Full spoilers follow for Crystal Lake Season 1, which is available on Peacock now.
After 17 years since the last entry in the franchise, filled with movies that failed to get off the ground followed by a protracted legal battle over the rights that prevented any new projects from moving forward, the Friday the 13th series has finally risen from a watery grave with Crystal Lake, the new eight-episode Peacock series.
Set in the early 1970s, the series goes back to the roots of the franchise by focusing on Pamela Voorhees (Linda Cardellini, taking on the role made famous by Betsy Palmer), the killer in the original Friday the 13th. Here, we follow the supposed drowning death of her son, Jason (Callum Vinson), and how she reacts to it in the aftermath, charting her descent into madness and murder that we saw in that 1980 movie – before she got her head cut off and her son took over the series in the second film.
By the end of the season, some major revelations have been made that reveal important aspects of the Voorhees family history that have never been delved into before across the 12 Friday the 13th movies, some which are no doubt already proving to be quite polarizing among fans. That includes a key aspect of Jason Voorhees’ history that answers a lot of questions! Let’s dive into what we learned, how it fits into the movie series, and where it diverges from it.
And, of course, who lived and who died...
Crystal Lake has a big surprise actor and character pop up in its sixth episode, when we meet Elias Wittering, played by Midnight Mass/Gen V/Widow’s Bay veteran Hamish Linklater. If you’re a big Friday the 13th fan, just seeing the name Elias (not spoken in that episode, but revealed in the closing credits), you knew exactly who he had to be: Jason’s father!
We’ve never met Jason’s dad in any Friday the 13th movie, but we nearly did in 1986’s Friday the 13th Part VI: Jason Lives, which was going to introduce Elias Voorhees. And though the scene written for the character was cut and never filmed, his name managed to stick around as part of the lore, said aloud for the first time in 1993’s Jason Goes to Hell: The Final Friday, while we’d also see versions of the character included or referenced in other Friday the 13th stories, including in comic books and Friday the 13th: The Game.
Linklater is a pretty great get for the series as far as bringing in another acclaimed actor to play Jason’s dad alongside recent Emmy-winner Cardellini as his mom. But of course, it’s also notable that Elias, as envisioned here, isn't a Voorhees here at all, since we learn early on that Pamela only took on that name after going on the run with Jason.
سەرچاوەی فەرمی بە زمانی ئینگلیزی: https://www.ign.com/articles/crystal-lake-ending-explained-finally-introduces-a-key-missing-component-of-jason-voorhees-history
