Careful, they’re watching. No one is safe from stolen glances and hidden stares in the new Freeform original series, The Watchful Eye. A mystery thriller series that centers on a grisly murder, it promises to be one of winter’s juiciest new binges. If you’re growing frigid from the snow and cold winds of winter, grab a blanket and cozy up to the fiery new series. The thriller is created by Julie Durk (Grace and Frankie, You’ve Got Mail). Durk also co-executive produces alongside Ryan Seacrest (American Idol), Nina Wass (Insatiable), Andrea Shay (Insatiable), and Jeffrey Reiner (The Affair). Taking a formulaic mystery whodunit and giving it a makeover by dressing it to the nines with a haunted, posh apartment complex and sinful tenants, The Watchful Eye is all smoke and mirrors. Mariel Molino (Promised Land) stars in the series as Elena Santos, a complicated woman with secrets of her own as she infiltrates The Greybourne, a dangerous high-rise apartment in New York City, in order to solve a murder. Co-starring alongside Molino as the various tenants of The Greybourne hiding deadly secrets of their own is Amy Acker (Angel) as Tory Ayres, the grieving sister of the deceased. Acker is a decorated television actress and has been featured in some of the 2000s' most beloved series, including The WB’s Angel (2001-2004) and ABC’s Alias (2001-2006).
Warren Christie (The Resident) also stars as Greybourne tenant Matthew Ward, who hires Elena to become the live-in nanny for his son, Jasper Ward, played by Henry Joseph Samiri (American Horror Story). The Watchful Eye cast also includes Jon-Michael Ecker as Scott Macedo (Firefly Lane), Lex Lumpkin (Nickelodeon’s Unfiltered) as Elliot, Aliyah Royale (The Walking Dead: World Beyond) as Ginny, and finally, Kelly Bishop (Gilmore Girls) as Mrs. Ivey. A legend of the stage and screen, Bishop has had a decades-long career in showbiz and appeared in blockbuster hits such as Dirty Dancing (1987), the Tony-award-winning musical A Chorus Line, and of course, as Emily Gilmore in The CW’s Gilmore Girls (2000-2006). If you're wondering how to watch the series, it's really no mystery. Just read on for all the details you need.
When and Where Are New Episodes of The Watchful Eye Airing?
The Watchful Eye premiered on the Freeform network on Monday, January 30, at 9 pm ET. A two-episode event, the hour-long pilot episode was directly followed by the second episode at 10 pm ET. After the premiere, single episodes are set to be released on a weekly basis on Monday nights at 9 pm ET.
Can You Stream The Watchful Eye?
In case you don't manage to watch them on Freeform, episodes of The Watchful Eye will also be available to stream the next day on Hulu. Hulu offers various subscription plans, including an ad-supported plan for $7.99/month, and an ad-free option for $14.99/month. All episodes are also expected to become available for purchase on iTunes, Amazon, Google Play, and YouTube after they’ve aired.
Watch the Haunted, Suspenseful Trailer for The Watchful Eye
Nothing is as it seems in the trailer for The Watchful Eye. At The Greybourne, a glamorous high-rise in New York City, young tenant Allie Ayres is found dead outside after falling to her death. Ruled as a suicide, her sharp-edged Aunt, Mrs. Ivey (Kelly Bishop), believes it was murder and enlists the help of Elena Santos (Mariel Molino) to figure out what really happened. Posing as a nanny, she is hired by tenant Matthew Ward and begins to explore The Greybourne, only to discover it has many more secrets than initially meets the eye.
So What Is The Watchful Eye All About?
The Watchful Eye is initially about the mystery behind the tragic death of The Greybourne tenant Allie Ayres, but it becomes much more than that. Desperate for cash, Elena Santos is our eyes and ears into the spooky, possibly haunted apartment building when she agrees to snoop after Allie's aunt, Mrs. Ives, becomes convinced her niece was murdered. Elena then gets hired as a live-in nanny for the rich Ward family and soon becomes part of elaborate plots and crime.
As Elena begins to learn the history of the apartment complex, she discovers that Allie’s apparent suicide has not been the only strange death to occur at The Greybourne. Becoming a character itself, the halls and rooms of the complex seem haunted as Elena feels like she’s constantly being watched by the walls while discovering the other crimes and murders of the elusive tenants. When her boyfriend Scott (Jon-Michael Ecker) arrives and hatches a risky scheme, the couple plots to eat the rich while solving a dangerous murder.
More Shows Like The Watchful Eye That You Can Watch Right Now
If you want to remain within the Freeform universe and devour a fantastic mystery thriller, Cruel Summer (2021-present) has all the right stuff. An anthology series, Cruel Summer Season 1 is set throughout three fateful summers in 1993, 1994, and 1995, during which a local teenage Texas beauty queen is kidnapped, disappears and then returns. Chiara Aurelia (Luckiest Girl Alive) gives a chilling performance as the awkward high schooler Jeanette Turner, and she dreams of becoming popular like Kate Wallis (Olivia Holt). When Kate disappears in the summer of ‘93, Jeanette goes through a stunning transformation and becomes the new queen bee at school. Once Kate is rescued and returns home, she accuses Jeanette of finding her the past summer and doing nothing, leading to a media frenzy and an intense trial. In a boiling, paranoia-inducing mystery, Jeanette and Kate go head-to-head as unreliable narrators with dark, dangerous secrets
Need a laugh? Take The Watchful Eye, turn it into comedy, and Hulu’s original series Only Murders in the Building is your answer. What could be better than Steve Martin, Martin Short, and Selena Gomez solving murders? The answer is simple: nothing. A puzzling murder has occurred in the Arconia, an apartment complex in New York City. Three tenants with seemingly nothing in common (besides the fact they’re all true-crime podcast connoisseurs) come together to get to the bottom of it, and they come closer to the truth than they ever expected. Martin stars as former television star Charles Haden-Savage, Short stars as low-on-cash Broadway director Oliver Putnam, and Gomez plays the mysterious young artistic tenant, Mabel Mora. Together they work to solve the crime, and the unlikely trio makes comedic gold as they interview the various weird and wacky tenants throughout the building while making a podcast of their own.
Like The Watchful Eye, The Sinner (2017-2021) is about another outsider looking in on a world of crime that’s vastly different from their own. Detective Harry Ambrose (Bill Pullman) is that outsider, and he disrupts every environment he enters as the tortured and reclusive New York police detective. An anthology crime series that focuses on a different murder each season, it’s not a whodunit, but a whydunit. Every story begins by showing audiences the murder and the arrest, which is where Detective Ambrose enters the scene. Season 1 stars Jessica Biel (Candy) as a seemingly normal housewife who murders a man at the beach by stabbing him several times while there with her family, and Ambrose becomes convinced there’s more to the story than meets the eye as he discovers the true shocking reason behind the death.