The Immortal Man In 'Something Very Bad Is Going To Happen'

The supernatural element in Netflix’s Something Very Bad Is Going To Happen comes from a centuries-old curse that damned a whole bloodline after a woman made a bargain with Death. Well, the show didn’t reveal when exactly this curse started, however, through the story of the Immortal Man (only referred to as the Witness), we found out that it was one of his ancestors who made a pact with Death to get her husband back. Her husband died in a hunting accident, and the bride did everything in her power to resurrect him. Death heard her cries and allowed her to take him back, but on one condition: Death wanted to know if her husband was really her soulmate. Turns out, he was, which was why both the bride and the groom lived a normal life, but their descendants weren’t so lucky. So what exactly happened was that when the Immortal Man’s ancestor made a deal with Death, she brought the curse upon her whole bloodline, and now everyone in her family had no choice but to marry their “soulmate” if they wanted a “happily ever after” after their marriage. Allow me to simplify this for you. According to this curse, anyone in the Immortal Man’s family, who married a non-soulmate, would die a horrific death on the day of the wedding.

Coming back to the Immortal Man, we still don’t know a lot about him. It was a bit irritating that the makers of the show only revealed the information that they believed would be important for the viewers, and by doing so, they not only kept us in the dark but also made things confusing for us. I believe some insight into the Immortal Man’s past would have been really interesting, but alas, here we are. During his brief conversation with the show’s protagonist, Rachel, the Immortal Man revealed that he fell in love with a woman named Marianne. They were supposed to marry each other, but on their wedding day, the previous Immortal Man (or the Witness) showed up at the altar and asked if she was really his “soulmate.” Up until that point, our Immortal Man was quite sure of his feelings for Marianne, but the moment he heard those words, he started having doubts about his relationship. And in the end, he abandoned Marianne at the altar. While obviously it was the Immortal Man’s fault here, because he was the one who didn’t have faith in his “love,” tragically it was Marianne and her descendants who had to pay the price. 

According to this curse, if a member of the damned bloodline walked away from the wedding, then the family curse would be transferred to their prospective spouse. In the Immortal Man’s case, it was Marianne and her family. And the one who deserted their union would be doomed to live an eternal life, forced to witness the death of their lover and their descendants. So that was how our Immortal Man became immortal. However, here I’d like to raise the question: did the Immortal Man ever tell Marianne about the curse? I don’t think so, because a man who could run away from his wedding wouldn’t have the courage to explain to his fiance that he had cursed her bloodline. Maybe it was true that Marianne and the Immortal Man weren’t soulmates, because if they had been, the Immortal Man would have had faith in their relationship.

As time passed, Marianne forgot her previous lover and moved on. She eventually found her soulmate in Thomas Harkin (Rachel’s great ancestor). But the tragedy here is, even though the two loved each other, Marianne had accidentally brought a curse into his family. I just want to make it clear for you. Marianne didn’t curse Thomas’ entire bloodline, but only the descendants that would come out from their bond, meaning their children, and their children’s children. Each of their offspring (which includes Rachel and her mother, Alexandra “Ali” Harkin) had to pass the same “soulmate” test if they wanted to survive the curse, but as we saw in Rachel’s case, finding one’s true soulmate is one hell of a task. In this modern world, you are never really sure. 

I didn’t bring this up earlier, but when the current Immortal Man was telling Rachel the story of his family curse, he told her that he met a “witness” at the altar who asked him if Marianne was his soulmate or not. So what I am trying to point out is that we don’t know who this “witness” was. According to the Immortal Man, the curse started from his family, right? In that case, there shouldn’t be any deserter or witness, should there? So where did this one come from? I think either this one is a big plot hole, or maybe this “witness” was Death itself, who had come to warn the Immortal Man. Also, the Immortal Man shouldn’t have been aware of this second condition in the curse, likely because no one else in his family had ever tried to run away from their wedding.

It could be assumed that the Immortal Man had lived a pretty long and boring life, witnessing the death of those in Marianne’s bloodline every now and then. Once again, the show doesn’t explore his character much. At one point, it seemed like he had started enjoying the bloodbath, stealing souvenirs from the potential bride and groom, but in the end, when Death finally came after him, he looked content. Maybe it was a mix of both. He might have had no desires left, and would have accepted the fact that this was his fate. Well, whatever the case might be, he eventually found his peace. In the show’s ending, when Rachel broke her engagement with Nicky, she took the curse of immortality upon herself. Some viewers are confused here about why Rachel started bleeding after Nicky put a ring on her finger. I guess it was because Nicky had proposed to Rachel when the curse was on her family, and during the wedding, she had already put a ring on Nicky’s finger, thereby commencing the engagement. And by the time, Nicky forcefully put a ring on her finger, Rachel had already become immortal, which meant she could bleed, but she couldn’t die. Remember when Rachel stabbed the Immortal Man’s palm with a key, he told her that he wasn’t completely invincible. He could be stabbed, shot, or blown up. He would still feel the pain and would bleed like a normal human being; the only magic is that he wouldn’t die. So Rachel bled because Nicky wasn’t her soulmate, though she didn’t die because she had become the next Immortal Witness. And finally, in the end, Death came for the previous Immortal Witness and took his soul away. Now it was Rachel who had to take on the mantle, and I suppose she’ll be much better than her predecessor.