MovieChat Forums > Evil (2019) Discussion > Poor Communication Kills

Poor Communication Kills

posted 4 years ago by MAGolding (1096)
3 replies | jump to latest

In case you think that might be my original idea, it is actually a trope at the addictive TV Tropes site.

https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/PoorCommunicationKills

That trope is about fictional characters who don't communicate vitally needed information to other characters, often with fatal results.

While watching Evil tonight, Thursday 11-14-19, I was reminded of some movie or program where the characters didn't share important information with other characters, often for no apparent reason, and bad things happened as a result.

I forget which movie or TV program the Evil episode reminded me of, but don't worry, there are plenty of other examples listed in the TV tropes page.

And in this Evil episode, "Vatican III", there was a bit of failure to communicate. The three representatives from the Vatican were distrustful of the three protagonists and tried to keep as much information as possible from them. And the three protagonists made some important discoveries about the business of the Vatican representatives, but there were no scenes where they shared that possibly vital information with the Vatican representatives who they were sort of working for. Even though that information concerned a possible end of the world!

And I didn't see an scenes where Dr. Bouchard showed her daughters the seals inscribed in the diaries given by Leland, and showed them her photos of the seals in the hierarchy, and showed them book pages where they are described as the seals of devils. She didn't tell them that Leland is either a devil who does evil things because he is a devil or else a crazy man who thinks he is a devil and and does evil things like devils do. She didn't tell them that Leland once told her that her four little girls were vulnerable to danger - in fact she acts like she forgot all about it.

[–] aavfreak (2859) 4 years ago

This was a huge complaint in the early episodes of Fear the Walking Dead. It's been a few years, so I'm certain I don't remember all the details, but there were significant threads about it.

*spoilers for FTWD*

When Travis was trying to gather Chris and called his ex-wife to arrange it. She kept insisting it wasn't his visitation weekend. He just kept insisting he was going to pick him up.

After back and forth several times, he never made any attempt at an explanation. No "the world is ending" or "the dead are coming back to life" or even anything about a crisis. He made no attempt to convey the urgency of the situation.

He merely just continued to insist he was going to pick him up. The entire dialog was just so stupid.

This is just one of many, many examples with that show.

[–] KCurmudgeon (242) 3 years ago

Yeah this is kind of a sub-type of the flaw in 99.99% of horror films that is parodied in the recent Geico commercial ("No, let's go hide behind the chainsaws!") i.e. some character does (or doesn't do) something so unbelievably stupid that is strains suspension of disbelief to the breaking point. In the case of "Evil" (which I *REALLY* want to like), why doesn't she immediately tell her mother that Leland stole her session file and lied to try to send a kid to prison for life. That would be enough for ANY sane and loving parent to stop seeing someone like Leland. Also why didn't she tell David about her problems with Leland? Super frustrating because there's much to like in the rest of the series. There are plenty of other ways to maintain the dramatic tension without cheaply resorting to very smart characters doing really dumb things. SMDH.

[–] lennonforever (2453) 3 years ago

I really have to disagree. Kristen did tell her mother about Leland, but her mother became enthralled by the demon of “Leland”.