When you hear the name “Billy Crystal,” horror is not the first genre that springs to mind. But Crystal proves an inspired choice to lead Before, Apple TV+‘s new drama. Because we’re not used to seeing him navigating such a dark, disturbing story, there’s a current of strange energy that runs through Before—which only aids the disorienting mystery that drives its plot.
Crystal plays Dr. Eli Adler, a child psychiatrist who has long specialized in the very toughest cases. But he’s grown tired and doesn’t want to do it anymore. The main reason is that he’s grieving the recent loss of his wife, Lynn (Judith Light). Suffering from cancer, she made the decision to take her own life, dying in a bathtub in their New York City apartment.
Haunted by her memory—often almost literally, as he imagines seeing and hearing her, and frequently flashes back to that grim day he found her—he’s overdue for retirement, and the many concerned people around him (his therapist, his daughter, his granddaughter, his best friend, his assistant, the social worker who helps with his young patients, his medical colleagues, even his adorable dog) can tell he’s struggling.
But much in the same way that Eli can’t come to terms with losing Lynn, he can’t let go of what he says will be his last case. And frankly, the case is so weird you can’t really blame him. It involves a boy named Noah (Jacobi Jupe) who somehow shows up at Eli’s apartment the night before he’s assigned to Eli as a patient. Despite an extraordinarily kind foster mom (Rosie Perez) caring for him, Noah’s clearly got a lot going on.
From the outside, other characters watch him flying into violent rages and sudden fits, then refusing to speak (or, as Eli witnesses, speaking in Eli’s own voice, as well as in a language that’s not English). Meanwhile, on the inside, the viewer can see that he’s also having visions of seeping water, creeping worms, and other menacing horrors.
This would be enough to befuddle any experienced doctor, but Eli himself is also having awful nightmares of both the waking and sleeping variety. And it’s not just the aftershocks of Lynn’s painful decline and death—he can’t shake the feeling that he and Noah have an unusual connection, perhaps even a supernatural one, something Eli has a particularly hard time opening up to because he’s a staunch man of science.
But there are too many freaky similarities to brush aside, like how all of Noah’s drawings show a farmhouse—the exact same farmhouse that’s in a vintage photograph Lynn left behind; it’s a place that tugs on some deep part of Eli’s brain that he can’t quite puzzle through. And though Noah is of few words, at one point he looks a very confused Eli square in the eye and blurts out “You know what you did.”
With that fascinating set-up, Before—created by Sarah Thorp, who also wrote many of the episodes—sets Eli, and the viewer along with him, on a path toward figuring out the seemingly cosmic link between the doctor and his patient, a quest that becomes more urgent for Noah when his unpredictable behavior makes, well, basically every other adult around him that isn’t Eli start rumbling about putting him in a high-security hospital and cranking up his medication. Since he’s only eight years old, nobody thinks it’s an ideal solution, but he’s quickly running out of options.
Things soon get increasingly desperate for Eli too. Is he going mad? Has he been irrevocably damaged by his trauma? Why does he have this suspicion that he’s not himself, that he’s an imposter, that he’s someone else?
Before ends up feeling somewhat oddly paced; it has 10 episodes, most just under 30 minutes each, most ending with a reveal or cliffhanger that leads into the next installment. While that sounds potentially brisk, it’s really not. It can often feel repetitive—Jupe is a talented child actor, but there’s only so much he can do with “OMG I’M SCARED,” and Noah tends to have a meltdown every time Eli’s just about to pry some important information out of him.
There’s clearly a mystery propelling all this misery, but Before will likely only reward truly dedicated viewers; even when Eli gathers speed with his detective work—he’s forced to, when all those caring folks in his life start to suspect he’s losing it—it feels like it takes forever to get to the final reveal. Which it does, at last: it’s not a spoiler to say Before won’t leave you hanging, and it arrives at a conclusion that feels satisfying.
In truth, though, the biggest reveal in Before is Crystal himself. There are a few moments of wry levity scattered throughout that echo his previous work, but they’re buried within a dramatic, frightening framework that showcases an unexpected side of the 76-year-old, who’s also one of the show’s executive producers. Even though Before‘s story turns in circles a few too many times, Crystal proves consistently compelling as a weary man driven to confront the impossible—and put his own career and life on the line—to help a young kid he’s just met… but who may not be a stranger.
The first two episodes of Before premiere today on Apple TV+, with a weekly rollout through December 20 thereafter.
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