Them (Season 1)

Created by Little Marvin and executive produced by Lena Whaite, Amazon Prime's very timely event series Them takes us back in time to reveal a whole host of horrors, based in reality and the supernatural. If you're of an angry disposition, be warned; it's the series that gets you so riled, I actually wanted to nuke the entire white, backward American racist community that call themselves so-called Christians, by the closing credits of the last episode.

Set during the 50s in America, during the great migration from the hellish Jim Crow south, this series focuses on the Emorys, who escaped their horrendous past in North Carolina, and moved to California to set up home in the white middle class town of East Compton. It's clear from their arrival that this white neighbourhood filled with a gaggle of Stepford Wives isn't going to welcome this young black family with open arms.

With ten episodes to cover this whole traumatic story, doused in the supernatural past of the town, the creators pull no punches in conveying the brutality, and the lengths the white over-privileged you think who owned land they originally stole, would go to to oust the family from their street. Well on the home front the Emorys consisting of Henry (Ashley Thomas), Livia (played by Deborah Ayorinde) and their two daughters Ruby (Shahadi Wright Joseph) and Gracie (played by Melody hurd), try to turn a blind eye to the unprecedented hatred. There is something sinister trying to mentally break each one of them.

Brilliantly acted by the main cast, each episode focusses on one character and the turmoil they face beneath the surface. Henry's fragile guilt is played to the point of retaliation, whilst their eldest daughter Ruby, the most intelligent in her class, is horribly bullied; but she is the one who has to pay for their treatment, pushing her so far she feels ugly in her own skin. The matriarch of the family Livia, assumed fragile of mind and pretty much insane after Modern, a very satisfying slap, is the one left fighting to save her family from both threats. It's a narrative that at times can feel like it's gone on too long, and it's an extremely hard watch for those who haven't endured what those in the African American community have had to suffer. Harrowingly evil and perfectly subtle, disturbing revelations and truly affecting, Them is a twisted story of major importance. This gets a four out of five.