'The Beast In Me' series review: Claire Danes & Matthew Rhys are closed books in Netflix crime thriller

Netflix

The beauty be like. On a more serious note, there's nothing that writers love more than making their main characters be a writer, which brings us to a new miniseries called The Beast In Me. This eight-episode crime thriller created and co-written by Gabe Rotter, and showrun by Howard Gordon, starts with one thing and that's Aggie Wiggs (Claire Danes). She's a successful author, although in danger of being mostly a one-hit wonder as she's wrestling with writer's block when it comes to a new nonfiction book she's working on. Her personal life isn't much sunnier because she's recently lost her son Cooper (Leonard Gerome) in a car crash, separated from her partner Shelley (Natalia Morales) and is inching closer to financial disaster.

Both Aggie's professional and personal life take unexpected left turns when her new neighbours in Oyster Bay, New York turn out to be Nile (Matthew Rhys) and Nina Jarvis (Brittany Snow). Nile is a wealthy, controversial real estate nepo baby who's escaping New York City after he was the main suspect for his ex-wife Madison's (unknown actor) disappearance and death, which was ultimately deemed to be suicide. Nile accepts Aggie's proposal to be her new book's subject as she's interested in uncovering if he was actually behind Madison's fate, an interest that grows exponentially when the other participant of the tragic car crash, Teddy (unknown actor), is found dead after Aggie tells Nile about the accident. These events also embroil Nile's dad Martin (Jonathan Banks) and FBI agent Brian Abbott (David Lyons) in the ensuing drama.

There's initially a fairly slow, patient acceleration in terms of tension, which might frustrate some viewers but is nonetheless a breath of fresh air in this specific genre, and also in the current TV landscape overall. This is because there's an increasingly prevalent—even desperate—tendency to try and grab audiences with a shocking jolt, oftentimes at the cost of character development that then leads to the story fizzling out. That said, The Beast In Me does do the typical "dead body at the end of the first episode" like the premise states, but thankfully that is not what the show decides to fixate on. Instead, you get a power struggle, a quest for truth, and a look at the damage that greed tends to reap.

What is at the very core however is a cat-and-mouse race between Aggie and what she wants to find out, and Nile and what he knows if anything. Whenever Nile challenges Aggie or anyone else, the series is at its peak. He is a compulsive agitator, a beast created by the capitalist, patriarchal system who always wants to have the last word. The question is if he accomplishes that by making sure the other person will quite literally never speak again if he's out of moves.

Even with Aggie, he starts to push her immediately, whether that is by entering her home without consent (I guess we can rule out him being a vampire), uttering a slur targeted at her or asking for the going rate of her signature so can make changes in the neighbourhood. The writing (by Ali Liebegott, C.A. Johnson, Daniel Pearle, Erika Sheffer, Rotter, Gordon and Mike Skerrett) then begins to delve into boundaries, privilege, gluttony, ego and the power of the word "no"; Nile sees that word as a challenge whilst Aggie is also often too greedy to see beyond her self-absorption.

These two performances are understandably the crux of the entire show, and unfortunately, Danes' acting is one of the things preventing it from reaching the "must-see" territory, although it is tied to Aggie's arc as a whole, too. It is simply an irritatingly showy performance, one that exposes little soul but a lot of unnecessary tics and tricks. Every line of dialogue seems to be a pain to get out, every reaction shot is played for the back row. Danes does translate Aggie's hunger for success well, so not everything is bad per se and you don't get hung up on Aggie ignoring every red flag in existence. But for every solid scene, Danes is also a major part of the weakest scenes, which are between Aggie and Shelley (Morales falls victim to the writing as well), and a flashback scene or two featuring them and Cooper, which are amateurish at best.

On the flip side, Rhys is truly exceptional here. Balancing decades of unchecked privilege, overconfidence, a complete disregard of good manners and other things that would probably be considered spoilers, the actor creates a being that you can't look away from. Bolstered by fantastic direction (by Antonio Campos) in regards to blocking and framing, the tension is palpable and the drama is juicy whenever Nile is in the room. At first, you might be wondering if Snow will suffer the same fate as other significant others in the show, but she turns out to be another standout. Even though Snow has to endure some generic writing for Nina, she matches Rhys' intensity in the latter half of the season and the character gains more complexity. There's a few incredible moments to demonstrate that. In fact, whenever Rhys and Snow aren't on screen, you'll be salivating for the next time you get to see them.

While the Jarvis' household is really where the party's at, The Beast In Me doesn't have lulls thanks to a great sense of rhythm in the storytelling, controlled deftly in the editing bay (Philip Neel, Shelby Siegel), and even the less effective storylines are shot rather well with interesting setups (cinematography by Lyle Vincent). It never feels bloated and every episode has its own mission, even if the finale resolves the drama a bit too neatly; it would've been nice to see the writers write themselves into a corner and/or towards a more ambivalent ending.

But with first-rate performances from Rhys and Snow, and plenty of suspense and momentum shepherding it, the series becomes a compelling, thrilling piece of entertainment. You might want to let this beast into your living room for seven hours.

Smileys: Matthew Rhys, Brittany Snow, directing, pacing

Frowneys: Claire Danes

What do you call a parent who has recently their child? Shel-shocked.

4.0/5

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