"KAOS," Year One

"KAOS" is a fantasy series with a fun premise.  What if the Greek gods existed in the modern day, and the world functioned the way that it did in Greek mythology?  Well, to start you'd have a much more abusive and contentious relationship between the gods and humanity, with the all-powerful Zeus (Jeff Goldblum) and Hera (Janet McTeer) as the heads of a dysfunctional family of deities that lives in immortal opulence.  The mortals on Earth spend much more of their lives devoting themselves to worship, knowing that at any moment they could be wiped out by a god-created disaster or turned into an insect.  Defiance of the gods is almost unheard of, and a desecrated monument means a national emergency.  

However, a reckoning is coming, as explained by our narrator Prometheus (Stephen Dillane), who is comically chained to the side of a mountain like in the myth, except for the times when Zeus snaps him over to Olympus to have someone to vent to.  A prophecy has been made that spells the end of Zeus's reign, and Zeus's paranoid, selfish efforts to safeguard his power make his already bad relationships with everyone around him worse.  Hera is constantly machinating behind his back.  His dealings with his brothers, Poseidon (Cliff Curtis) and Hades (David Thewlis) are fraught.  The only one of his kids who will talk to him is Dionysus (Nabhaan Rizwan), the underachiever who is still hanging around, trying to get some paternal approval.  These Olympus antics take up roughly half of the show's running time.

Meanwhile, the other half is about the humans - specifically three humans who will spell the end of Zeus.  These are Riddy (Aurora Perrineau), short for Eurydice, a woman who has fallen out of love with her husband Orpheus (Killian Scott), a man with a secret named Caeneus (Misia Butler), and Ari (Leila Farzad), short for Ariadne, the daughter of the President of Crete, Minos (Stanley Townsend).  If you know your Greek mythology, don't worry about spoilers.  Each classic story is given a few updates and subject to significant reinterpretation.  We see the whole Orpheus and Eurydice story from Eurydice's point of view, for instance, which means spending a lot more time in the underworld right as things are going metaphysically sideways.  However, despite the involvement of notables like Suzy Izzard and Billie Piper, the human storylines don't come off nearly as well as the ones about the gods, as they're often played straight.  All the fun, absurdist comedy, seems to be reserved for the immortal types.    

Created and written by Charlie Covell, "Kaos" delivers what it promises.  The production design is excellent, often incorporating clever little gags and motifs, like the underworld being entirely in black and white, and the Fates (Suzy Izzard, Ché, and Sam Buttery) all being played by trans or nonbinary actors.  The writing is pretty solid, with good pacing, and some resonant themes related to subverting systems of belief and authority.   Where the satire really hits is the material showing those in power to be totally undeserving of it, such as the narcissistic, contemptuous Zeus being thrown into turmoil because he thinks he's found a new wrinkle on his forehead, or the well-tanned Poseidon who of course swans around in a megayacht.  I wish the whole series had been about the gods' domestic squabbles - Hera being nasty to Persephone (Rakie Ayola), and any other woman she views as a threat, is a joy.  Goldblum and McTeer expertly camping it up is just the tip of the iceberg.

I should warn the prospective viewer that "KAOS" is only the first season of a planned three season show.  I'd initially thought this was a miniseries, and was disappointed to discover that the last episode didn't wrap up the way I was expecting.  There are resolutions to be found, but "KAOS" is also clearly just getting started.  I'm crossing my fingers that enough Netflix viewers feel the way I do about the show, and we get to that ultimate ending sooner rather than later.     

---