About 25 years ago, comics fell in love with a storytelling device called decompression. At its best, it expanded what typically would be short stories to several issues long to better explore emotional beats and psychological motives and give the occasional joke room to breathe. For instance, Stan Lee and Steve Ditko told the origin of Spider-Man in 11 pages. Brian Michael Bendis and Mark Bagley retold an updated version of the origin in ULTIMATE SPIDER-MAN in more than 130 pages spread over six installments.
Over time, however, the technique became a source of frustration for many. Too often, readers would find themselves wielding through a multi-issue arc only to discover it was more a prelude of things to come than its own story. These exercises in attention maintenance weren’t without their charms, but even the highest of charms grow tired with repetition. Netflix’s Kaos, from Charlie Covell, creator of the excellent teen road trip series The End of the F***ing World, sadly feels a lot like those infuriatingly decompressed comics of the early 2000s. Which is to say, there’s plenty to enjoy in the eight episodes, but by the time credits roll on the season, there’s a distinct lack of satisfaction.
To tackle the positives first, Covell and co-writer Georgia Christou’s chop-and-screw approach to adapting Greek mythology makes good use of the material without being chained to the centuries-old tales. For example, recasting Persephone (Rakie Ayola) as Hades’ (David Thewlis) willing partner gives the audience a unique take on the duo, reveals how myth works even in a world where the gods are demonstrably real, and adds a layer of wickedness to Hera who seems to oversee holy PR, for lack of a better way to put it.
Other changes don’t work as well. Casting Dionysus (Nabhaan Rizwan) as a party boy struggles to reform makes plenty of sense. Giving him the Hermes role in the story of Orpheus (Killian Scott, playing the romantic as a famous singer ala Ed Sheeran) and Euripides aka Riddy (Aurora Perrineau), on the other hand, doesn’t give the character further depth so makes as it just weighs him down. Still, even if not all of it works, keeping the adaptation loose leaves room for surprises and a bit more of Covell’s authorial voice.
Much of Kaos’s cast also qualifies as a positive. As the prophecy-obsessed Zeus, Jeff Goldblum is wonderfully feckless and reckless. He’s definitely Goldblumming, but he’s hitting enough variation on the notes. Thus, a performance that easily could’ve felt like his Grandmaster from the MCU in a different costume is distinctive and unique. He captures the right mix of blasé disinterest and hair-trigger temper that the megarich seem to possess here on Earth, the perfect vibe for the all-too-flawed gods of Greek history. His Olympus, a megamansion estate of pink flamingo aesthetics, further undermines him. He may be able to reign down lightning from above, but that doesn’t mean he has good taste.
His wife Hera (Janet McTeer) is both cleverer and more ruthless. One of his brothers, Poseidon (Cliff Curtis, having a blast), is clearly the cool one. Together, they further the impression of Zeus as a lazy, complacent god whose time has passed by a bit. Bolstering the argument that he’s also capable of the casual cruelty only the truly disconnected can manage are his other brother, Hades, the only sibling who seems to give a damn, and Prometheus (Stephen Dillane), his “best friend,” who he still punishes with eternal liver surgery by way of an eagle’s beak.
Kaos’s bench depth means plenty of strong performances from the likes of Leila Farzad as Ari, heir to the throne of Crete, and Misia Butler as Caeneus. Unfortunately, even at eight episodes, the series seems to be just skimming the surfaces of so many characters. As a result, fun bit parts like Debi Mazar’s Medusa or Eddie Izzard’s Lachy end up squeezed into little more than glorified cameos.
The changes in this Earth, where polytheism reigns and deities regularly put their thumbs on the scales of human existence, are fun to watch out for. Obviously, there are plenty of big ones. For instance, the citizens of Troy exist as distrusted and abused refugees in Crete. Also noteworthy are Greece’s prominence on the world stage and the suggestion that democracy might not have caught on.
Still, it’s the smaller ones that really intrigue. Like telephone technology existing, but seemingly deadending at cordless handsets. There’s not a cell phone, never mind a smartphone, in sight. Or, the digital wristwatch trend that captured men’s fashion in the 80s never ended on this Earth.
All that’s good about Kaos comes in service to a plot full of activity but little forward progression. The series kicks off with an act of vandalism during Crete’s celebration of Zeus. Seeing a monument to him covered in feces and vulgarity ratchets up the king of the god’s temper and paranoia. Prometheus, in narration, lets the audience know that, this time, Zeus’s paranoia may not be ill-founded as three humans may be on the precipice of fulfilling a prophecy that will send the pantheon crashing down. That simple description leaves out plenty, but tugging on all the plot threads would up in spoilers rather rapidly. Prophecies prove tricky to interpret until too late, lies stand revealed, and alliances form and dissolve.
It sounds like plenty to capture the attention, but it feels like wheel spinning in practice. The last ten minutes of the eighth episode set up what promises to be a thrilling second season, certainly. But it’s frustrating no one thought to mix some of those thrills into this season. Most, if not all, of season 1’s plot developments feel necessary. Yet, it isn’t difficult to imagine a season that sets up and resolves far more efficiently while sacrificing little. After all, as noted above, few characters get much depth despite the luxurious running time.
The other biggest drawback to Kaos is Netflix’s house style. Cinematographers Kit Fraser and Pau Esteve Birba manage to evade some of the genericness of the typical Netflix series thanks to the black-and-white photography of Hades’ realm. Sadly, that’s only a portion of the show. Too often, it’s robbed of some of its appealing strangeness by visuals that are flat and populated by bland colors.
Kaos has plenty of promising tools at its disposal in both the cast and crew. It absolutely has its moments. Unfortunately, it all feels like a warmup for a season we may never get. All past is prelude, yes, but not every first season should be.
Kaos overruns Netflix starting August 29.