Something Very Bad Is Going to Happen Episode 1 is titled Never Get On One Knee. It was released on Netflix on March 26, 2026.
Some shows don’t have to show you horror to induce it; the mind will do the work. Something Very Bad Is Going to Happen is exactly that sort of slow, creeping anxiety. From the first scene, you can tell this leaden dread is not quite right, even if you are not sure why, nor does it use words that explicitly spell it out.
The tension is escalating gradually, by turns, by bizarre interaction, unfocused coincidences, and uncanny people, a truly uneasy mixture of terrifying and trouble. By the end, when you know this is not simply pre-wedding anxiety. Something is coming.
Something Very Bad Is Going to Happen Episode 1 recap: Never Get On One Knee
Something Very Bad Is Going to Happen Episode 1 starts on the day of Rachel’s wedding, where she is making her way towards her fiancé, Nicky. As he lifts her veil, her memories come flooding back, flashbacks of all their arguing, intimate moments, and everything that has led up to this point. Then, abruptly, the lights go out, and we are greeted with a disturbing image of a dog walking down a bloody corridor with screams in the background.
Now we go back five days before the wedding. Rachel and Nicky are driving on a trip to Nicky’s parents’ house, where the wedding will happen. While traveling, Rachel keeps dozing off, and she almost gets into an accident. To stay awake, Nicky starts talking about crime podcasts. He talks about a podcast on Larry Poole, a 1990’s serial killer who owned a frozen custard chain, named “The Coldies”. He explains in detail about one of the victims: a pregnant woman who managed to escape.
Later in Something Very Bad Is Going to Happen Episode 1, they switch drivers again while continuing the podcast. They pull into a gas station where Rachel can hear a couple arguing about their lost dogs.
While driving, Nicky mentions having children, but Rachel firmly states that she doesn’t want children because she fears their children would suffer and believes having them would be selfish. She also says about her mother, who passed away. Despite this, they both joke about Nicky’s overbearing parents.
At one point in Something Very Bad Is Going to Happen Episode 1, she is unexpectedly drawing the Coldies logo, even though she has never been there. Later, they stop at a resting stop that is deserted as night falls. There she sees a baby locked inside a stationary vehicle. The panic-stricken Rachel runs to find the parents, but instead finds a dead, rotted dog in the restroom.
Rachel asks Nicky to sit with the baby while she goes off looking for help. She drives to a place called Swan Dive Bar. It is a strange isolate bar, and there is only one server there. Rachel explains her story and asks to call the police.
While waiting, she has to use the toilet and is frightened by an old man watching her. She scurries away, but he follows her back. She panics and hits him over the hand with her car keys. He calmly removes the keys and hands them back, then asks her, “Are you sure he is the one?” The waiter returns and informs Rachel that the police are on their way.
In Something Very Bad Is Going to Happen Episode 1, Rachel drives back to Nicky, but there’s no sign of Nicky or the baby. Out of the blue, Nicky pops up with a battered face. He says the baby’s mother and father turned up again and attacked him when they thought he was kidnapping their baby. It sounds a little strange, but they decide not to wait for the police and leave.
Finally, in Something Very Bad Is Going to Happen Episode 1, they get to the family home, where the story begins to seem more menacing. When they go inside, Rachel meets the other family members: Nicky’s brother, Jules, his wife Nell, and his sister Portia. Portia is welcoming, but she jokingly comments that Rachel has avoided meeting them thus far. They all seem out of place here. Jules is silent, and Nell is trying desperately to be ‘normal’.
As soon as Rachel begins to talk about what happened earlier, Portia introduces a tale about a man called the “Sorry Man”. Jules saw him as a kid in the woods, and he was killing a woman while apologizing because he knew if he kept doing it, he would be able to join his dead wife. To top it off, Portia says he is after brides.
Later in their room in Something Very Bad Is Going to Happen Episode 1, Nicky apologizes for his family. He doesn’t seem to believe the story completely, but says that something did happen to Jules in the past. Rachel also talks about what happened to her at the bar and confesses that she has had a strange feeling that something bad is going to happen. Nicky agrees.
Their night takes another bizarre detour when Rachel wants to do “the thing” before they can get intimate, whatever that means. It certainly adds yet another layer of mystery to what makes Rachel tick.
In the middle of the night, Rachel wakes up with a nosebleed. She hears a strange sound and leaves the room. She sees that the front door is ajar and ventures out into the snow for a little bit, gets back inside, and encounters Nicky’s mother, Victoria, who is distant and in a daze. She refers to her as “the next Mrs. Cunningham” in a strange way before Victoria’s husband, Boris, takes her away and apologizes for her behavior.
Rachel finds a letter just before she goes to sleep. Inside is her wedding invitation, but with a warning written on the back: “Don’t marry him.” As she reads it, her nose starts to bleed.
Thinking back to the first scene, all this is no longer just a pre-wedding anxiety. It begins to read as a warning and perhaps even foreshadow.
Edited by Sahiba Tahleel