The Beast In Me

There are miniseries that play at being a “solid thriller” and that’s it. This isn’t one of them. This one bites, and it does so from minute one with a strange, uneasy energy—like someone’s watching you from a window you didn’t know was there. I devoured it gladly because it doesn’t settle for intrigue: it drags you into a spiral of suspicion, obsession, and paranoia that’s hard to **** big hook is the duel. Claire Danes is at that point where she looks like she might break, yet she still controls every scene with her jaw clenched. And Matthew Rhys… my God. Here he’s unhinged, yes, but the worst (best) part is that he never plays it like a clown. He makes it genuinely dangerous: someone who can be charming for two seconds and, on the third, give you the creeps. That mix of charisma and threat is pure fuel for a story like this.What I liked most is how twisted it gets without constantly going for the cheap shot. There are twists, of course, and a few episodes leave you with that “okay, one more and I’ll stop” feeling (lie). At times you can tell it stretches certain turns a bit, like it wants to tighten the spring a little too much… but overall it worked for me, because the mood stays **** atmosphere does a lot of heavy lifting too: pretty houses that don’t feel safe, silences that last just long enough for you to imagine the worst, and staging that slowly locks you in with the characters. It’s a show of looks, details, tiny gestures that scream “something’s wrong here” even when nobody ****’s not a perfect miniseries, and it’s not trying to be. If you want something that reinvents the genre, this isn’t it. But if you want a highly bingeable psychological thriller, the kind that leaves you a bit tense and thinking about it afterward, there’s plenty here. And yes: Rhys is very, very, very messed up… and that’s exactly why it’s so much fun to watch.

Claire Danes plays a successful writer, who’s disturbed by her new neighbor (Matthew Rhys), a rich man who was suspected of killing his first wife. After several confrontations, she agrees to pen a book about him, hoping to set the record straight. Of course, her digging leads to revelations. In terms of plot and predictability, this is pretty standard fare. Danes creates a character who’s in continual distress (which gets a bit tiresome) and Rhys is effectively creepy. Thanks to the chemistry, their cat-and-mouse game is interesting, but the back-and-forth does get repetitive. Like so many of these thrillers, the situations veer into unrealistic and there’s one glaring misstep: Every time she interviews someone for the book (except the last), she never takes notes or records the conversations. That’s pretty standard procedure for a researcher. Overall, it’s a cerebral thriller that only really gets interesting in the final eps…if you can make it that long.

Not a terrible waste of time for viewers, but those looking for something close to the Americans or Homeland might be disappointed. Things become clearer in episode 4 and the story gets more exciting until it becomes implausible. It’s also a it of a stretch for Matthew Rhys to play this role IMHO. He’s just too nice! Uncle Rick’s age is closer to Niles—who cares they’re both bald! it’s not likely there will be a season 2 thankfully.

Stopped watching the first episode; yes, it was that bad. Not worth my time to watch the season.

Décidément, toujours le même rôle stéréotypé pour Claire Danes qui mérite pourtant sensiblement mieux que ça… Le rôle de la névropathe paranoïaque bipolaire s’avère en effet très fatigant à suivre ici : une impression de déjà vu qui tourne en boucle et qui énerve également, car tous les clichés y passent aussi : son petit clébard idiot, ses factures à payer et bien entendu, le psychodrame familial qui va avec tout ça ! Et en face, ce n’est guère mieux… Le voisin est en effet gros comme une maison, je veux dire qu’il est écrit sur son front que c’est un mafieux… et/ou un tueur en série bien évidemment. Et un comploteur aussi, car il complote dans cette banlieue de bourges, il complote à fond pour faire chier l’écrivaine (la parano bipolaire) qui a -aussi- le syndrome de la page blanche… Nous, on a le syndrome de l’endormissement par contre : les paupières sont lourdes, l’attention est en baisse… on scrolle de la chiasse sur TikTok… non, quand même pas… « on est pas des animals » (réplique d’un film célèbre de Scorsese…). Bref, donc, on a arrêté rapidement les dégâts avec cette daube de chez Netflop (une de plus) parce que franchement on a autre chose à foutre, quand même (d’autres séries attendent).