Crystal Lake Easter Eggs That Tie the Peacock Prequel Back to Friday the 13th

Crystal Lake, A24's prequel series for Peacock, nods to the Friday the 13th films in every one of its eight episodes, and even its episode titles echo the franchise. The people behind the show have a deep love for the source material: the 10 main series films, the crossover Freddy vs. Jason, the 2009 Friday the 13th reboot, and even the 1987 TV series, which was Friday the 13th in name only and had almost no connection to the movie franchise. Even the new backstory the show gives Jason is, to me, classic Friday the 13th. And by giving Pamela Voorhees far more than the 13 minutes of screen time she had in the original film, the series turns one of horror's one-dimensional mothers into a human being.

The series was created by Brad Caleb Kane, who was also showrunner on It: Welcome to Derry. Victor Miller, writer of the original Friday the 13th, is an executive producer. One reason the show took so long to arrive was a legal fight over rights between Miller and Sean S. Cunningham, director of the original film.

Crystal Lake moves Jason's drowning to the 1970s and recasts Pamela Voorhees

Crystal Lake is set mostly in 1972, seven years before the events of the original film, released in 1980. The films placed Jason's drowning on Friday the 13th in 1957, and the original film's opening scene was shown in a 1958 flashback. Parts of the series line up with that opening scene, but the show moves those events into the seventies.

Linda Cardellini, 51, plays Jason's mother, Pamela Voorhees, a role Betsy Palmer played at 52 in the original film.

Episode 1, Camp Crystal, rebuilds the camp sign and the opening title card

The first episode, Camp Crystal, opens right after Pam has killed two thugs, then jumps to a flashback nine months earlier. Pam is working as the cook at Camp Crystal Lake. The series recreates the camp's sign exactly: Welcome to Camp Crystal Lake, established 1935.

The camp owner tells the campers to go out and make some Crystal Lake memories. Crystal Lake Memories is the title of a six-and-a-half-hour documentary about the film franchise.

We meet young Jason. The makeup and look of both young and adult Jason changed a lot across the films, and here young Jason looks much the same as in the first film and Freddy vs. Jason, but far cuter. His room has astronaut wallpaper. That suits a little boy, but it's definitely a nod to Jason X, where Jason went to space.

When Jason drowns, Pam screams, and the shot freezes and zooms in on her open mouth before cutting to the opening title card. The original film moved into its opening titles the same way, though there it was a different character screaming. The show's title cards are modeled on the original, with the same font flying toward the screen and smashing through glass. Every font in the series, from the nine months earlier card to the end credits, is nostalgic and feels like something from the seventies and eighties.

Pam saves the snake, a quiet nod to the original film's real snake death

When Pam finds a snake in the kitchen, she considers killing it with a cleaver, but instead she carries it outside in a pot and lets it go. I love this Easter egg because a real snake was killed in the original film. The snake was a pet, and its owner had been told it would not be harmed, so its handler was devastated when it was killed. Pam saving it is a quiet acknowledgment of that whole incident.

I was thrilled the snake survived, but it comes back in a later episode and Pam kills it, and I yelled no. Unlike the original film, though, no real snakes were harmed in this show. It's a true save the cat moment: Pam is so kind she won't even kill a snake, which highlights her mental decline when she later does kill it.

Crazy Ralph, a young police officer and Steve Christy return with new actors

Several characters from the original film come back, played by different actors. We see Ralph, the Crazy Ralph of the original, who gave unhinged speeches about how people who go to Camp Blood die. That character was parodied in The Cabin in the Woods. Here he gets more backstory, since it turns out he is suffering from wartime PTSD.

In the original film, a police officer warned the counselors about Ralph, and the series gives that a whole storyline. For part of the series, the young officer believes Ralph is the killer, which explains his warning in the movie. It's clear he holds a grudge against Ralph.

There's also a young version of Steve Christy. In the original film, he was the one reopening the camp his parents owned, and Pam kills him in that film.

The blue sweater, the machete and Kane Hodder all get tributes

We see Pam wearing the iconic blue sweater from the film. In the second film, that was the sweater final girl Ginny wore to fool Jason into thinking she was his mother. Pamela also gives young Jason a machete for camping. The machete becomes Jason's most iconic weapon in the franchise, and it's what kills Pam at the end of the first film, when she is decapitated by final girl Alice.

After Pam kills the two thugs, one of them comes back, classic horror movie style. It's a trick Jason himself pulled many times in the films. There's also a lovely tribute to Kane Hodder, who played Jason in many films and is the fan favorite. At a picnic, it's mentioned that Crystal Lake was founded by a lieutenant with Hodder in his name, on April 27, 1779.

Crystal Lake settles the New Jersey setting debate

For the series, the production went back to the New Jersey town where the original film was shot. Fans long debated where Friday the 13th was set. The first film was shot in New Jersey, but later ones were made in Los Angeles. Over the years, many hints and clues made it clear it was New Jersey, and this show confirms it.

Episode titles Part 2 and Part III copy the films' inconsistent numbering

The second episode is titled Part 2, with the number two, just as the franchise's second film was Friday the 13th Part 2. The third episode is titled Part III, with a Roman numeral, just as the third film used one. People have noticed the films' contradictory numbering for years.

Episode two opens with a great tribute to the end of the first film, where final girl Alice is in a canoe and a soaked young Jason rises from the water and grabs her just before the police reach the shore. Here, Pam is the one in the canoe, and one of the men she killed drags her under.

In Part III, a character runs through the woods, and when she finally stops, young Jason sneaks up behind her and asks if she didn't hear him coming. It's a nod to how quiet Jason always is moving through the woods. Two friends also find a shed, and I'm sure it's Jason's shed from Friday the 13th Part 2, where he kept his mother's severed head. That is horrifying, as if the place of his childhood joy turned into his shed of death. In this episode, Ralph also wears an outfit close to his bucket hat, button-up shirt and vest combination from the film, rides a similar bicycle, and repeats his classic warnings that only death awaits out there.

Episode 4, A New Beginning, borrows the title of the franchise's fifth film

Episode four is titled A New Beginning, the title of the 1985 Friday the 13th film, though that was the franchise's fifth film, not its fourth. The fourth film was The Final Chapter, which is the title of this season's eighth and final episode, which probably makes more sense. This episode shows a hippie girl hitchhiking into town, which also happened in the first film when it returned to the present day. No hitchhiking teenager fares well on that road.

Episode four also has a small name drop: the lawyer for a chemical company is named Noah Feldman, because Corey Feldman played Tommy in Friday the 13th: The Final Chapter, a big fan favorite. Tommy's sister in that film was named Trish, just like Pam's friend in the series, played by Olivia McLean, who suffers the same fate and dies brutally in episode seven.

Episode five is titled The New Blood, the title of the seventh film, from 1988. The snake and the blue sweater both return here. This is the episode with an exact recreation of two of the murders from the first film. It even opens with the pair singing around the fire before they sneak away. This time we get much more context, including the story behind a question one of them asks about whether another girl is a better kisser. We also get the twist that a character who was high at the time committed the murders. Pam's words to the victim, about how young and pretty she is and how Jason should have been watched every moment because he wasn't a very good swimmer, come straight from the film.

Episode 6, Kill Her, Mommy, takes its title from the line behind Harry Manfredini's score

The sixth episode's title comes from Pam's imagined moment in the film where Jason speaks to her. Betsy Palmer spoke those words as she voiced Jason saying that line, and Harry Manfredini built his famous ma ma ma score from them. The series uses that score too.

This episode has several old-school, eighties-style kills that pay tribute to the gruesome murders across the whole film series. Ralph also says that someone is never coming back, in exactly the same tone he used in the film.

The newspaper man Dick Wagner, boss to Brianna at the paper, is played by Mark Nelson. He played Ned in the original film, whose throat Pam cut. If the show gets a second season, I would hope they bring back many more performers from the original franchise in small roles.

Episode 7, Friday, explains why Jason can't be killed

Episode seven is titled Friday. It explains why Jason can't be killed and why he seems bigger and stronger in every film. It also gives Pam an excuse: doctors gave her experimental mood stabilizers, so maybe that's why she goes so crazy. I've seen mixed reactions to this episode online, with some saying they didn't like Jason's backstory being changed this way.

There are more fun reveals, such as the project Jason is part of being named Argonaut, as in Jason and the Argonauts, the famous 1963 Greek mythology film. Elias, Jason's father, played by Hamish Linklater, probably chose the name Jason for that reason.

Episode 8, The Final Chapter, gives grown Jason his burlap sack and first kill

Episode eight is titled The Final Chapter, again the title of the fourth film in the franchise. Episode seven ages Jason up, and here the grown Jason wears a burlap sack over his head, as he did in the second film before he got the hockey mask. The sack even has the number 13 on it.

We get an amazing kill here, Jason's first in the series, and he is killing his own father, Elias. Elias was first mentioned very briefly in Jason Goes to Hell, but he never appeared on screen. Jason crushes his father's skull and his eye pops out, a reference to a kill in Friday the 13th Part 3, when the franchise was first experimenting with 3D. That kill and the eye popping out made me laugh.

We also see a fast Jason in this episode. That was largely Kane Hodder's specialty. Before he took the role, Jason was slow and stiff, but once Hodder arrived he became fast, and his kills became more creative and fluid.

A campfire ghost story at Packanack closes the season

The series ends with a ghost story about Jason told around a fire, exactly the way the second film began, with Paul telling the story to counselors in training at Packanack Lodge. Packanack is mentioned once in episode two as the resort where Pam and Trish went to a self-help convention.

I want to see another season of this series. I need to know whether William Catlett's character, Leon Brooks, is alive, and what happened to Willow after she escaped in that hippie van.

Why Crystal Lake is classic Friday the 13th

To the fans who object to the new backstory: every film added or changed something about Jason. So to me, this is classic Friday the 13th. He went to space, after all, so that's a strange place to draw the line on what's too ridiculous for him. I think episode seven is fun and slightly weird, like Rosemary's Baby.

Crystal Lake also continues the trend set by the Carrie series of making the one-dimensional mothers of horror movies more human. In Friday the 13th, Mrs. Voorhees was a deranged killer with only 13 minutes of screen time. It's great to see so much more of her here and learn how she became so unhinged, and after watching these episodes, I think I can take the side of Jason's mom.