The Resort

“The Resort” has a willingness to embrace a strangeness that fuels its more memorable moments. Adding to a proud tradition of shows that challenge its core characters to let the mystery be (including, notably, Siara’s prior TV stop “Lodge 49”), “The Resort” is ultimately less concerned with answering puzzles than figuring out what draws people to looking for any kind of solution in the first place.

Amid all the spectacle, the show does, finally, strike a thoughtful contrast between puppy love and the more mature variety, which it doesn’t make the mistake of overstating. But mostly it’s defined by small pleasures. ... Like any good vacation, The Resort flies by. You can tell you had fun because it’s over way too soon.

The plot is so crammed with these things that sometimes it stops making sense, but just carries us along to the next stage of the adventure. The easy chemistry between Milioti and Harper helps with this, as does the generous helping of comedy.

Though the eight-episode season is about two episodes too long, The Resort's mystical conclusion delivers an unexpectedly emotional catharsis. As with most vacations, the journey is sometimes exhausting, but the destination is ultimately worthwhile.

The delightful ensemble makes The Resort a breeze, even if the payoff leaves something to be desired.

There’s a lot of that in the series. Random-seeming stories strung together until finally the show just sort of ends, as much of a mystery as it was when it began.

The characters simply don’t do a whole lot in this story, across eight half-hour episodes. There’s so little comedy or thrills along the way, but there are long scenes of them learning more about strange things that happened in the past, either in personal flashbacks or in the Sam & Violet timeline. It becomes profoundly tedious how large chunks of rhythm are given to different characters to explain something that doesn’t make all that much sense in the end.