The Best Review of Eric : Benedict Cumberbatch's Dark Netflix Crime Drama Is About a Sad Man with Puppets
Contrary to popular belief, the quirky new limited series is far more British and less humorous than it is.
A long-running micro-genre, warped takes on children's TV shows and the broken people who create them. Usually, it's presented as a dark comedy that capitalizes on the paradox of childhood innocence being portrayed and acted out by depressed adults. One example of this is the dramedy series Kidding on Showtime, in which Jim Carrey played a Mister Rogers-like character who was mourning the loss of his son.
Eric, a new limited series on Netflix, takes an unconventional approach to the genre. Its novelty lies in its complete removal of humor. It is an almost unbearably dark crime drama that isn't even meant to be funny, using a talking puppet as a symbol of psychological decay. It's a daring gambit that pays off.
In a 1985 Manhattan Sesame Street-style show, Benedict Cumberbatch plays lead puppeteer Vincent Anderson. Despite his brilliance, he is tormented by addiction and mental illness. Depending on Vincent's mood, his 9-year-old son Edgar (Ivan Morris Howe) either loves him or is afraid of him, and his marriage to his wife Cassie (Gaby Hoffmann) is in serious trouble.
Edgar leaves the apartment by himself the morning following a particularly heated argument between Vincent and Cassie and doesn't return. Assigned to the case is NYPD missing persons unit detective Michael Ledroit (McKinley Belcher III), who believes Edgar's disappearance is related to the case of Marlon Rochelle, a 14-year-old Black boy who vanished in the same neighborhood several months prior. Vincent devises his own strategy to locate Edgar while Ledroit continues his investigation. Edgar will come home when he sees Eric, the blue, furry, seven-foot-tall monster puppet that he built and put on display. Vincent experiences auditory and visual hallucinations of Eric along the route.
Although Eric is set in America, it feels more like a British production. It is most reminiscent of gloomy, socially conscious British crime dramas such as Happy Valley and Broadchurch. Abi Morgan, who wrote the limited series The Hour and won an Emmy in 2013, is the author. In addition, she was the creator of the fantastic limited series River, in which Stellan Skarsgård played a London detective plagued by visions of a slain colleague. Eric seems like a more aggressive development of her previous series' work.
Ledroit is a gay man who stays home from work, and Marlon is also gay, so Morgan uses the investigation to explore themes of racism in policing, gentrification and homelessness, and homophobia. The message—that progress begins at the level of families and workplaces, but there are many unresolved social issues—is timeless, even though the language feels modern.
Eric gets the impression that there are two shows because Vincent and Ledroit's stories are being told simultaneously. Luckily, they are both interesting and have enough in common to prevent them from becoming completely different. Vincent's story is a psychological character study of a man on the verge of collapse, while Ledroit's story has the mystery procedural elements that give the plot a hook.
Here, Cumberbatch is very much in his element. For the second time in a row, he is portraying an addict with a strained relationship with his father, following 2018's Patrick Melrose. And anyone who has watched Sherlock will recognize his portrayal of a man who feels that his intelligence gives him the right to treat others horribly. He fits a certain type. However, he's very skilled at it, and it's always entertaining to hear him perform in that almost unnaturally low voice that he uses for Eric.
Hoffmann gives the most moving performance of the show as Cassie, a woman who has had enough of her untrustworthy husband and is trying to accept that, despite her son's disappearance, things could always be worse.
The brilliant limited series This Is Going to Hurt, which had a tone somewhat similar to Eric's but with more humor, was directed by Lucy Forbes, who also serves as Eric's director. Even though Eric can be quite dark at times, Forbes' amazing sense of color is always pleasing to the eye. Additionally, the show's seamless use of CGI backdrops that recreate 1985 New York is noteworthy.
The main issue with the show is that there are scenes that are so fabricated and unrealistic that they make it impossible to watch for real. High-definition security camera footage from 2024 will be central to several important events. From various perspectives, the cameras record all Ledroit requires, giving the impression that a director is obtaining news coverage of an ongoing crime. There are so many "that would never happen" moments in such a short amount of time that they compound and overwhelm one another. In a vacuum, they can be excused. However, the way things end up here detracts from the satisfying climax. It seems as though Morgan penned the necessary steps with the idea of returning to them later to figure out how to make them work, but he never did.
But there's a lot of strength in everything that builds to that moment. Although there isn't much about Eric that we haven't seen before, it is assembled in a compelling enough way. The visual identity is appealing, the performances are powerful, and the show's genuine lack of humor—about a guy seeing a puppet—is truly inspiring. (Eric Review: Benedict Cumberbatch Is a Sad Man With Puppets in Dark Netflix Crime Drama)
Premieres: Thursday, May 30 on Netflix with all six episodes
Who's in it: Benedict Cumberbatch, Gaby Hoffmann, McKinley Belcher III, Ivan Morris Howe, Dan Fogler, Clarke Peters
Who's behind it: Creator Abi Morgan; director Lucy Forbes; executive producers Benedict Cumberbatch, Jane Featherstone, Lucy Dyke
For fans of: British procedurals, Sherlock, sadness, puppets
How many episodes we watched: 6 of 6
