TV Retrospective: "Maniac" - Season 1

Emma Stone in Maniac

In an era of peak TV, is there any way for Netflix to stand out? It seems impossible considering the onslaught of content that they have put out on a weekly basis, which often includes two to three original programming series, as well as various movies that may or may not be good. It takes a lot to be a key show, and Maniac may have found that code with the most obvious formula imaginable: get a prestigious director, big stars, and make a series that is engrossing in every detail, allowing the viewer to want to watch on while also wanting to think long and hard about what they see. The show is the latest from director Cary Fukunaga, whose last series True Detective created one of the finest seasons of TV this decade. It's safe to say that while Maniac is a bit more esoteric, it's further evidence that he is one of the TV greats, and his latest is an affecting ode to mental illness and creativity in its finest forms. 

The show centers around Owen (Jonah Hill) and Annie (Emma Stone) as they participate in a neurological study. There's already a sense that Owen is unstable, as he has hallucinations encouraging him to enter the study, break the rules and try to find some form of independence. Considering that the show is a breach into the mind of these strange individuals, it creates a trip that is somehow grounded in deeper truth even as it falls into a fantasy that everyone has of themselves. These can be such things as mobster and heist movies, or it could merely be an exploration of past relationships that ended regretfully. There's a lot to unpack in the series, and it's more than the brain expansion mumbo jumbo that maybe fuels more action-based works like Inception. Instead, it's a journey into a world that gives actors a chance to flex their creative muscles and put on characters that are odd.

For instance, there's a whole episode where Owen and Annie embody a redneck couple, and they both look to be having a lot of fun with their roles. To some extent everything has an artificial gloss to it, but that only adds to the enjoyment of the series. These are thoughts that run rampant through these characters' minds, even meshing at different points to create unified consciousness. It's surreal, and even gets stranger in the series' back half of episodes. With all of that said, the magic of Stone and Hill are enough to keep the series going. Because they bring an honesty to the characters, they are allowed to be as fictional as possible, especially as the artifice tears away to the core of what the study means to them.

Though the study in theory is maybe too good to be true. The main machine running data keeps malfunctioning, and there's constant worry from the staff that this failing project will end badly. It has in the past, and it leaves the audience to wonder the futures of Annie and Owen. Will they get out of this, or will they even want to leave? There's a lot to wonder in this prism, and it becomes more perplexing as one of the operators' mother (played by Sally Field) enters the picture, somehow placing herself into other people's consciousness, as she tries to understand what makes people happy. The reality is that she doesn't know in spite of hundreds of experiments. She is just as miserable as ever, and it only raises the question as to why anyone would want to do this project in the first place.

True Detective was a flashier show in a lot of ways compared to Maniac. Sure, it didn't have people turning into hawks and elves, but it did feature more showy camerawork and catchphrases that gave the show a hook. There is no Yellow King that the characters in Maniac are chasing. What they're after is a stability that could make them better people. However, it comes with realizations that this logic is a bit like escapism. There's no definite answer. Fukunaga shoots the testing room with a bright array of colors, creating a dizzying, hypnotic sensation that throws the viewer into a trance necessary to fulfill the surrealism of the series. The worlds inside are otherwise very grounded in their logic, capturing fragments of memories that probably don't belong to these people, at least in concrete form. However, the series also isn't obsessed with breaking reality like Michel Gondry. Instead, it's about hiding clues of these characters inside their imaginations, which allows Fukunaga to be more subtle with his approach.

One of the benefits of the series is that it's one of the few labeled (for now) as a limited series, meaning that these 10 episodes could be it. This could be a special journey into the lives of two people who learn empathy through obscure methods. It's a wonderful journey, and one that feels grounded in a strange sense of logic that is deeply emotional as well as striving for an intellectual approach. It isn't just about what's inside Annie and Owen's heads that the show is interested. It's interested in why the study even exists to begin with. There's a lot of variables out there to guide the series through bizarre scenes that are somehow accessible to mainstream audiences. If nothing else, it proves the depth and diversity that Hill and Stone can have in the right role. They're downright engaging, even with hacky accents or costumes that look a bit off on them.

Maniac is another Netflix show destined for its own cult legacy. Then again, that's what the first season of True Detective built by the end. The one issue is that it's too early to determine how big that cult will get. However, it's also a perfect time to watch so that the dissection and understanding of the series can be understood through think pieces and video essays detailing the series' many subtle clues. It's a show with some depth, and one likely to reward patient viewers. If that's not the case for you, it's at least a very addictive show that challenges the norms of what sci-fi can be with a highly prestigious cast and crew. Maybe it's not the best show that 2018 has given us from Netflix, but it's definitely one that's hard to ignore for sheer ingenuity and execution. It shows that the actors can do a lot more than what has been expected of them in recent years, and that's probably the greatest surprise of all.

Overall Rating: 4 out of 5