How ‘Crystal Lake’ Uproots the Horrors of America’s History for Jason’s Origin Story

Origin stories can be antithetical to success, and far too often, the introduction of backstory coincides with a franchise starting to go off the rails. Mileage varies with this type of thing, but the emergence of answers inevitably means that someone else’s theories can’t be true. Gatekeeping the origins of evil is risky business. It’s why so many fans bristle against the idea of Michael Myers and Laurie Strode being siblings in Halloween or Freddy Krueger’s mother being a victimized nun who was assaulted by hundreds of maniacs. 

Unsurprisingly, people have strong opinions about what Friday the 13th’s Jason Voorhees represents, why he’s scary, and what they want him to be, and what they don’t. It’s therefore quite interesting when someone is so willing to blow it all up and try something radical that reinvents the whole formula. Brad Caleb Kane’s Crystal Lake series has never claimed to be a 1:1 retelling of the celebrated slasher franchise. 

In fact, he’s been quite candid about the ways in which this adaptation differs from and updates its source material, like setting Jason and Pamela’s plight around 15 years later so that Jason’s iconic drowning occurs in the early ‘70s. This altered timeline leads to one of the biggest swings in Friday the 13th history, one that’s not unwarranted and actually says something profound about America.

Crystal Lake’s penultimate episode, “Friday…,” is written by Laura Marks and directed by Quyen Tran. As tragedy at Camp Crystal Lake intensifies, the series steps back to simpler times, focusing on Pamela Scott (Linda Cardellini), a struggling lounge singer, and Elias Wittering (Hamish Linklater), a humble yet committed company man at Bellflower Chemical. What follows is a haunting perversion of the American dream that exploits two desperate individuals who simply want to be their best selves and contribute to the greater good.

Elias Voorhees has always been one of the franchise’s biggest question marks, yet past accounts of this character, albeit non-canonical, always present Jason’s father as a more traditionally abusive, boorish figure. Crystal Lake’s reimagining of Elias is even more horrifying in some respects since he’s such a deluded instrument of bureaucracy that’s meant to reinforce the status quo and strengthen America.