When Patricia and Terry Phelps decide to move their family to a remote town in Connecticut for a new start following her indiscretion with a handyman, things immediately start to get weird in Starz’s “Shining Vale.” The well-reviewed horror dark comedy, which bowed last week with a two-episode premiere and continues Sunday nights on the network, quickly distinguished itself by packing in – rather successfully – storylines with teeth.
The overarching arc follows the couple as they reestablish their family’s lives in a creaky old house that only Pat (Courteney Cox) seems to recognize is haunted (by Mira Sorvino). But it quickly finds Pat’s feelings and emotions looked at through the lens of her mother Joan’s (Judith Light) ongoing mental illness while she engages in couples therapy with Terry (Greg Kinnear), conducted by a male practitioner.