Taboo & the Paranormal

Published February 23, 2017 · Updated July 6, 2022

Hi guys!

I love the podcast, I love Taboo, and I’m so excited to keep watching and listening. Taboo has all of the makings to be my new favorite show because it combines elements that I truly enjoy; actors that I already love (Tom Hardy, Oona Chaplin, Jonathan Pryce), mystery, historical fiction, and elements of fantasy.

That being said, I wanted to share some of my thoughts on the pilot episode – especially on a point that you didn’t make too much of. I may be projecting because of my love for fantasy/the paranormal but I think (or I’m hoping!) that the supernatural is going to play a bigger role in Taboo than it seems you do.

Right now the most important, or gripping, mystery for me is not ‘Who done it?’ but rather James’s backstory and his connections to something otherworldly and how those connections play into the present.

One of the first things we learn about Horace Delaney is that he is what they’re calling a “resurrectionist”. In this time period a body-snatcher would be called a resurrectionist, but Horace Delaney merchant and body-snatcher doesn’t exactly vibe. I’m wondering if resurrectionist has a supernatural leaning to it here.

James says later in the episode that he “knows things about the dead”. I get the feeling that both of the Delaney men knew more about the dead than how to dig them up and sell them for science.

Not to mention that James tells Brace that Horace was indeed talking to him when he “lit the fires on the foreshore”. He wasn’t just calling out to James in maddness, but actually communicating with him.

James is haunted by something, a demon of sorts, that feeds on fear and guilt. For some reason he’d been forced, compelled, or willing to feed this thing. Now, we see him and he has no guilt or fear. What happened to him to make him lose his guilt, and fear? I get the feeling that whatever that was, has something to do with his father and his death as well.

You talk on Ep.02 about the morgue scene, and whether the body that raises up to confront James is a specific person from his past. I do not think that it is. I think that whatever ‘demon’, if you will, that is haunting James is using that body as a vessel in an attempt to scare James for fear to feed on.

Finally, you questioned how someone who had been so long away knows so much about what is going on back home and managed to make it home quick enough to see his father before he went into the ground. I think the answer is paranormal forces. Whatever James is into, its a two way street and he’s using those forces to collect information and make his plays.

What are your thoughts on the paranormal elements at work here?

I hope these long rambling thoughts on the paranormal in this episode weren’t too ungodly boring to read. I’m looking forward to watching and re-watching this show, and listening to you guys on the pod of course!

Thanks for reading!

Melissa
@mellooyellow

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