The Magnus Protocol Reviews: “Driven”

“Driven” Is Different From Other Protocol Episodes

“Driven” is such an interesting episode because of how much it’s a different subgenre than is typical of The Magnus Protocol. Yes, the events are horrific in concept. Yes, there are some obvious parallels to the very first episode of Archives. Yes, it has cosmic elements. But the nature of the narrative is more like reading a paranormal investigation story. The nature of the monster is clear pretty quickly—it doesn’t even try to keep it a mystery—but “Driven” also doesn’t stop with the confirmation of the evil carriage. It goes further. The title is right: it’s about people being driven toward dangerous choices.

And that creates a narrative with a lot of proactivity. The main characters seemed a little blasé about incoming death beforehand, but that’s somewhat diminished here. The meta-story has the three main characters all marching toward conflict, but also acknowledging that it’s somewhat unavoidable—even if the levels of apparent apprehension vary between them. And the anthology story is about trying to learn as much as possible about a monster from The Stranger, not just that it is a monster.

The most notable shortcoming of “Driven,” actually, might be that we don’t get to follow along with those monster discoveries a little more. I wouldn’t want a full episode just describing the process of being killed by the fake carriage—but I had expected something similar to “Mixed Signals.” I had expected a few lines of nightmarish imagery. A sentence or two from that notebook. Maybe that’s being saved for The Magnus Institute’s eventual discoveries—likely of the fear gods—that’ll happen in later episodes, but it doesn’t seem overwhelmingly likely. Returning to specific anthology stories doesn’t tend to happen like that and the series obviously doesn’t want the audience to fully know what the alchemical studies are for until later. Indeed, I’m still not totally clear what this version of The Magnus Institute is even trying to accomplish. I don’t have many speculations.

“Driven” Has Some Very Exciting Foreshadowing

At least, not for that part. I have plenty for the other. Some of them a little unfounded. For one, I think the arriving minister is going to be a main character from Archives. I think it might be this universe’s version of Elias. We haven’t heard his voice yet. There’s no reason this version also didn’t get taken over and got a position of power. And, for my second prediction, I think that this version of Hilltop might have a portal in it—and that the portal might have a few possible characters either nearby it, or on the other side of it.     

But even if every one of those predictions is wrong, I really enjoyed this episode on its own merits. The future payoffs won’t taint the now. “Driven” is gory and spooky and has a great pace. It gives us answers and mysteries without giving either too much focus. If this is the formalized template for these kinds of episodes, I’d love to have more with firsthand accounts of people trying to understand the nature of the fear gods—and sometimes dying in the process. Even if it wouldn’t always be scary, it makes for such intriguing narratives. It certainly put “Driven” in the upper echelons of this series so far.

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