The perfect way to spend a snow day is to binge watch something good on Netflix. That’s exactly how I spent mine- watching Netflix’s new release Archive 81. I can’t believe I hadn’t heard about this show until the week of its release. I absolutely love podcasts and this show is based on the hit podcast of the same name. It follows Dan, an archivist that takes a very strange job with a large payout restoring old video tapes that were destroyed in a fire. As he restores tape after tape, he realizes he was chosen to do this job for a reason and that his history is connected to Melody, the woman that recorded the tapes.
I absolutely love Mamoudou Athie and he stuns in this leading role. He is the perfect mix of awkward Black guy and endearing hero. We watch 8 episodes of Mamoudou as Dan, piecing together this mystery and also trying to figure out how his life is intertwined with this mystery that he is unraveling. The tapes center around Melody, a woman using an oral history project about the Visser apartment building as a front to find her long lost mother whose last known address was in this building. As Melody gets more involved in life at the building, she quickly learns that these residents are not who they appear to be and they are really in a cult that is trying to summon a demon. Chile, she had so many chances to escape. But she could not put aside her hunt to figure out her truth. We eventually learn that this was a trap to get her to the building and her mother was never there. In present time, Dan is now determined to save this woman. His own best friend let’s him know this is a foolish mission but Dan can’t stop. In the finale, we discover that saving Melody actually is an option and Dan has to now see it through. I am sure we all gasped when Dan finds Melody and she makes it back to present time and Dan gets sucked back to 1994. This is what happens when you can’t mind your own business honestly. Because now how will Dan make it back to 2022?! It is clear that Dan is truly in 1994, not the Otherworld, as he looks out of the window and sees the Twin Towers. Also, the fuzzy things of the Otherworld are gone.
I adore a good cliffhanger and Archive 81 did not disappoint. We absolutely have to have a season 2 because I refuse to accept Dan is forever stuck in 1994 after he was just trying to do a good deed! I plan to begin binge listening (is that a thing?) to the Archive 81 podcast and hope that Netflix delivers us a season 2 asap!
What are your thoughts about Archive 81? Drop your thoughts below!
