{"id":104690,"date":"2022-10-22T11:14:09","date_gmt":"2022-10-22T11:14:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/harchi90.com\/netflixs-the-watcher-villanizes-historic-preservation\/"},"modified":"2022-10-22T11:14:09","modified_gmt":"2022-10-22T11:14:09","slug":"netflixs-the-watcher-villanizes-historic-preservation","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/harchi90.com\/netflixs-the-watcher-villanizes-historic-preservation\/","title":{"rendered":"Netflix’s ‘The Watcher’ Villanizes Historic Preservation"},"content":{"rendered":"
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The neighbors in Netflix’s The Watcher<\/em> are displeased. The Brannocks, a family that recently moved from Manhattan to the Boulevard in Westfield, New Jersey \u2014 the town’s most desirable street \u2014 are renovating their house. Their design choices are especially offensive to Pearl Winslow, an elderly neighbor (played by Mia Farrow) who looks like she’s walked out of Grant Wood’s American Gothic <\/em>painting. \u201cButcher-block countertops? Are you turning your house into a delicatessen?<\/em>\u201d she sneers at Dean Brannock (Bobby Cannavale) in episode six. \u201cI have never seen anyone spend so<\/em> much money making a house look so<\/em> awful.<\/em>\u201d<\/p>\n

But the Brannock family is dealing with something more dangerous than a rude neighbor. Dean and his wife Nora Brannock (Naomi Watts) are receiving menacing letters signed by someone who calls themselves \u201cThe Watcher,\u201d and they spend most of the series desperately trying to figure out who that is. The show, which premiered on October 13, is based on the true story of the Broaddus family, who were forced to their six-bedroom dream home abandon in Westfield after receiving those letters (which are read verbatim in the series), as detailed in a 2018 new York<\/em> feature by Reeves Wiedeman. In both the article and the show, the mystery of who is watching the couple and their children through \u201call the windows and doors\u201d of the house, as a letter reads, is never solved. In Ryan Murphy’s adaptation, the potential suspects include Pearl and every fellow historic-home enthusiasts, who make up the three-person Westfield Preservation Society. After all, they think it’s okay to break into someone’s home to admire a dumbwaiter and smash windows they don’t think are architecturally appropriate. As another member of the society says during a meeting, they are \u201cvery interested in keeping this town the way that it ought to be.\u201d<\/p>\n

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Pearl Winslow, Jasper Winslow, and a mysterious character who calls himself John but is really named William Webster comprise the three-person Westfield Preservation Society, a group that’s fixated on the countertops of 657 Boulevard. Photos: Netflix.<\/span>\n <\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>\n

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\n Pearl Winslow, Jasper Winslow, and a mysterious character who calls himself John but is really named William Webster comprise the three-person Westfie…