logo, which she has never seen before.
Rachel and Nicky's strange encounter at a rest stop
Rachel's mom died when she was a baby, and her past seems to have given her some complicated feelings about children and becoming a mother. Back on the road in the dark and snowy night, they pull to a rest stop for a bathroom break where they find only one other car in the parking lot. It's on, locked, and contains a crying baby inside. Rachel searches for the parents in the bathroom, but doesn't find anyone. Oddly enough, she finds a Barbie shoe on the floor under a stall.
She hears a door creak and places one of her keys in between her fingers for protection as she continues to look around. She finds a pregnant animal mauled to death in one of the toilets with its bloodied insides coming out. While Nicky hangs back with the baby, Rachel drives to find someone to help, passing an abandoned Coldies on the way to a sketchy roadside dive bar. It's empty aside from the bartender, a young woman wearing a name tag that says Benjamin.
Rachel asks her to call the police about the baby, and the bartender grumpily uses the phone in the back office. Rachel pokes around the bar and uses the bathroom. She's instantly unsettled when she hears someone else enter the bathroom, looking up to find a man looking down in her stall. While purchasing a gumball, she spots the creepy man from the bathroom, and when he approaches, she stabs him in the hand with her car key. He simply pulls it out and hands it back to her.
Adding to the creepy factor, the man asks her, "Are you sure he's the one?" Before she can even talk to the bartender again, she rushes to her car and peels out of the parking lot, but not before seeing a truck with "Just Married" written on the back, possibly in blood. The old man watches her drive away from outside the bar. Finally, she returns to the rest stop, but the car with the baby is gone. Nicky scares her when he taps on the window and informs her the family returned for the baby.
They thought Nicky was trying to steal their baby, and the father punched him in the face. Ultimately, the family understood and appreciated what they were trying to do. Rachel and Nicky get back on the road without waiting for the cops to arrive. Finally, they have arrived at his family's gated vacation cabin that looks more like a ski lodge than a cabin. The exterior isn't too welcoming and the interior's just as equally dark and unsettling. They aren't allowed to look the taxidermied dogs in the eyes.
The Sorry Man urban legend haunts the Cunningham family
After a long drive and night, Rachel and Nicky lie down on the bed in their room. She ventures to the kitchen to retrieve Nicky some ice for his black eye and she stumbles upon his sister Portia (Gus Birney), brother Jules (Jeff Wilbusch), and sister-in-law Nell (Karla Crome). Rachel tells them the story about the baby and Nicky getting punched in the face, and Portia wonders if it's the Sorry Man. She tries to get out of the story, but Portia insists on telling it.
As the story goes, Jules ran away from home when he was about eight years old when he heard a woman screaming. He ended up coming face to face with the Sorry Man, who had long, dirty nails and a creepy smile. Jules held his breath and watched as the Sorry Man cut the woman open and turned her inside out while crying and profusely apologizing. Legend has it, the Sorry Man comes from hell to search for his missing wife inside other women. According to Portia, he's attracted to blood and brides.
Rachel's a bit spooked, but Nicky insists it's not true and doesn't believe in it, even though something definitely happened to Jules in the woods as a child. Given everything that happened earlier that night, Rachel's on edge. In the middle of making out, Rachel interrupts and has Nicky lock her inside of the trunk at the end of the bed for reasons that aren't explained. After that, they have sex and go to sleep. Rachel wakes up in the middle of the night with a nosebleed and hears a noise outside.
While walking through the house trying to find the source of the noise, she notices the front door opening and closing in the wind. She checks outside before closing the door and walking through the house again. Now she runs into Nicky's mother, Victoria (Jennifer Jason Leigh), who's just standing there. His dad, Boris (Ted Levine), takes her back to bed, but not before Victoria turns around and says, "We won't be seeing much of each other anymore."
Since Victoria had been getting the mail, Rachel finds letters strewn across the ground and sees one addressed to her. She opens the envelope to find an invitation to her own wedding with "DON'T MARRY HIM" written in large bold letters on the back. Her nose bleed returns and splatters on the mysterious warning. Who could this be from and why don't they want her to marry Nicky? There are already so many weird things happening that any one of them could be the "very bad thing."