Jinn Season 1 Drama Review

Marissa

5 years ago

Jinn is a 2019 Netflix Jordanian supernatural teen drama. Its release was followed by a lot of controversy.

Genre: supernatural, thriller, teen, fantasy
Episodes: 5, 30-45 minutes each

Synopsis

A group of high school students go on a field trip to visit the ancient city of Petra, where the jinn live. When a student is bullied, he unexpectedly releases a jinn which leads to the death of a student. Leaving us with the question: who killed the student?

Review

And at the end of season 1, I am still left with that question. I’ll try not be too critical, but I must share my opinion on this series. This review will most likely be a flood of thoughts. I apologize in advance.

Story

The base story is amazing. I almost wished someone else was in charge of it though. First off, how come the first question wasn’t answered? Typically in a season (unless it’s slice of life), there’s a question posed at the very beginning and it’s usually answered by the last episode (see Riverdale for reference). In jinn, we are left wondering who killed the student?

This leads me into my next point. The story should have been laid out more. It had good pacing, but it also seemed rushed. I think if it was structured differently, I would love it more. In the beginning, we are bombarded with too much information: so many characters and then there’s the jinn, and that kid being bullied, but with no clear enough reason why.

The story did an amazing job at adding more questions to keep me interested. There were so many: Who killed Tareq? Is Keras good or bad? How are they going to get rid of the jinn? What happens when a jinn unites with a human? What happened to Fahed and Layla? Why did Hosny show up? Where is Keras? Question and more questions all the way to the last scene–why did it end there? I need more!!

Characters

I honestly had no particular liking to any of the characters. I’d probably say Omar or Hassan were most likable to me.

Mira (Salma Malhas), is our female lead, incidentally summons a jinn, Keras (Sultan Alkhail)–who is in Hosny‘s body. Yassin (Sultan Alkhail), who is subjected to bullying, unknowingly sumons a jinn, Vera (Aysha Shahaltough).

Some of the other character include: Layla (Ban Halaweh), who is Mira’s best friend and Fahed (Yasser Al Hadi), who is Mira’s boyfriend/ex-boyfriend. There is also Hassan (Zaid Zoubi), who is Layla’s cousin, and his neutral friend, Omar (Mohammad Hindieh). Then there’s the bullies, Tareq (Abdelrazzaq Jarkas), Nasser (Mohammad Nizar), Layla’s ex-boyfriend, and Jameel (Karam Tabbaa), aka Jimmy. Lastly, the poor Ms. Ola (Hana Chamoun), who I still don’t understand why she was the only chaperone for the trip.

Music

There are so many good songs from this show. I typically don’t listen to middle eastern music unless it’s belly dance music. The soundtrack shows us the variety in music that the middle east can offer the world (although not all songs are middle eastern).

I like the sound of this song even though I don’t know what it’s about.

Here’s a pop song. I like the music and the lyrics. There are quite a few pop songs from the drama. Some others include “Mesmorize” by Storm and “Radar” by Danger Twins.

There are three songs that have this 1960s pop/rock vibe.The other two songs include “Takma” by Tamikrest and “Veneno de Serpiente” by Los Nastys.

Then we have the hip-hop music. There’s another song by the same artist, H-Kayne “Harragua”.

We also have this alternative rock/pop rock that is similar to Coldplay.

And of course the belly dancing music. This song is from Fatme Serhan. There’s another song by her too called, “Ala Warag Il Foull”.

Then there’s this instrumental song.

The soundtrack is probably the most diverse soundtrack I have written about so far. I love it. There’s many more songs. You can find the rest of the songs here.

Quotes

“A lot of people try to change themselves and never find a place where they fit in. But only a few people are honest with themselves. Those are the people I appreciate.”–Vera

“Don’t think. Feel. Feel the heart and let it out.”–Vera

Afterthoughts

The uniforms are so ugly. They look like zoologist (no offense). I watched too many Asian dramas and telenovelas. I appreciate a cute uniform.

They like to throw around the word ‘slut’ too much. I don’t think it’s appropriate to use the word at all. I feel like it’s a misused and overused.
I’m hoping there is a longer second season. There’s still so many questions that need answers.
Also did anyone noticed how Keras deflected when Omar asked him if he was good. Ahh! And how possessed Layla said that one side is for justice and the other side…[Interruption–the same thing happen with Hassan too]… I really want to know more!!
I love to watch dramas from different countries because I’m in love with cultures and people’s ways of living. For a second season, I think they should add a little more Jordanian culture to it. The best we got was the landscape and geography, which was amazing. But teach us more about Jordan because honestly I didn’t know much–except the capital and its border with Israel.