In Eric, the latest in a new wave of prestige limited series on Netflix, Benedict Cumberbatch plays the troubled creator of a Sesame Street-like show whose son goes missing. The six-part series is named neither after Cumberbatch’s character, Vincent, nor his missing son, Edgar, but instead, after a large imaginary monster that Vincent teams up with to track Edgar down. It’s an invitingly bizarre set-up, but one that the show appears to become increasingly wary of as it goes along, ultimately settling on a strange tonal territory that combines the melancholy of Where the Wild Things Are and the toxic machismo of a Drishyam-era Ajay Devgn movie. When the 10-year-old Edgar goes missing on his way to school one morning — Vincent neglected to accompany him — it sets into motion a densely plotted, at times frustratingly unfocussed thriller that never really finds a narrative sweet spot. In the first episode, through a burst of clumsy exposition, we are told that Vincent is something of a creative genius. But ‘genius’ is often just a kind word for ‘monster’. In addition to being a bad parent and a worse husband, Vincent is routinely terrible to his co-workers, ruling over his children’s show — it’s called Good Day Sunshine — like a paranoid dictator worried about being overthrown. Also read - Baby Reindeer review: One of the best shows of the year so far, the heart-wrenching thriller continues Netflix’s tremendous 2024 And because he filters his entire life through his work, Vincent decides that the only way that he can bring Edgar back is not by relying on Ledriot, the stoic NYPD detective in charge of the case, but by making an appeal via Good Day Sunshine. And so, he creates Eric, who looks an awful lot like Sully from Monsters Inc, but feels like somebody who’d feel more at home around the foul-mouthed Hormone Monsters on the animated show Big Mouth than in a heartwarming Pixar movie. The metaphor is rather pointed — Vincent is the monster, duh — but the show holds onto this ‘revelation’ like it’s the twist at the end of The Sixth Sense. Eric doesn’t merely want to be a thriller about a missing child, however, nor is it satisfied with being a character study about a mentally ill man with daddy issues. By setting the show in 1980s New York, creator Abi Morgan addresses mayoral politics, the housing crisis, and race tensions. Vincent himself is the son of a wealthy, Trump-like real estate mogul. You can almost picture the arguments they must’ve had when he was a child, rebelling against his dad’s wishes to join him in generating wealth. It’s like if Kendall Roy actually went and became a rapper. Vincent’s strained relationship with his father — they’re essentially estranged — certainly appears to have informed his own bond (or lack thereof) with Edgar. Obviously, he doesn’t recognise this. All of this material is ripe for human drama, but far too often, Eric becomes distracted by subplots that should ideally have been restricted to passing asides. There’s a local nightclub owner with a shady past, an ongoing local election, and also an older missing person’s case that resurfaces after Edgar’s disappearance. A 14-year-old boy named Marlon disappeared a year earlier, but the case went mostly unaddressed. His mother, who still calls Ledroit every few days, is rightfully outraged about Edgar getting more media traction than what Marlon, a Black teenager, ever did. The show never realises that by using Marlon to add colour (in more ways than one) to Edgar and Vincent’s story, it’s also guilty of the same mistake. In fact, it sort of disrespects Edgar as well. The clearly traumatised child is forgotten for large chunks of the story, as Vincent’s crusade begins taking an entirely selfish turn. He’s fired off his show, and his wife decides that now is the best time to reveal that she’s pregnant with the child of a man she’d been cheating on him with. This would send anybody off the edge, let alone a spiralling alcoholic wracked by guilt with the guilt of losing his only child. But even though Vincent practically screams for our sympathies, he’s ultimately too unpleasant a character to get behind. You watch his rapid descent into madness not with concern, but with a degree of annoyance. The show is never able to effectively communicate that Vincent’s mind snapping in two — he actively begins interacting with the imaginary monster in public — was triggered by Edgar’s disappearance, because he was pretty much the same person before as well. Read more - Ripley review: Andrew Scott delivers the performance of the year in rip-roaring masterpiece, among Netflix’s best shows ever And the shortcomings in the writing aren’t merely limited to the dense plotting, but also the dialogue. “Now we’re cooking with gas,” Vincent says in one scene, using an expression that feels like it entered the zeitgeist only some years ago. “Feed the cat,” says his wife, as if their beloved pet doesn’t have a name. A show like Eric thrives on atmosphere — the streets should feel slick with grime; the sort that you wouldn’t want to slip and fall on — but instead, it has that unmistakably pristine sheen that so many streaming shows find themselves adopting for one reason or another. But ironically, it makes sense that Eric, a show named after an imaginary character, would feel this delusional about its own non-existent importance. Eric Creator - Abi Morgan Cast - Benedict Cumberbatch, Gabby Hoffman, Ivan Morris Howe, McKinley Belcher III, Dan Fogler, Clarke Peters Rating - 2/5
