The Third Day: Autumn
Click the button below for my review of The Third Day series
I have spent most of my life as a performer, a dancer primarily but I have also had plenty of experience acting. I love going to watch live performances at the theatre and when I was around seventeen, I discovered my love for physical theatre. A method of performance that blurs the line between acting and dance and can often allow for immersive experiences where the audience becomes a part of what is happening.
I’ve recently been watching Sky & HBO’s new psychological thriller The Third Day starring Jude Law and I was pleasantly surprised to find out that the show was split into three distinct parts, with the second part titled ‘Autumn’ being a twelve hour live physical theatre performance helmed by renowned physical theatre company Punchdrunk. On Saturday 3rd October 2020 at approximately 9:30AM the performance started on the mainland side of the Osea causeway in Maldon, UK; and lasted until 9:30PM that night wherein the performance would link the first and final parts of The Third Day’s story ‘Summer’ and ‘Winter’ each of which consist of three episodes.
So, I watched the whole thing over the course of a week and here’s what I think. I will not hold back from spoilers in this review so if you want to watch it not knowing what happens then come back later, but the primary purpose of this review is to summarise the whole event so you don’t have to watch the entire performance like I did. I would also recommend reading my review of The Third Day before reading this review.
I’ve recently been watching Sky & HBO’s new psychological thriller The Third Day starring Jude Law and I was pleasantly surprised to find out that the show was split into three distinct parts, with the second part titled ‘Autumn’ being a twelve hour live physical theatre performance helmed by renowned physical theatre company Punchdrunk. On Saturday 3rd October 2020 at approximately 9:30AM the performance started on the mainland side of the Osea causeway in Maldon, UK; and lasted until 9:30PM that night wherein the performance would link the first and final parts of The Third Day’s story ‘Summer’ and ‘Winter’ each of which consist of three episodes.
So, I watched the whole thing over the course of a week and here’s what I think. I will not hold back from spoilers in this review so if you want to watch it not knowing what happens then come back later, but the primary purpose of this review is to summarise the whole event so you don’t have to watch the entire performance like I did. I would also recommend reading my review of The Third Day before reading this review.
The Summary
The performance opens with some text explaining that each year a festival happens on Osea Island where the resident and visitors come together to celebrate the Christian folklore of the island. Once in a generation at this festival a new leader, titled ‘father’, for the island colony is chosen, and this year the island is in need of a new father.
For the first 30 minutes or so of the performance the camera simply crosses the causeway between the mainland and Osea Island. This causeway only opens up twice a day when the tide recedes, and even then, only for a short period of time before it is covered again. Once the camera gets close to the island some visitors come into view and they are sent away by an oyster farmer explaining that the festival has been cancelled. Following this interaction, the farmer then heads off the causeway and gets in the trailer of a 4x4 which takes him to the middle of the island. He has not been able to get many oysters. When we arrive at the destination, we see the villagers preparing the area for a festival that is very much still going ahead, this is where we get our first glimpse of a character we recognise, Katherine Waterson’s Jess. She looks concerned and is making what appears to be bunting.
Nearby a group of suited men perform some kind of ritual in a pool of muddy water, once the ritual is finished, they travel to the home of a villager and forcibly take a young man out of the house. He is dragged to a nearby field where we lose sight of him, a few minutes later the men return without the boy and perform the ritual again.
Once the men perform the ritual for the second time they travel down a road where there are many nooses hanging from trees and lampposts, they come to a large grassy area where dozens of suits are laying on the grass and being stuffed with hay. They appear like dead bodies once stuffed. The camera then approaches the ‘Big House’ from the end of the ‘Summer’ chapter of The Third Day. The men knock on the door and forcibly enter, they shortly exit the house with Jude Law’s Sam, now looking dishevelled, dirty, and with a long beard, dragging him against his will much like the boy from earlier on. They take him to the coast where a table has been set out at sea in a way that resembles Jesus’ Last Supper. They spend almost an hour at this table eating food and drinking wine until Sam is once again dragged away and beaten in a nearby garden.
The camera returns to the town square where we saw Jess earlier and we see a girl with flowers watch a gathering where the boy from earlier and then Sam are publicly shamed and then once again dragged away off screen. The camera returns to Jess who receives a phone call from who I suspect to be her husband, the conversation implies that he demands she return to the U.S or he will take legal action against her to prevent her from seeing her children. We then go to a nearby field where Sam and the young man are being forced to dig a grave each. The two of them struggle to do this because of how wet and sodden the ground is from the rain.
The flower girl meanwhile is warning the villagers that the end is nigh, and Osea will burn. The camera then follows Epona’s dad as he wanders away from the town square and then burns a picture of the Virgin Mary before nailing the remains of it to a nearby tree. He then puts a small statue of Mary in a lump of dough. The dough is seasoned with sea water and then placed on some hot coals as he prays. In the background other men can be seen doing this also. Following this he heads back to the town square and over to the mud pool where he empties a large container of seawater into the pool, the flower girl can be seen warning more people of Osea’s impending doom. Disturbed by this the villagers begin to leave the square, but Larry, the man who tortured Sam in Summer, pleads for them to stay claiming “A woman with something inside her will save us”. We return to Sam who finishes digging his grave, the young man collapsed over the side of his own. Sam climbs out of his grave and enters a nearby tent to lay down.
A short while later Sam is abruptly awoken by a group of villagers who are hiding their faces who taunt him and call him a sinner, saying he will be judged. He is then presented with a rope attached to a rowboat. He must drag this boat from outside the pub the Martin’s own, and past a series of murals where the trials of Esus are depicted. These trials were referenced in the Summer portion of The Third Day. When Sam nears the coast he leaves the boat behind and speaks to a woman in the distance, meanwhile Jess, a part of the group of people who had been following Sam drag the boat, begins to read a passage from a holy book whilst wearing a crown of twigs. She begins to uncontrollably cry and Epona’s dad takes over the reading of the passage.
Sam returns and begins to drag the boat again, after a while he collapses. A passage is read aloud whilst the villagers stand over him, stating that they will help him carry his burden so that he may be punished. He is then carried the rest of the way to a woman in a white dress. He hugs her and begins to cry, she then wipes his face with her sleeve before taking him back to the boat. He then drags the boat to the beach where he is then pushed down onto the pebbles as the villagers carry the boat down to where he is. He begins to drag the boat again, but is quickly wrestled to the ground and stripped of all his clothing other than his pants, we are able to see that the rope from the boat has left many bruises. The villagers then force a metal neck brace onto him, then they wrap thorny twigs around a series of poles that jut out from the brace. This creates a helmet of sorts that pokes Sam in the face with thorns whenever he moves his head. He begins to drag the boat again.
Once Sam reaches the Big House he comes face to face with the young man from earlier who is also being forced through the same trial. They embrace each other and weep. They are then rowed out to sea where two plinths stand isolated, each man climbs a plinth and stands atop it. The younger man collapses after a few minutes, then a few minutes later Sam also collapses, both their bodies fall into the sea. The congregation watching this happen then leaves and heads back towards the town square, along the lane where the nooses were. Now the nooses have the hay filled suits hanging from them. The camera departs the group and heads to the burned-out caravan which we see in Summer, where the flower girl from earlier has set up a vigil. Once we reach the middle of town the villagers have begun a feast. As they eat, they one by one go up to a man who wears a helmet of nails, and write down their hopes on some paper. Once all the villagers have done this the helmet is removed, the man reads each hope and then places it in a crabbing cage.
Sam and the young man are brought by on the trailer attached to the 4x4 from earlier, the villagers pour their drinks on the ground as they pass. Their bodies, appearing to be dead, are then placed in the graves they dug earlier.
The villagers gather around a speaker at the town square where a speech of love and loss is given, the villagers then begin to be baptised in the pool of muddy water. Larry does not want to be baptised but is forced to do so by a group of men, he curses those who did it.
In a nearby field a man in a tatty suit burns a small figure of a hanged man, he then returns to the square and we see Jess get baptised. The tatty suited man then goes to get baptised, however there appears to be some kind of struggle and he is forcibly thrown out of the pool.
After more baptisms happen the music changes and a rave begins amongst the villagers. Jess receives a text and leaves the rave; she calls her husband and threatens him to come and kill her because she is never leaving. She throws her phone away and then proceeds to lay on top of Sam’s now covered grave. Once the camera returns to the rave it stops and the villagers turn to face the camera, the camera turns around and we see Sam and the other young man. Sam is washed and clothed in the clothes of The Father (a white suit). Larry protests this and is then dragged away by some of the villagers. Sam is handed the cage of hopes from earlier and then carried out of the town square by the celebrating villagers. As they reach the coast Sam sees his son, he holds his hand and walks back to the village as we see a building near them begin to burn.
The performance opens with some text explaining that each year a festival happens on Osea Island where the resident and visitors come together to celebrate the Christian folklore of the island. Once in a generation at this festival a new leader, titled ‘father’, for the island colony is chosen, and this year the island is in need of a new father.
For the first 30 minutes or so of the performance the camera simply crosses the causeway between the mainland and Osea Island. This causeway only opens up twice a day when the tide recedes, and even then, only for a short period of time before it is covered again. Once the camera gets close to the island some visitors come into view and they are sent away by an oyster farmer explaining that the festival has been cancelled. Following this interaction, the farmer then heads off the causeway and gets in the trailer of a 4x4 which takes him to the middle of the island. He has not been able to get many oysters. When we arrive at the destination, we see the villagers preparing the area for a festival that is very much still going ahead, this is where we get our first glimpse of a character we recognise, Katherine Waterson’s Jess. She looks concerned and is making what appears to be bunting.
Nearby a group of suited men perform some kind of ritual in a pool of muddy water, once the ritual is finished, they travel to the home of a villager and forcibly take a young man out of the house. He is dragged to a nearby field where we lose sight of him, a few minutes later the men return without the boy and perform the ritual again.
Once the men perform the ritual for the second time they travel down a road where there are many nooses hanging from trees and lampposts, they come to a large grassy area where dozens of suits are laying on the grass and being stuffed with hay. They appear like dead bodies once stuffed. The camera then approaches the ‘Big House’ from the end of the ‘Summer’ chapter of The Third Day. The men knock on the door and forcibly enter, they shortly exit the house with Jude Law’s Sam, now looking dishevelled, dirty, and with a long beard, dragging him against his will much like the boy from earlier on. They take him to the coast where a table has been set out at sea in a way that resembles Jesus’ Last Supper. They spend almost an hour at this table eating food and drinking wine until Sam is once again dragged away and beaten in a nearby garden.
The camera returns to the town square where we saw Jess earlier and we see a girl with flowers watch a gathering where the boy from earlier and then Sam are publicly shamed and then once again dragged away off screen. The camera returns to Jess who receives a phone call from who I suspect to be her husband, the conversation implies that he demands she return to the U.S or he will take legal action against her to prevent her from seeing her children. We then go to a nearby field where Sam and the young man are being forced to dig a grave each. The two of them struggle to do this because of how wet and sodden the ground is from the rain.
The flower girl meanwhile is warning the villagers that the end is nigh, and Osea will burn. The camera then follows Epona’s dad as he wanders away from the town square and then burns a picture of the Virgin Mary before nailing the remains of it to a nearby tree. He then puts a small statue of Mary in a lump of dough. The dough is seasoned with sea water and then placed on some hot coals as he prays. In the background other men can be seen doing this also. Following this he heads back to the town square and over to the mud pool where he empties a large container of seawater into the pool, the flower girl can be seen warning more people of Osea’s impending doom. Disturbed by this the villagers begin to leave the square, but Larry, the man who tortured Sam in Summer, pleads for them to stay claiming “A woman with something inside her will save us”. We return to Sam who finishes digging his grave, the young man collapsed over the side of his own. Sam climbs out of his grave and enters a nearby tent to lay down.
A short while later Sam is abruptly awoken by a group of villagers who are hiding their faces who taunt him and call him a sinner, saying he will be judged. He is then presented with a rope attached to a rowboat. He must drag this boat from outside the pub the Martin’s own, and past a series of murals where the trials of Esus are depicted. These trials were referenced in the Summer portion of The Third Day. When Sam nears the coast he leaves the boat behind and speaks to a woman in the distance, meanwhile Jess, a part of the group of people who had been following Sam drag the boat, begins to read a passage from a holy book whilst wearing a crown of twigs. She begins to uncontrollably cry and Epona’s dad takes over the reading of the passage.
Sam returns and begins to drag the boat again, after a while he collapses. A passage is read aloud whilst the villagers stand over him, stating that they will help him carry his burden so that he may be punished. He is then carried the rest of the way to a woman in a white dress. He hugs her and begins to cry, she then wipes his face with her sleeve before taking him back to the boat. He then drags the boat to the beach where he is then pushed down onto the pebbles as the villagers carry the boat down to where he is. He begins to drag the boat again, but is quickly wrestled to the ground and stripped of all his clothing other than his pants, we are able to see that the rope from the boat has left many bruises. The villagers then force a metal neck brace onto him, then they wrap thorny twigs around a series of poles that jut out from the brace. This creates a helmet of sorts that pokes Sam in the face with thorns whenever he moves his head. He begins to drag the boat again.
Once Sam reaches the Big House he comes face to face with the young man from earlier who is also being forced through the same trial. They embrace each other and weep. They are then rowed out to sea where two plinths stand isolated, each man climbs a plinth and stands atop it. The younger man collapses after a few minutes, then a few minutes later Sam also collapses, both their bodies fall into the sea. The congregation watching this happen then leaves and heads back towards the town square, along the lane where the nooses were. Now the nooses have the hay filled suits hanging from them. The camera departs the group and heads to the burned-out caravan which we see in Summer, where the flower girl from earlier has set up a vigil. Once we reach the middle of town the villagers have begun a feast. As they eat, they one by one go up to a man who wears a helmet of nails, and write down their hopes on some paper. Once all the villagers have done this the helmet is removed, the man reads each hope and then places it in a crabbing cage.
Sam and the young man are brought by on the trailer attached to the 4x4 from earlier, the villagers pour their drinks on the ground as they pass. Their bodies, appearing to be dead, are then placed in the graves they dug earlier.
The villagers gather around a speaker at the town square where a speech of love and loss is given, the villagers then begin to be baptised in the pool of muddy water. Larry does not want to be baptised but is forced to do so by a group of men, he curses those who did it.
In a nearby field a man in a tatty suit burns a small figure of a hanged man, he then returns to the square and we see Jess get baptised. The tatty suited man then goes to get baptised, however there appears to be some kind of struggle and he is forcibly thrown out of the pool.
After more baptisms happen the music changes and a rave begins amongst the villagers. Jess receives a text and leaves the rave; she calls her husband and threatens him to come and kill her because she is never leaving. She throws her phone away and then proceeds to lay on top of Sam’s now covered grave. Once the camera returns to the rave it stops and the villagers turn to face the camera, the camera turns around and we see Sam and the other young man. Sam is washed and clothed in the clothes of The Father (a white suit). Larry protests this and is then dragged away by some of the villagers. Sam is handed the cage of hopes from earlier and then carried out of the town square by the celebrating villagers. As they reach the coast Sam sees his son, he holds his hand and walks back to the village as we see a building near them begin to burn.
The Review
The Third Day: Autumn was certainly an experience unlike anything else. The performance was initially supposed to allow the general public to get involved but due to COVID-19 restrictions it’s a miracle it could even happen at all, especially to the scale at which it did. Between 60-100 cast members could be seen throughout the performance and that’s not even counting the amount of crew members that would have been necessary to pull this kind of event off. It appeared to all go relatively smoothly with no major issues from what I could see as a viewer, there was some video quality issues and a couple of points where the stream paused, but these are small grievances for something of this scale and something you also expect given the nature of the event.
But is it necessary? Well that’s a difficult question to answer. In the grand scheme of things, no it isn’t. Whilst it ties together the Summer and Winter chapters of The Third Day by incorporating some characters from each story and acting as the epilogue and prologue to those other two parts respectively. The standard show that airs on Sky and HBO functions perfectly well without this event, but you do get a little bit more from the story and lore if you invest the time to watch it.
That being said, it is extremely long for what it actually manages to do. There are long stretches of time (over 30 minutes in many cases) where people simply are not on screen and the camera goes for a wander around the lovely island of Osea. It does give you a great sense of geography of the island though so when you look back on the show you get more of a sense of scale and timeframe that events can take place in. But even then, when people are on screen, there’s almost no audible dialogue. The times where you can hear what people are saying it’s fleeting and often reading passages from holy texts.
The cinematography, much like the main show, is gorgeous and it’s clear that Marc Munden’s vision for how he wanted the show to look is still coming through very strong here. The camera movements have evidently spent weeks or months being choreographed precisely as the whole stream is a single cut from start to finish. Whilst it’s obviously nowhere near as smooth or as well framed as it would be in a conventional TV show, the fact that it looks as good as it does is a true testament to the amount of effort put in by the crew and Munden to plan this whole thing out.
Narratively the event does fall a little flat, mostly due to the lack of dialogue and any real momentum. Sam’s transformation into The Father is something we knew would happen when he accepted his fate come the end of the Summer storyline, so we don’t really learn anything new during all this time, nor does anything unexpected happen. It can certainly be an uncomfortable watch because there are no special effects or editing tricks here to mask the gruelling tasks characters must undertake. That alone makes the whole series feel significantly more realistic and believable, even the episodes that were not filmed live.
I simply have to take my hat off to the performances of all the cast members because to stay in character for twelve hours is a significant feat. Even if they did break character when the camera wasn’t around, to need to stay in character for several hours whilst the camera lingers in a particular area that you’re inhabiting must be an extremely difficult task. I know I’ve done performances that have lasted a couple of hours and even come the end of that I’m starting to wonder how much longer I could have kept in the zone for so real props to those involved.
But Jude Law in particular is deserving of some kind of award for his performance in this event. He was always being thrown about by other cast members, he had a to dig a grave in a muddy field, he had to drag a boat damn near all the way around the island! The man must have been so exhausted, and you can see where parts of the performance are taking its toll on him. Namely the way the rope cuts into him as he drags the rope, the discomfort you’re seeing is clearly not 100% faked and I half wondered when he collapsed before meeting the lady in white whether that was scripted or whether he had genuinely collapsed from exhaustion after dragging that boat for over an hour at that point.
The last supper at sea too was a scene that truly amazed me. I was out the day this was filmed, and it was raining and cold all day, so the fact that Jude Law and most of the men involved in the production were stood up to their waists in the sea and ate a meal for over an hour is incredible. Truly amazing stuff. They also handled the fact that the tide was higher than they had anticipated and much of what was on the table began to float away shortly after they arrived. Could not be more impressed with the performances given by the cast.
Should you watch The Third Day: Autumn? I mean I would absolutely recommend it for those who can stomach a mostly uneventful twelve-hour stream. But for the average person I’d say you can give it a miss. Whilst it’s incredible to see something like this be done, the fact that you really need to invest yourself in the mythos surrounding Osea Island and what they use in The Third Day means that a lot of work needs to go into preparing yourself for this event. If you’re a physical theatre nut like me then absolutely check it out, you can only watch the full 12 hour event on HBO’s Facebook page, but you can also access a 90 minute heavily stripped down version on Now TV. For the average joe who just likes to kick back and watch some TV then I think The Third Day: Autumn is something that won’t really resonate all that well with you.
The Third Day: Autumn was certainly an experience unlike anything else. The performance was initially supposed to allow the general public to get involved but due to COVID-19 restrictions it’s a miracle it could even happen at all, especially to the scale at which it did. Between 60-100 cast members could be seen throughout the performance and that’s not even counting the amount of crew members that would have been necessary to pull this kind of event off. It appeared to all go relatively smoothly with no major issues from what I could see as a viewer, there was some video quality issues and a couple of points where the stream paused, but these are small grievances for something of this scale and something you also expect given the nature of the event.
But is it necessary? Well that’s a difficult question to answer. In the grand scheme of things, no it isn’t. Whilst it ties together the Summer and Winter chapters of The Third Day by incorporating some characters from each story and acting as the epilogue and prologue to those other two parts respectively. The standard show that airs on Sky and HBO functions perfectly well without this event, but you do get a little bit more from the story and lore if you invest the time to watch it.
That being said, it is extremely long for what it actually manages to do. There are long stretches of time (over 30 minutes in many cases) where people simply are not on screen and the camera goes for a wander around the lovely island of Osea. It does give you a great sense of geography of the island though so when you look back on the show you get more of a sense of scale and timeframe that events can take place in. But even then, when people are on screen, there’s almost no audible dialogue. The times where you can hear what people are saying it’s fleeting and often reading passages from holy texts.
The cinematography, much like the main show, is gorgeous and it’s clear that Marc Munden’s vision for how he wanted the show to look is still coming through very strong here. The camera movements have evidently spent weeks or months being choreographed precisely as the whole stream is a single cut from start to finish. Whilst it’s obviously nowhere near as smooth or as well framed as it would be in a conventional TV show, the fact that it looks as good as it does is a true testament to the amount of effort put in by the crew and Munden to plan this whole thing out.
Narratively the event does fall a little flat, mostly due to the lack of dialogue and any real momentum. Sam’s transformation into The Father is something we knew would happen when he accepted his fate come the end of the Summer storyline, so we don’t really learn anything new during all this time, nor does anything unexpected happen. It can certainly be an uncomfortable watch because there are no special effects or editing tricks here to mask the gruelling tasks characters must undertake. That alone makes the whole series feel significantly more realistic and believable, even the episodes that were not filmed live.
I simply have to take my hat off to the performances of all the cast members because to stay in character for twelve hours is a significant feat. Even if they did break character when the camera wasn’t around, to need to stay in character for several hours whilst the camera lingers in a particular area that you’re inhabiting must be an extremely difficult task. I know I’ve done performances that have lasted a couple of hours and even come the end of that I’m starting to wonder how much longer I could have kept in the zone for so real props to those involved.
But Jude Law in particular is deserving of some kind of award for his performance in this event. He was always being thrown about by other cast members, he had a to dig a grave in a muddy field, he had to drag a boat damn near all the way around the island! The man must have been so exhausted, and you can see where parts of the performance are taking its toll on him. Namely the way the rope cuts into him as he drags the rope, the discomfort you’re seeing is clearly not 100% faked and I half wondered when he collapsed before meeting the lady in white whether that was scripted or whether he had genuinely collapsed from exhaustion after dragging that boat for over an hour at that point.
The last supper at sea too was a scene that truly amazed me. I was out the day this was filmed, and it was raining and cold all day, so the fact that Jude Law and most of the men involved in the production were stood up to their waists in the sea and ate a meal for over an hour is incredible. Truly amazing stuff. They also handled the fact that the tide was higher than they had anticipated and much of what was on the table began to float away shortly after they arrived. Could not be more impressed with the performances given by the cast.
Should you watch The Third Day: Autumn? I mean I would absolutely recommend it for those who can stomach a mostly uneventful twelve-hour stream. But for the average person I’d say you can give it a miss. Whilst it’s incredible to see something like this be done, the fact that you really need to invest yourself in the mythos surrounding Osea Island and what they use in The Third Day means that a lot of work needs to go into preparing yourself for this event. If you’re a physical theatre nut like me then absolutely check it out, you can only watch the full 12 hour event on HBO’s Facebook page, but you can also access a 90 minute heavily stripped down version on Now TV. For the average joe who just likes to kick back and watch some TV then I think The Third Day: Autumn is something that won’t really resonate all that well with you.