“I’m not the monster you’re making me out to be, seriously,” Dolores (Justina Machado) insists early in Prime Video’s The Horror of Dolores Roach. “I’m just like you, if everything went wrong.” Frankly, it’s a difficult assertion to swallow. By this point, we’re already aware she’s been involved in a scheme to turn humans into pastry filling, Sweeney Todd-style. Even the most broad-minded viewer is unlikely to find much relatable about that.
But the promise of The Horror of Dolores Roach is that it’s going to try enthusiastically to mount the case anyway — and the fun of it comes from realizing it succeeds more than not. No, you won’t necessarily walk away thinking you, too, might embrace cannibalism under the right circumstances. (That particular argument is better waged in Showtime’s Yellowjackets.) But in between the sick twists, dark laughs and lively lead performances, you might just be surprised to find yourself kinda, sorta, rooting for this woman who’s neither villain nor victim.
The Horror of Dolores Roach
The Bottom Line
A twisted treat.
Airdate: Friday, July 7 (Prime Video)
Cast: Justina Machado, Alejandro Hernandez, K. Todd Freeman, Kita Updike
Creator: Aaron Mark
In Dolores’ defense, she does not set out to sell human meat. As she explains it (in a distracting and unnecessary framing device that positions the bulk of the show as Dolores’ recounting of her “real” story to an actress playing a fictionalized version of her in a Broadway play), that pivot was borne of necessity. After her release from prison, Dolores makes her way back to Washington Heights, only to discover it’s transformed beyond recognition in her 16 years away. With nowhere else to go, she tries to start fresh as an unlicensed masseuse operating out of the basement of an empanada shop run by her old friend, Luis (Alejandro Hernandez). But when even that tenuous arrangement is threatened, she finally snaps — leaving the first of many bodies for Luis to grind up, wrap in dough, deep fry and serve back to an unwitting community.
Creator Aaron Mark takes pains to situate Dolores’ story within the larger context of an entire society hostile to people like her — brown, female, broke, with a record. It stops well short of suggesting that of course the only recourse for the marginalized is to make guanciale from a greedy landlord’s cheeks. But it does take impish pleasure in pointing out the parallels between the gentrifiers metaphorically chewing up the neighborhoods they take over, and Luis and Dolores packaging those gentrifiers as consumable goods in turn. One second, a smarmy dude is quoting Darwinian evolutionary theory to defend skyrocketing rents; a few scenes later, Luis is deploying the same logic to explain why it’s totally fine to turn that guy into food.
But a high-minded treatise on social injustice this isn’t. Having seeded those themes in the early minutes, The Horror of Dolores Roach mostly sidelines the political commentary to focus on the sheer outrageousness of its premise. Dolores is no Hannibal Lecter; she kills out of self-defense or desperation rather than pleasure, and has no appetite for eating her own victims. Instead, the series plays up Dolores’ growing panic over her rising body count — and the accompanying paranoia, once interested parties like a private investigator and a victim’s son start snooping around. It has fun with the stomach-churning sight of human meat settling on the lips of oblivious customers, or the outright comedy of Dolores rolling her eyes at Luis’ ditziness. (Among other things, he seems to believe “edible” and “Oedipal” are the same word.)
Machado’s versatile performance anchors The Horror of Dolores Roach as it shifts between comedy and tragedy and horror and back again. She’s equally convincing relishing a surge of power after a murder as she is shyly considering a potential romance. As her partner in crime, Hernandez matches her enthusiasm with an intensity that combines the neediness of a puppy and the viciousness of a wolf. The pair’s volatile chemistry helps to smooth over some of the script’s weak spots. So compelling is it to watch Machado and Hernandez navigate anger or affection or scorn that it’s almost easy to overlook how little we really understand about why Dolores is so fixated on her ex, or what Luis’ jarringly tragic backstory has to do with anything at all.
Almost, but not quite. The series suffers from few outright missteps, but its eight half-hour episodes leave behind a vague sense of unfulfilled potential. As a stab at social commentary, it’s missing the searing urgency of fellow modern myth I’m a Virgo; as a portrait of a serial killer, it lacks the depth and complexity of a You or a Barry; as a genre-bending thriller, it wants for the finesse and ambition of shows like Beef.
But if there’s an upside to The Horror of Dolores Roach‘s lightness, it’s that it goes down easy. It’s simply entertaining to watch Dolores scramble to stay one step ahead of ruin, or slowly embrace the rage threatening to eat her alive from the inside — and for the most part, that’s enough. Think of her story not as a lavish five-course meal to be savored, but a sizzling fast-food snack: a treat best inhaled by the fistful, over the course of some lazy afternoon.
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