Netflix’s The Beast in Me is lean, and mean, gripping and suspenseful, and one of the year’s best thrillers. The last three episodes are some of the most enthralling I’ve seen in a mystery thriller in years. The limited series is smart, full of armrest-grabbing tension, and takes well-calculated turns that keep the audience guessing—a rarity given the amount of recycled content on streaming services nowadays. Showrunner Howard Gordon (Homeland) has never met a corner he couldn’t write himself out of.
And he does so with satisfying results.
The story follows Aggie Wiggs (Emmy and Golden Globe winner Claire Danes), a successful writer struggling with writer’s block brought on by personal tragedy. She lost her child when a local teenager rammed his car into hers, leaving her lonely and filled with regret. Her ex-wife, Shelley (Dead to Me’s Natalie Morales), refuses to take her calls. Aggie’s home is falling apart. To make matters worse, her editor, Carol (The Penguin’s Deirdre O’Connell), refuses to give her an advance until she sees the first four chapters.
However, everything is about to change when she meets her new neighbor (The Americans’ Matthew Rhys), a notorious member of a famed New York City real estate family. Led by his father, Martin (Breaking Bad’s Jonathan Banks), these types of moguls know how to get their hands dirty. Jarvis has that same reputation—he’s been under suspicion for murdering his wife, whose body has never been found. Now, married to his missing wife’s assistant (Brittany Snow), he’s leading a quiet life in the suburbs.
Nile is pushy, blunt, and abrasive. He even brings up Aggie’s dead child to manipulate her into signing a petition for a new jogging trail. Naturally, Aggie begins to detest the man. Yet, when a drunk FBI agent, Brian Abbott (She Rides Shotgun’s David Lyons), warns her to stay away from him, she becomes intrigued, like a moth to a flame. With bills piling up and needing a distraction from her lot in life, she accepts his offer to write his biography. She sells it to him as a way to soften his public image and a marketable payday.
Though what Aggie really wants is to fulfill her insatiable need to uncover the truth, no matter the cost.
The Beast in Me is a production by Jodie Foster, Conan O’Brien, and creator Gabe Rotter. A Hitchcockian thriller that builds unbearable suspense and tension. Taut and unrelenting, the writing is so sharp it forces the viewer to dig deep into the characters’ paranoia, with themes of guilt, obsession, and moral ambiguity rising to the surface with each passing episode. The same holds true here, as both lead characters embody good and evil, but begin to shift, passing each other along the moral spectrum.
That is, until the closing chapters, with the shocking episodes “The Beast in Me,” “Ghosts,” and “The Last Word,” which have a relentless and ferocious grip that refuses to let go. Danes is good here, though in her first couple of episodes, she falls back into the overexpressive mannerisms that can be disjointing. Yet, as the story begins to take shape, they are not as noticeable. Still, for a character experiencing depression and stress, they are hardly objectionable.
Yet, The Beast in Me’s real showstopper is Rhys, whose performance is like a powder keg ready to explode. When he finally lets the character of Nile out, it’s one of the most intense, unbridled displays of raw emotion and aggression you’ll ever see. Although the ending is a little too clean for my liking, I feel it was included to set up a scene, hoping to spark a second season. The show is an enthralling experience and a first-class binge from beginning to end.
The Beast In Me is now available to stream exclusively on Netflix.
The Beast in Me is lean and mean, gripping and suspenseful, and of the year's best thrillers the keeps you under the spell of its ferocious grip that refuses to let go.
I am a film and television critic and a proud member of the Las Vegas Film Critic Society, Critics Choice Association, and a 🍅 Rotten Tomatoes/Tomato meter approved. However, I still put on my pants one leg at a time, and that’s when I often stumble over. When I’m not writing about movies, I patiently wait for the next Pearl Jam album and pass the time by scratching my wife’s back on Sunday afternoons while she watches endless reruns of California Dreams. I was proclaimed the smartest reviewer alive by actor Jason Isaacs, but I chose to ignore his obvious sarcasm. You can also find my work on InSession Film, Ready Steady Cut, Hidden Remote, Music City Drive-In, Nerd Alert, and Film Focus Online.
