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Writers know it's not always easy to find something you want to write about.
That's why in the new Netflix series The Beast in Me, a writer played by Claire Danes, has mixed feelings about the arrival of her new neighbor, played by Matthew Rhys.
On the one hand, he's a famous, rich and despised real estate guy who might make a good subject for her next book.
On the other hand, one reason he's despised is that an awful lot of people suspect he murdered his first wife.
What can you say?
Everything is about trade-offs.
The two cautiously get acquainted as she tries to figure out the truth.
I'm Linda Holmes, and today we're talking about The Beast in Me on Pop Culture Happy Hour from NPR.
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Joining me today is one of the hosts of NPR's Code Switch podcast, Gene Demby.
Hello, Gene.
What's good with you, friend?
So good to be here.
It is so good to see you.
Also with us is Kristen Meinzer.
She co-hosts The Nightly on Hatch+.
I didn't know that.
Hey, Kristen.
Hey, Linda.
Thanks for having me back.
Absolutely.
We are delighted to have you always.
All right.
The Beast in Me unites two of the true big shots of the prestige streaming era Claire Danes, who of course starred in Homeland, and Matthew Rhys, who starred in The Americans.
Danes plays Aggie Wiggs, a writer whose memoir about her con artist father won a Pulitzer Prize.
But in the years since it was published, she's struggled to come up with a new book, especially after the death of her young son and the breakup of her marriage.
She's knocking around her fancy house all alone when she realizes she has a new neighbor.
A real estate tycoon named Niall Jarvis, played by Reese, has moved in next door with his wife.
She's played by Brittany Snow, the very busy, by the way we should say, Brittany Snow.
Mm-hmm.
Jarvis is working on a major construction project that's running into various problems, but his bigger challenge is that he's widely suspected of having murdered his first wife, even though her death has been officially treated as a suicide.
Aggie realizes that Jarvis might make a compelling subject for her new book if she can get him to trust her and cooperate further.
Of course, if he's a murderer, this might not be the smartest thing to do.
There's also an FBI agent who's fixated on bringing down Niall and his nefarious father, played by the always nefarious-seeming Jonathan Banks.
And it's not clear whether this FBI agent is trustworthy either.
The show was created by X-Files writer Gabe Rotter, and the showrunner is Howard Gordon, who worked closely with Danes on Homeland.
The Beast in Me is streaming now on Netflix.
Kristen, I'm going to start with you.
How did you like this?
Well, I got to say, I was hooked from the first few minutes.
It was one of those situations where Netflix is like are you sure you should be watching this much TV?
Are you still watching?
And I, of course, am like, get off my back, Netflix.
I can't help it.
I love your show.
I wanted to know from the beginning is Aggie going to be able to get down to the bottom of things, even though I found her completely unlikable, which I think is the point?
Yes, I think that's on purpose.
I also wanted to see what Niall would be able to get away with.
He obviously is also unlikable, again, the point.
And I wanted to see who would come out on top and who might not survive, because it's kind of hinted at.
Maybe one of these people won't walk out alive.
I will say the only fault of the series in my opinion was the final two episodes, and They did kind of feel like cheating.
They did rely heavily on the flashback and confession.
But in the end I was fine with that because to me the show was more about the cat and mouse game than it was about The big reveal.
I think that's fair.
I might even say the big reveal wasn't even that big of a reveal.
No, no.
All right.
So you basically dug this, it sounds like.
Oh, I sure did.
Yeah, I was there for it.
Good.
All right.
Gene, what did you think?
The big reveal being not that big a reveal, was like.
My issue with it was that like it felt like a lot of times there should have been more tension and it like let the slack out.
I mean nobody does anything.
Distraught and obsessed like Claire Danes, like the first season of Homeland is like her sort of becoming unraveled as she sort of fixates on this thing.
And Matthew Rhys, I mean The American is like one of my very favorite shows, like one of my two or three favorite shows ever, and so I was like this is for me and I just felt very much like, oh man, I wish this was better.
I wish this was better, and my big issue was the lack of tension I felt.
I felt like a lot of your suspicions sort of get confirmed very early in the show.
And so it felt like, oh man, I wish there was like a little more mystery, a little more suspense.
Yeah.
They don't really drag out the idea of like, is he a creepy weirdo?
Because pretty quickly he's a creepy weirdo.
And so you don't really get a lot of like.
Is this guy going to turn out to be misunderstood?
But actually he's not a terrible guy or anything like that.
My struggle with this was that it felt very, very, very familiar to me.
You know, you talked about Claire Danes playing sort of this kind of part.
I felt like it was probably too close to other things I've seen her do.
I think like once this sort of like Claire Danes quivering chin became kind of a running joke, then every time I see it on this show it feels a little jokey, which I don't think it's supposed to.
So I found that a little distracting.
To me the whole story of like here she is and she meets this guy and everybody thinks he's a bad guy.
But she's trying to like iron out, is he really a bad guy?
Or are they going to have like a strange bond, even though she's trying to play this game with him?
And I'm like, I think I've seen her do that thing before.
And, you know, Kristen referred to the last two episodes.
And I think, without getting into too much, that I don't want to say shows like this have been doing a thing for a while where they will get you to a very tense point in the story.
And then they'll be like, but wait.
Let's spend an entire episode jumping way back in time to a different story that focuses on different people.
That introduces a bunch of other stuff.
And, yes, it's background for the story you've been watching.
But here it's the second to last episode.
And it's just to me the wrong moment to drain out a lot of the tension of what you're doing and suddenly be like, but wait, before we do this – you know, let's tell you the prequel.
I'm like, no, no, no, no, no.
If you're going to do that, you got to do it earlier, man.
Like I can't, you can't do it the seventh out of eight episodes.
So I had sort of the same reaction as Jean that like, I really wanted this to be a little better.
I just, I enjoyed parts of it.
I think Brittany Snow is really settling in nicely to this like weird, untrustworthy or maybe untrustworthy part of her career journey.
But I just felt like the whole thing was a little slack.
Mm hmm.
I'm okay with those things about her.
It's kind of like, am I going to stop watching George Clooney play debonair roles?
This is just what he does.
This is his thing, right?
Yeah, I get it.
I get it.
And I'm fine with that.
But I also just want to piggyback on what you said about Brittany Snow.
I thought she was a nice surprise in this.
And you said earlier, she's been very busy.
She has been.
And I've been delighted to see her really go in different directions.
I feel like her thing was kind of frothy and delightful in the past, but- ever since I saw her in the horror movie X, I'm like oh, Brittany Snow, you're doing some stuff now.
And I think her role here on this show is really good, because I think a lot of people do underestimate her as an actress and that serves her character well in this, because her character is being underestimated a lot.
Yeah, I think that's fair.
Yeah, and it's great.
At a certain point in the show, maybe a little too late somebody points out you're just a very vanilla social climber.
And in that sense, her casting makes sense.
She looks like this very perfect in a sort of suburban mall blonde way sort of character on the show.
And then maybe she's more than that.
So she was a nice surprise on the show.
And most of the mystery to me in the show was around her.
I was like, what is her deal?
Like you know, there were points in the show where I was like she might be more Milan than she initially appears.
The show sort of like plays with the fact that she's kind of hard to read because she is sort of a, like you said, a sort of perfect mall blonde right.
Especially as a show, when we get to the big sort of flashback.
For a second.
I'm like oh, is she the sort of like you know?
Is she the sort of fulcrum on which the plot is like wrestling?
As long as she was on the screen, it was actually really intriguing because it was actually unclear where her sympathies lay.
Like, she's married to this dude who we know is a sociopath, right?
And it's like, is she enabling him?
Is she trying to escape him?
It's like a whole bunch of stuff happening.
And I think in a way, when we were talking earlier about the fact that they weren't necessarily successful, at least for Jean and for me, with maintaining kind of tension in the story of like who is Niall really, they're more successful in the question of who is she really, who is his wife really?
It's the ambiguity that I wanted more of in the portrayal of him that you get from the portrayal of her.
So maybe if I'd felt more like the show was more focused on her, I would have felt differently about it.
And I will say you know, for a show that has only eight episodes, they try to do a bunch of different things.
There's a whole story about this real estate development that Jonathan Banks is trying to get underway with Matthew Rhys.
And again, it's not a huge revelation to see like Jonathan Banks is like a tough guy you don't want to mess with or whatever.
But at least he's doing it as like a rich guy, which is a little bit different.
But I didn't care that much about the real estate project.
And every time they started talking about it, I was like, I'm not invested in this.
And then, you know, into the real estate story comes this sort of AOC kind of alike, where they're kind of trying to do a little story about the corrupting of local politicians.
And it's like, wait a minute, I don't think this is what this is about.
Plus, there's also something happening where they're trying to deal with the fact that Aggie And when was the last time I met a person named Aggie?
I don't know.
But they're trying to deal with Aggie's trauma over the death of her son.
And there's this kind of side thing about vengeance that I'm not sure they really land the plane about that.
There's also this stuff about her breakup with her wife.
I think they were married and are now divorced, who is played by Natalie Morales, an actor I really really like, who really does not do anything.
A lot that kind of gets, I think, a little shuttled to the side.
So part of what I think happened is that there's a whole bunch of things they're trying to pursue.
I just got to the point where I felt like, all right.
I think it maybe got a little diluted for me by the number of threads.
Yeah, I mean, I can see where you're coming from, Linda, especially the real estate stuff.
I agree with you.
I'm like, I don't know if we needed that much real estate stuff.
We could have had a little bit less of that.
Every time they start talking about real property in a prestige show, I don't care.
You're not Chinatown.
I don't care.
The thing is, I love real estate stuff.
I'm all into real estate.
I'm one of those people who screw Zillow at night.
Oh, same, same, same.
But for this show, we did not need that much real estate.
I agree with you, Linda.
But I do think there was some potential with the FBI agents to be more interesting, because when the first FBI agent shows up at Aggie's house, Brian Abbott, played by David Lyons, I did think oh, is this guy on her side, on his side.
Who is he really?
But I thought that had a lot of potential.
Unfortunately, I will concede they kind of took the gas out of him too early too.
I felt like they could have played with that character more.
Right.
And again, it's like too much... for eight episodes.
And so it feels like everything gets a little bit shortchanged.
And I wonder if that's because, as they were putting together this story, as we've discussed, like they don't have that much plot for the story between Aggie and Niall.
It's meant to be a showcase for these two performances.
And so it's sort of like they throw in a lot of other plot.
But I will say every time either of them is on screen, I was transfixed.
I was like, these are great actors.
They're doing a great job.
I loved pretty much every time Claire Danes or Matthew Rhys was on camera.
I loved it.
To both your points, right?
Like, if there was more of them sort of doing the, you know, Claire Rhys Hannibal thing, right?
It was like if they were sort of just on screen together and sort of like sussing each other out.
That only happens a couple times, right?
There's a scene in which they're sitting on a couch and they're sort of you know, just talking about their lives in this sort of circuitous, obfuscatory way.
But like, that felt like, okay, this is something that's really interesting.
These people are trying to like feel each other out because they don't really trust each other, but they also kind of need each other in these very weird ways.
But there's not a whole lot of that.
Like, most of the show is not that.
The cat and mouse.
The cat and mouse thing.
And so the rest of it is sort of, it's either one of them or the other.
I think there's, like, a lot more potential for them being neighbors.
Because at one point, his wife suspects maybe that they're having an affair or something.
I don't know.
I just wish they had, like, lingered on the very weird dynamic between the two of them.
Yeah.
The strength of it is these two really good actors who, even if it felt really familiar to me, the whole point is like they get away with it because they're them and it's fine.
And I still enjoy it.
And like I did enjoy a lot of it and like you know, I think I watched the first four all at once when I first watched it, so like clearly it was working on me, like I wasn't like I don't want to watch this, I'm not interested in this.
It's just that when I got to the end I had that feeling that I sometimes have where I'm like Is this kind of television really repeating itself a lot.
Or have I just been a person who has seen so much more of these kinds of shows than most people that I'm much more likely to get to the point where I'm like all right, I get it.
Blah blah, blah.
And then they start the flashback episode and I'm like, oh God, not the flashback.
Like you know, similar to other shows, where they'll suddenly be like now we're going to switch over and it's going to be the episode about the doorman, you know, and we're not going to see any of our main characters for a whole episode.
Like I'm starting to see like the quote unquote prestige TV playbook a little bit too much.
But most people don't watch all of it.
So like a lot of people, I think, would find it fresher maybe than I do.
I think the meta thing that was sort of sticking in my brain was like the second screen of it all.
Like there are a bunch of times in the first two episodes in which someone says something and then we see Claire Danes sort of putting it together and like flashing back to the time that Matthew Reese said the thing.
And it's like oh man, I like it.
Just felt like it was like, just in case you weren't paying attention.
So it felt like everything was being spelled out.
That is true.
Very, very explicitly.
And James Ponowozik coined the term like the mid-TV, the sort of rise of mid-TV.
Yes.
And it has all the features of prestige TV, right?
The dope lighting like sort of like very atmospheric, really.
Really good actors who might be, like you know, kind of a reach for you know streaming show.
Sure, sure, sure, yeah.
All those things, all the elements of a really, really good show.
But just kind of like, eh, it's fine.
It's fine.
And I felt like there's something about the Netflix of it all.
I was like, oh man, this is sort of an HBO show.
Not that HBO is like, Doesn't have stinkers or whatever.
I know what you're saying.
But like, it was just like, oh man, this has all the pieces of a better thing.
But I just kept feeling like oh, they're plotting this out in a way that is meant to remind you, just in case you know like, walked out the room to go pee or, you know, get something to drink.
Like, there's just like this sort of like, and remember, this is what's happening.
And I felt like that was really, really explicit in the show.
I think Netflix in particular is kind of known for expecting that from people who who make shows for them, that you kind of have to make it watchable and followable for people who are kind of only half paying attention to it.
And that's really challenging with a show that's as dense as this is.
Like it would have been really hard to do that with like The Sopranos or Homeland, frankly.
And it's interesting.
The other thing I thought about, you know, when you were talking about Netflix shows –
And there have been a couple of good pieces of writing about this, but Netflix shows also tend to have a look to them.
They look very similar.
I was interested in the fact that this and this may be partly because of the power of some of the people involved.
But I think of it as very contrasty just in the visual look and the way it's shot.
And you never know quite how much of this is like your TV versus whatever.
To me it looked more like intentionally kind of gritty looking, which I get and which I thought was a good point choice, because I think it's supposed to stress, particularly with Aggie, how kind of haggard she is at the beginning of this and how tired and kind of disappeared into herself.
You know, her house is like kind of starting to not work and there are these like maybe a little slightly on the nose moments where there's like something gross coming up out of her drains and you know something is wrong and you know.
But I did think they tried to go for a slightly different look to the visuals than I've seen in some of the other.
You know many of the Netflix shows that look exactly like each other.
Yeah.
I mean, I will say it's especially obvious during that flashback episode how they are trying to change the lighting and be very deliberate about it.
And stark versus dark, which are two different things, if you know what I mean.
So I definitely saw that here.
It didn't, you know, look the same as Thursday Murder Club.
Which looks the same.
That's what I'm talking about.
Yeah, which looks exactly the same as the show that everyone's getting murdered on that one boat.
Which looks exactly the same as that other show which is a romance, you know.
And so I would agree with you, Linda.
I liked the way the show looked.
I thought that added to the show personally.
I'm going to be really fascinated to see how it's received, because it's like I didn't think it was bad.
I just kept watching it thinking, like, I feel like I've watched this before.
Right.
Right down to like if you write a show about an author somehow, I feel like at the end of the show they're going to be reading from their book and explaining everything they learned.
And it's not their fault that I've seen that, but I've seen it.
You know?
Yeah.
Well, we want to know what you think about The Beast in Me.
Find us at Facebook.com slash PCHH.
That brings us to the end of our show.
Kristen Meinzer, Gene Demby, thank you so much for being here.
Thank you.
Appreciate you for having me.
And just a reminder that signing up for Pop Culture Happy Hour Plus, that is a great way to support our show and support public radio.
And you get to listen to all of our episodes sponsor-free.
So please go find out more about that.
You can find that at plus.npr.org slash happyhourplus. or visit the link in our show notes.
We appreciate it also if you're already doing that.
This episode was produced by Carly Rubin, Liz Metzger, Mike Katziff and edited by our showrunner, Jessica Reedy.
There's no beast in any of those people.
And Hello, Come In provides our theme music.
Thank you for listening to Pop Culture Happy Hour from NPR.
I'm Linda Holmes, and we'll see you all next time.
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