Have you watched THEM: The Scare yet?
Source: Quantrell Colbert / Amazon MGM Studios
Pam Grier spoke with BOSSIP about her new role as Athena, a mother and grandmother in Little Marvin’s Prime Video anthology series Them: The Scare. The main storyline focuses on her character’s daughter, LAPD Detective Dawn Reeve (Deborah Ayorinde) who is investigating the gruesome murder of a foster home mother that has left even the most hardened detectives shaken. Navigating a tumultuous time in Los Angeles, with a city on the razor’s edge of chaos, Dawn is determined to stop the killer. But as she draws closer to the truth, something ominous and malevolent grips her and her family…
Grier talked about her character’s fear of dolls, as well as how family secrets and aging factor into the scariness of the show.
“When that doll shows up and I didn’t bring it…” Grier told BOSSIP. “There is something about it because that doll has a spirit and has been given a spirit and you don’t have control of it.”
Grier also reminisced about her own childhood experiences with dolls.
“I was given a doll that when I was little and I used to walk the doll, carried it around the block with me because I felt that doll was my baby,” Grier recalled. “I connected to it as another being and I blinked his eyes and I combed his hair and I talked to it and it talked back, so yes it does have take on a another being, a self that you give it and if you don’t give it what happens? If someone else takes your doll you know that’s like you’re taking your person, your child, from you, so there’s a connection.”
“I thought that was very significant in the show to have this doll that reminded me of a child that I connected to in the story I no longer had the child and that doll reminded me of what my secret was, my deep secret and it kept reminding me and showing up and reminding me that I’m responsible for that doll.”
Source: Quantrell Colbert / Amazon MGM Studios
Eventually as the plot plays out we come to learn that Athena has been keeping secrets from Dawn her entire life that are now threatening to destroy their entire family.
“There is both sides, the dichotomy, secrets also protect the heart and secrets can destroy the heart,” Grier told BOSSIP. “There’s always two sides to everything and you have to know when to show your hand of secrets. Sometimes it’s better not to and that secret is yours forever and that’s that emotion that you can control. I love the fact that you have a choice the psychological choice invested in whomever can receive that secret and not everyone can.”
“That’s her control and now that she’s incompetent mentally, possibly from her medical or mental issue, will she reveal a secret and destroy that? And now she doesn’t know what’s real. So that’s something that I have to live with 24 hours of the day and still protect myself and protect my family.”
“Secrets protect families,” Grier continued. “Wherever you don’t find until like 23 [and Me] or Ancestry, the story was before AncestryDNA and 23 and Me, but anyway yes I don’t want to hurt the family that I love but I’m going to fight for them and if I have to reveal something I will. I just have to know when it is the right time so I don’t loop obliterate my family.”
Grier also spoke about how her character’s aging also played a role in the story.
“With my health, spirit, everything that I’m losing, people don’t see that aging is horror to a lot of people,” Grier added. “Aging is fearful. You losing your youth and your mental state and your vibrance, that’s another part of horror. People don’t want to share the secrets about they’re aging and things that they’ve lost, so there’s a lot of loss… It’s a very very strong emotion among us.”
THEM: The Scare is streaming now on Prime Video
