Series / The Resort

It’s About Time

The Resort is a mystery series created by Andy Siara and Sam Esmail. It stars William Jackson Harper and Cristin Milioti as married couple Noah and Emma who are on vacation at a resort in the Mayan Riviera when Emma finds a cell phone belonging to a tourist who disappeared 15 years earlier. They then get drawn into the mystery of what happened, as Emma finds the mystery more compelling than questioning the status of her marriage.

15 years earlier, Violet is on a vacation with her father, while Sam is on a vacation with his girlfriend and parents. During the flight to the resort, Sam finds out that his girlfriend is cheating on him with her professor. After arriving, he winds up meeting Violet.

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Tropes:

• Alone with the Psycho: In Episode 5, Sam and Violet suffer this when they are made to pose sitting on a couch to be painted in Alex’s mural and interrogated on why they were in his penthouse. The “psycho” part is more or less Played for Drama since Alex suffers from a mental disorder.
• Amateur Sleuth:
  • Emma and Noah adopt these roles when the former is intrigued and compelled by the prospect of a real-life mystery.
  • Baltasar conflates being a security guard with this, but it's also been his lifelong ambition.
• A Storm Is Coming: The night of the disappearance was the time of a hurricane.
• Awful Wedded Life: The show teases us with this possibility in relation to Emma and Noah. As the series progresses, it zigzags between this and Happily Married. Although Noah and Emma may disagree with each other on a regular basis, there is ample evidence that they love each other’s company.
• Berserk Button: Ilan Ibarra loathes the Frías family (especially Baltasar) for being oppressive and corrupt wealthy elites; as well as for tarnishing his reputation. In fact, in Episode 6, when he recognizes a fully grown Baltasar, he stabs the latter’s hand with a pen and attempts to strangle him to death for inadvertently ruining his life.
• Big Brother Bully: As detailed in Episode 6, Alonso, Baltasar’s older brother, has treated him like dirt since they were young. Baltasar claims that his treatment by Alonso is because the latter has always been jealous of the former. In Episode 4, Alexander informs Baltasar that Alonso attempted to bribe the former to fire the latter. Dialed up in Episode 6, when Alonso attempts to murder his younger brother for partnering with Emma and Noah.
• Bookmark Clue: Violet finds one in a book left by her mother, who had died recently.
• Cliffhanger
  • Episode 3 ends with Emma and Noah having knocked Balthasar unconscious.
• Close to Home: For Baltasar, the case of the two missing teens is personal to him, especially after knowing how it connects to his former boss.
• Clueless Boss: At first, and for a long time Alexander Vasilikis was a very competent and efficient resort owner despite his bizarre and eccentric personality. However, as a result of his Sanity Slippage and transformation into a Mad Oracle (see below), he became delusional and unable to properly perform vital tasks as owner.
• Cringe Comedy: A large portion of the humor consists of awkward exchanges, embarrassing misunderstandings, epic failures, and slapstick that ranges between low-key and somewhat gonzo.
• Did I Mention It's Christmas?: Sam’s and Violet’s narrative takes place during Christmastime.
• The Dreaded: It is stated in Episode 2 that the Frías family and their fashion dynasty have “a vengeful side”. A few characters even state, “don’t f—k with the yellow snake with four noses.” After a botched attempt at investigating the family’s history at one of their facilities, Emma and Noah are photographed and chased by a Frías affiliated bodyguard.
• Empathic Environment: Everything becomes ominous and downright dangerous during a stormy night.
• Genre Shift: For the first half of the eight episodes, the presence of supernatural elements and Time Travel are mere audiovisual implications. It’s not until the final shot of the fourth episode - where Noah and Emma are depicted in Alexander’s “prophetic mural” despite the 15-year difference when the former painted them in and the latter two arrived - that it indicates there is a Fantasy element in this Tropical Island Adventure mystery.
• Hell Hotel: The abandoned Oceana Vista Resort whose derelict and overgrown scenery emanates a ghoulish aura. Plus, it has a history of guests being found dead on its premises.
• Improvised Bandage: In Episode 2, Violet attempts to use over-the-counter superglue to seal Sam’s head wound shut.
• Mad Oracle: Episode 4 reveals that although Alexander Vasilikis, the resort’s original owner, was always a Cloudcuckoolander, he devolved into this; having apocalyptic and supernatural visions of things to come as well as turning hostile and paranoid against his hotel “family” and the guests.
• Meet Cute: Violet and Sam meet when he falls off his skateboard and hits a palm tree in front of her. She then winds up superglueing the gash on his head closed, leading to them cuddling
• MegaCorp: Frías, a family dynasty situated in Yucatán whose roots are in fashion and textiles; spanning four generations and becoming financially powerful enough to expand into other industries such as the hospitality industry. Their emblem is an abstract yellow-colored calligraphy character with a snake’s head that is referred to as a “yellow snake with four noses”.
• Mistaken for Gay: In Episode 1, Sam is suspected of being gay by a judgemental and nosy senior flight passenger just because he “appears” that way. This passenger is later revealed to be his father.
• Mundane Made Awesome: In Episode 2, after their adventure, Emma and Noah conclude their day by jumping into the resort’s closed pool with their clothes still on just for fun. The sequence is set to stirring, bittersweet music and a sweeping aerial shot of the pool.
• Nasal Trauma: After Sam tries pickpocketing the access card from the “Santa Claus” who presumably stole his skateboard, he gets whacked by the “Santa Claus” in the nose for his troubles.
• Out-of-Context Eavesdropping: In Episode 2, in the present day, when Emma and Noah are reading the text message conversation between Sam and Violet (on Noah’s 2007 flip phone), they interpret the latters’ word choices as them discussing a session of smutty sex between them. In actuality, they were discussing the Squick and tending of Sam’s head injury.
• Out-of-Genre Experience: In Episode 5, when Emma and Baltasar are retracing where the former crashed and found Sam’s phone; and Noah recounts to Luna how he and Emma lost their newborn infant girl after just one hour of life the quirkiness and sleek mystery vibes are completely dropped and the tone becomes meditative and very somber.
• Plot-Inciting Infidelity: Sam’s thread in the narrative is kickstarted when he discovers that his girlfriend, Hanna, has been cheating on him with a college professor by secretly looking in her phone.
• Public Secret Message: In Episode 6, Ilan Ibarra reveals he wrote his book to warn everyone to not search for ‘Pasaje’.
• Ragnarök Proofing: 15 years isn't that impressive, and the phone itself was useless, but the SIM card still functioned perfectly even though the phone was left in the jungle and had all of the stored pictures and text messages.
• Ragtag Band of Misfits: Episode 4 reveals that the entire staff of the Oceana Vista Resort was this with the Cloudcuckoolander owner, Alexander Vasilakis. Each member had a Dark and Troubled Past that they were running away from; including, but not limited to Balthasar Frías and Luna. They regarded each other as family.
• Reclusive Artist: In-Universe. Ilan Ibarra. An enigmatic novelist with an esoteric focus on time and existence; whose quotes were featured in some of the episodes’ openings. When the characters meet him, he is eccentric, ornery, and not very fond of most people.
• The Reveal:
  • Episode 2:
    • The security guard seen near the end of Episode 1, when it delves into Sam and Violet’s arc, was Baltasar, a member of the Frías fashion dynasty.
    • Baltasar Frías is still alive in the present-day with his own fashion studio located within the same resort Emma and Noah are staying in. And Luna is an informant for him.
  • Episode 4
    • The “Santa Claus” who whacked Sam in the nose in the previous episode was Alexander Vasilikis, the original owner of the Oceana Vista Resort.
  • Episode 5
    • Alex discovered Violet’s book and interpreted the narrative as being about him and planned to travel to the author’s address written inside. Not wanting to leave their phones (which Alex confiscated) with him or her book, Sam and Violet tagged along where they stopped at a roadside market. Out of overeagerness to continue the journey, Alex abandons Sam and Violet at the market, having taken their phones with him. After taking video on one of them, he buries their phones at the location where Emma crashed her ATV. And apparently, Alex was also there at the moment she did, although this might just have been a cinematic way to show the audience it was the same place after all these years
  • Season 1 Finale
    • Two in the form of Wham Shots. First the “yellow snake with four noses” - whom the Frías uses as their emblem - exists. Second, deep within El Pasaje, Sam and Violet are alive, and they haven’t aged at all - as their unconscious bodies have been floating in a cave pool (with cloud-like walls and ephemeral vapors) that has preserved them all these years.
• Reveal Shot: Near the end of Episode 1, Luna, the employee who greets and guides Emma and Noah at the episode’s beginning is visually revealed in Sam’s narrative to have been a previous employee of the Oceana Vista Resort before it was irreparably damaged.
• Rewatch Bonus:
  • The decapitated iguana at the end of Episode 1 makes sense after watching Episode 4 which reveals the Oceana Vista Resort’s original owner, Alexander Vasilikis, developed a virile hatred against iguanas.
• Same Character, But Different: In Episode 7, Violet’s father, Murray, resurfaces in Emma’s and Noah’s narrative, having reinvented himself as an unkempt, long-haired Great White Hunter who has been searching for his daughter ever since her disappearance.
• Scenery Gorn: In Episode 3, Emma and Noah explore the abandoned and weather-damaged grounds of the Oceana Vista Resort. Despite its dilapidated state, the upscale interior and exterior designs (at least what’s left of it), paired with the lushness of overgrowth and stylish cinematography lens an austere beauty to the location.
• Snark-to-Snark Combat: In Episode 6, a prepubescent Baltasar and Ilan Ibarra engage in this via letters with the former criticizing the latter’s book for being esoteric and unconventional. The latter criticizes the former for being too sheltered and unenlightened to comprehend the genius of his work. In his last letter to Baltasar, Ibarra unveils his utter dislike of the boy for being a Frías and threatens to make him “disappear”.
• String Theory: In Episode 5, Baltasar utilizes this at the current resort’s daycare center.
• Surprisingly Sudden Death: Near the end of Episode 6, Ilan Ibarra, the author of the novel that was hyped as a key figure in the series’ mystery, dies from a heart attack after attempting to strangle Baltasar for being a Frías.
• Technology Marches On: Emma manages to get a cell phone to swap out the SIM card from the one 15 years ago for only $20.
• The Tooth Hurts: At the end of Episode 2, one of Emma’s teeth mysteriously breaks off. In Episode 7, it becomes so infected and painful that her cheek swells up and she must have it yanked out with pliers.
• Tropical Island Adventure: Tonally and aesthetically, the series has a sense of this.
• Vomit Indiscretion Shot: A very minor example. In Episode 1, Emma gets carsick on a coach bus and needs to step outside. The contents and amount are small and brief but still visible.
• Wham Episode:
  • Episode 4. This episode adds a tremendous new dynamic to the overarching mystery.
    • Balthasar is revealed to be Good All Along. The original owner of the Oceana Vista was a New Age hippie Cloudcuckoolander named Alexander Vasilikis. The entire staff was comprised of members who had upsetting pasts and wanted to start anew to the point they regarded each other as family. Balthasar was one of them - ashamed of his past as a Frías. One day, Alexander began suffering from ominous visions along with a condition that he described as “memories leaking from his ears”. He turned reactive and unstable towards the resort guests and the staff he once regarded as his family; burdening Balthasar with the weight of responsibilities and duties.
    • Alex was also the “Santa Claus” who stole Sam’s skateboard and whacked Sam in the nose. Sam and Violet were nowhere to be seen after they went into Alex’s penthouse’s closet; with Alex being a prime suspect after surveillance footage showed him following after them; as well as had blood on his hands the morning after. He painted the mural of the resort in his penthouse to empty his “memories” on and he envisioned the hurricane redirecting its path to hit the resort. Before the hurricane’s arrival, Alex ran out of the hotel, stripped naked, and submerged himself into the ocean never to be seen again… until calling Balthasar on a phone to share some eerie last words. The episode ends by flashing forward to the present day with Balthasar pointing to an image of Noah and Emma in Alex’s mural.
  • Episode 6 - a subdued example yet still revelatory. We learn how a very young Baltasar unwittingly ruined Ilan Ibarra’s career; that Violet and Sam reached the author’s home and inquired about the ‘Pasaje’; that Ibarra’s novel is actually a memoir of his and his friend, Alejandro’s, journey and published the book as a plea to the masses to not search for Pasaje; and that Ilan escorted to Sam and Violet to the starting point to search for Pasaje. Also, Ilan dies from a rage-induced heart attack.
• Wham Line:
  • Episode 5:
    • Alex: “Emma and I actually lost a kid… A baby girl.”
• Wham Shot:
  • Episode 3: At the end, a call comes through Sam’s phone.
  • Episode 5: The final shot of Alex burying Sam’s and Violet’s phones and Emma crashing her ATV occurring at the same time.
• You All Share My Story: In Episode 5, it is revealed that both of the couples began their relationships 15 years ago in the same year.
  • Baltasar theorizes that everyone - not just the staff members - who arrive at the Oceana Vista do so because they have or are about to experience loss.