[Warning: General spoilers ahead.]
I’m generally a sucker for conspiracy theory dramas/thrillers (see Rabbit Hole, The Night Manager (which is getting a second season), The Night Agent (same, it premieres in January), and Tom Clancy’s Jack Ryan (which is getting a film!), etc.) and I can legit watch Colman Domingo and Deon Cole in anything. Lucky, lucky me that those interests are intersecting in the new Netflix series, The Madness, which drops all eight episodes at 12:01 am PT tonight.
Created by Stephen Belber, who co-showruns with executive producer VJ Boyd, and directed by Clément Virgo, who also wears an executive producer hat, the drama follows Domingo’s Muncie Daniels, a rising pundit on the cusp of his own show, whose poor choice of a remote writing cabin simultaneously drops him down a rabbit hole and puts a target on his back.
Driving out of Philadelphia to do some writing at a cabin on a lake, he has a brief, awkward/uneasy meeting with his neighbor (Tahmoh Penikett) but doesn’t catch his name. When he later discovers him murdered and then flees into the woods to outrun the perpetrators, he ends up in that no mans land of incredulous, then suspicious law enforcement and whiplash-inducing persona non grata status. Then Daniels learns that the victim was Mark Simon, a well-known, well-connected white supremacist with a large and scary following, making him an easy fall guy for the frame up that follows.
While that would be unnerving enough on its own, he soon has to move quickly to protect his estranged wife, Elena (Marsha Stephanie Blake), his children, Demetrius (Thaddeus J. Mixson) and Kallie (Gabrielle Graham), and his BFF/lawyer, Kwesi (Cole), whose hands are immediately tied about helping him. Along the way he finds maybe-allies in federal agents (John Ortiz, who we last saw on Will Trent, and Ennis Esmer) and Simon’s widow, Lucie (Tamsin Topolski).
And then there’s the requisite shady billionaire in the mix, a suitably smarmy Bradley Whitford as Stu Magnusson. The series filmed around Toronto, so there’s a very fun #CdnTV HITG at work. Keep an eye out for my Steve Byers, as well as familiar faces David Cubitt, Stephen McHattie, Ronnie Rowe, Kimberly-Sue Murray, and Vinessa Shaw.
I’m about halfway through it, and it’s an easy binge watch as Daniels is boxed into making dangerous moves to get the truth on his own because he’s not sure who he can trust. That’s not to say it’s all serious, despite the very terrifyingly timely nature of its politics. There are some lighter moments as he acknowledges the ridiculousness of his situation and is determined to prove his innocence. He’s also still trying to regain space in his family, something he’d forfeited while riding high on the edge of being famous.
After Fear the Walking Dead rebooted Victor Strand’s character several times over the 109 episodes where he appeared, it’s nice to see Domingo get the chance to do a very tight eight-episode portrayal of Daniels. Also fun alongside my Canadian spotting is the baseline, “pretty sure we can’t trust you”-ness that runs through every non-familial character Daniels comes across.
All eight episodes of The Madness drop on Netflix on Thanksgiving at 3:01 am/2:01 am c. Here are a couple of sneak peeks.
