The Burden of Female Intuition in Something Very Bad Is Going to Happen (2026)

“Trust your gut” is one of the most common pieces of advice you’ll receive during your lifetime. And as a person inclined to trust my intuition above all else, it’s the most common advice I find myself giving in real life and in my online socialising. But what happens when your gut is trying to warn you that something is seriously wrong without you being able to identify what triggered it in the first place? How can you act on a feeling or make it go away when you don’t have a clue about what could be wrong? How can you trust your intuition when you don’t know what makes it act out in the first place?

Netflix’s miniseries Something Very Bad Is Going to Happen, made by the Duffer Brothers, is about a young couple getting married in a week. Rachel and Nicky, played by Camilla Monroe and Adam DiMarco, seem to be the perfect couple on their way to a happy life together. I’m a big fan of horror, fairytales, and Ancient Greek mythology, and this miniseries combines symbols and motifs from all three with gusto, albeit under very dim lighting. It takes familiar themes about fate, soulmates, curses, and prophecy and weaves them into a story about intuition, self-deception, and doubt about the choices one makes in pursuit of happiness. 

Many of the classic fairy tales revolve around soulmates and true love. And for those soulmates to meet and experience their predestined happily ever after, they have to face many challenges, fight plenty of villains, and lift a plethora of curses. They have to prove they’re worthy of each other and of this love, presented as something rare and extraordinary, as it comes only once in a lifetime. The miniseries draws heavily on this traditional romantic take while also invoking the Ancient Greek myth of Cassandra, as many other productions have done before, and Don’t Look Up is just one of the most recent examples. Rachel, the protagonist, echoes the Trojan princess who is burdened with the gift of prophecy but cursed so that no one would ever believe her warnings. Like Cassandra, Rachel is convinced that something terrible is going to happen, yet everyone around her dismisses her fears as nothing more than a manifestation of her anxious personality.

On their way to their wedding party planned in a week on Nicky’s family estate, Rachel knows that something very bad is going to happen, and that’s a feeling no one wants to associate with their approaching nuptials. During their drive to his family home, she notices that even the environment throws a few unusual, ominous warnings of a possible future disaster, which she chooses to disregard and walk past to reach the blessed union with her beloved fiancé.

She trudges through the process of meeting his family and accepting their traditions and requests, even when they seem to be acting weird, like they’re all part of a secret she is not privy to. At one point, she’s so freaked out by their unusual and creepy behavior, she manages to convince herself that they’re plotting to kill her and sacrifice her to dark forces. Fortunately, this turns out to be just a misunderstanding. As a result, she learns about her own terrifying and rather bloody family curse. I’m not trying to spoil it for the ones who haven’t seen it yet, so I’ll just say that the curse involves true love and soulmates, and it comes with a twist that affects everyone involved in the wedding process.

Like a modern-day Cassandra, as soon as she discovers that her bloodline is cursed, she tries to warn Nicky and Nicky’s family, but she’s met with incredulity. Alone in what looks like an impossible quest, Rachel throws herself into a race against time to find out if Nicky is indeed her soulmate or if she is about to do the biggest mistake of her life. 

The feeling of dread that has been haunting her predates her relationship with Nicky. In fact, it was present from the moment they met. As in the fairy tales we all grew up with, where the prince meets Cinderella at the ball, or brings Snow White and Sleeping Beauty back to life with a kiss, Rachel and Nicky’s meeting story is also almost impossibly charming. 

Rachel’s version of their meeting each other presents her waiting to board a flight when a feeling of doom, of something very bad is going to happen, leaves her frozen at the gate, unable to board the plane. Nicky, who also decided to miss his flight after having the same feeling of dread, approaches her. They talk and come to a mutual agreement to drive home together instead of flying, and that’s how their relationship starts.

From Rachel’s perspective, she interprets meeting someone who goes through the same thing and at the same moment as fate. And despite the feeling that something very bad is going to happen, which she cannot anchor to anything real, she has all the reasons to believe that they’re each other’s soulmates. That he is her destiny. But alas, she’ll soon discover that nothing about Nicky is what it seems and that true love cannot be built on a lie. The dread she had been feeling at the airport was her intuition trying to warn her about Nicky and his duplicitous nature, and their foreboding future together. 

As a horror and independent movie watcher and fan, the slow pacing of this 8-episode miniseries did not bother me at all, but I do understand why some people would have problems with its style and why it may seem to be dragging to reach its conclusion. What is most interesting about Something Very Bad Is Going to Happen is that even the slower scenes are saturated with symbols and metaphors ready for interpretation. Alongside intuition and the Cassandra complex, it also deals with loss of identity in marriage, generational trauma, and fear of commitment, especially to the wrong person. It emphasizes the importance of being truthful, first and foremost to yourself, and listening to your inner warning bells as soon as they start chiming.