Cabinet Of Curiosities – Season 1 Episode 1 “Lot 36” Recap & Review

Lot 36

Episode 1 of Cabinet of Curiosities starts with an elderly man walking around his living room before dumping another television meal into the bin that is full of them. The butcher has a heart attack and leaves behind all of his possessions… and an unoccupied lot. Lot 36 is the exact number.

This Lot is put up for auction by a guy known as Eddie. The auction is worth 400 dollars to Nick, our protagonist. Nick owes a substantial amount sum of cash to a person named Tommy.

Just before Nick gets his keys and takes possession of the keys, he’s shown footage of the owner of the Lot who is seen coming in every day and dropping things inside. He is seen hopping in and hopping out in the same way. He’s been doing this for years – but what’s the secret? It’s definitely scary.

After getting a sense of the kind of xenophobic, angry person Nick is, who hates immigrants since his time during the conflict, Nick goes to Lot 36 and discovers that the location is smaller than initially. He begins to sift through the many items, with the intention of sorting out the garbage from the treasure.

Nick does his work quickly and puts everything into the rear of his pickup truck. Before he leaves an unknown man comes up and hits him with a hammer. and then smashes the glass in the truck. He demands 12k the next day. If Nick isn’t able to meet his commitment, the man will be in problems.

The item is appraised and the candelabra’s not anything extraordinary, however, the pentagram-shaped table is definitely. It turns out that this is a Seance table. And with some very old books stored within the cabinet, the elderly woman, Agatha, decides to contact her friend Roland. She advises him to return fast – and he will.

Roland looks at the table and the books, noting that it’s actually an all-four set so there’s a gap. Although 3 will fetch the buyer 10k at auction and with the other four, it’s worth more than 300k. This is a huge sum of money and would not only let Nick pay back his debts, but he’d get a significant amount of cash too.

Nick is off to the Lot together with Roland who says that the books are scarce and, when used together they work to bring the spirit of the demon into an object. Roland actually had a relationship with the Lot owner and confesses that the owner fought for Hitler during World War II. It appears that he indulged in evil to an unprecedented degree that ravaged his family and sought more power. He also invoked the aforementioned spirit before and used his sister as a vessel.

After this ominous, creepy lecture on history, Nick goes back to the Lot and sets out to locate that fourth book. Roland and Nick find a passageway that is hidden. It is sour, and Roland asks Nick to keep his distance and not say or touch anything. He explains that if anything other than the natural world is discovered in the other direction, the pair should not engage in eye contact or talk with it in any way. The creature will sense the darkness within his spirit and will want to get it.

The passageway opens into an enormous chamber, in which the bones of a woman lay on the floor, with its face hollowed out. Somebody is wriggling inside. Roland and Nick are able to locate four volumes… however, Nick walks right over an engraved pentagram on the floor. He then awakes an undead creature, who is on the carved-out side of those remains. It’s Dottie who is the daughter of the Lot owner.

With tentacles sticking out the creature pursues Nick up to his front entrance, after devouring Roland. Nick is frantic to get to the front door, but there’s something wrong. The Spanish lady he had been rude to in the past locked him up to punish her for making her ill. Then it all turns around, and Nick’s bad behavior and rudeness are coming back to hurt him. When he attempts to get away, the creature eventually takes Nick.

the Episode Review

The concept to have Guillermo Del Toro narrating at the beginning of the film is fantastic and brings us back to the period in the work of Alfred Hitchcock, which is an excellent nostalgia trip. This is a great method to begin the proceedings with great images and a fascinating story with a mystery in the middle of the story.

The way the story is brought full circle, linking back to the concept of karma and treating people the way you would like to be treated is a wonderful way to give this episode some importance. This main protagonist is not the most likable, but, at the same time it’s not his intention to be.

Yet, we discover plenty about the character and his personality through the cleverly interspersed dialogue, such as the fact that he’s a war veteran and is against immigrants solely due to his experiences during combat. The show doesn’t go out to declare it, and as with House of the Dragon, relies on the audience to create their own theories about the character.

Lot 36 is a great method to get things going and, although it’s not terribly terrifying, it’s an excellently dark and moody opening that’ll make you hungry for more.