Diksha Sundriyal
Rachel is gripped with an unshakeable sense of dread in Netflix’s ‘Something Very Bad is Going to Happen.’ With just a week left for her wedding, she feels that one thing or the other is going to go horribly awry, and it will all end in disaster. Her fiancé, Nicky, tries to convince her otherwise as they drive to his family’s cabin, Somerhouse. However, the bad feeling in the pit of her stomach only gets worse. On the drive to the cabin, they listen to a podcast where a victim talks about escaping a serial killer named Larry Poole, who owned a custard place called Coldies. At the time, it feels like a minor detail, but later, Rachel discovers that she has a personal connection to the place and the man who ran it. SPOILERS AHEAD.
Larry Poole and Coldies are Fictional Additions to Something Very Bad is Going to Happen
Larry Poole is a fictional serial killer mentioned in the first episode of ‘Something Very Bad is Going to Happen’ and appearing in the fourth episode in a flashback sequence. Nicky mentions him to Rachel on their drive to the cabin, revealing that he is the one who ran a custard place called Coldies, which used to be pretty popular when they were kids. Rachel, however, doesn’t know anything about Coldies or Larry. Nicky tells her about one of Larry’s victims, a pregnant woman who survived him even after getting her throat slashed. The serial killer, his victims, and his custard place are all completely made-up to serve the plot.
They don’t have any real-life counterpart and the show’s creator has not revealed whether she was influenced by the story of a particular serial killer to craft the storyline. Considering the details of the pregnant victim, one could draw a comparison with the Connecticut River Valley Killer, an unidentified serial killer who is believed to have been behind at least seven murders in and around Connecticut between 1978 and 1988. One of his victims was Jane Boroski, a seven-month pregnant woman who was stabbed 27 times by the killer and still survived to tell the tale. One could say that the writers may have drawn inspiration from this case for the show, but there is a very different reason for the Larry Poole storyline.
Larry Poole is a Red Herring in Rachel’s Story
The show is defined by the sense of dread and an unnerved vibe that takes hold of Rachel as she gets closer to the wedding day. The show plays upon these elements, setting up red herrings that draw the audience’s attention and keep them guessing about what’s going to happen next. Larry Poole and Coldies are introduced with the same intention in the first episode, where the conversation between Rachel and Nicky, and then the podcast, sets up the events that unfold in the fourth episode. A flashback sequence presents the story of a pregnant woman recorded by her husband on their wedding day.
Coincidentally, the couple also comes to the same area to get married, and they pass the Coldies shop, which Rachel and Nicky pass years later on the way to Somerhouse. The scene with the pregnant woman coming face-to-face with Larry Poole, and the previous mention of the Sorry Man who haunts the woods, gives the audience the impression that this is the main culprit that is going to ruin everything for Rachel on her wedding day. By the end of the video, it becomes clear that this pregnant woman, who turns out to be Rachel’s mother, is not the one that Larry attacked. She died a horrible death, but it had nothing to do with the serial killer.
Creator Haley Z. Boston revealed that she wanted to play with the idea of what’s truly haunting Rachel. She wanted to make it look like there was some external factor that would be responsible for disturbing Rachel’s peace. While in truth, it was Rachel herself who had been haunted all along. Completely unaware of the existence of the curse, she looked outwards to explain what was happening to her, but eventually, she discovers that it is her own self that needs to come to terms with the doomed fate that has befallen not just her, but her entire bloodline. In this context, Larry Poole becomes a distraction, for her and for the audience, allowing the truth to catch them completely off guard.
Read More: Is Something Very Bad is Going to Happen a True Story? Is Rachel Based on a Real Person?
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