I don’t know how to start this review, honestly. See Full Circle is a dense and complex piece of fiction from Steven Soderbergh and Ed Solomon that ties so many threads together you might need to take notes. A show that starts with a murder and then leads to a kidnapping ends up unraveling secrets buried deep for many people all over New York City. With a vast cast, I’m not even going to try and explain exactly what is going on in this show. It’s hard to really pick between all these great performances, but there are some real standouts here and some great surprises from actors I haven’t seen before or seen in a new light. First, it’s good to see CCH Pounder in a new show. As I’m not a fan of the NCIS franchise, I never saw her work in the New Orleans show, but here as the Guyanese crime boss Mrs. Mahabir plays like a wonderful sweet grandmother, yet this completely in control, calculating villain. She’s able to show this woman who’s dealing with grief and handling it in a poor way that’s starting to unravel all that I just described. Her character is interacts with Jharrel Jerome’s Aked, a pretty simple guy who reminds me of Bodie in The Wire in terms of just understanding the street stuff but getting wrapped up in something more like a riddle that he’s completely out of his depth in dealing with. Jerome is great here in how we kind of worry and feel sad for this young man the entire series, but he’s also a bit stupid that your empathy can only go so far. Now there is Phaldut Sharma, who plays Garmen – Mrs. Mahabir’s right hand and second in command. How have I not seen this actor? He is so dang gone incredible here. He has all the charisma as he tries to make his boss happy and get things done as things completely and utterly come undone because none of the reasoning for this makes sense. He plays this character who controls others but must also take orders he far from believes in so reasonably. He’s at a point where I believed he was this character, and he just looks damn cool the whole time.
Gerald Jones, Sheyi Cole, and Adia, who play Guyanese young people Louis, Xavier, and Natalia, respectively, work in some ways as POV characters as Louis and Xavier start the story just leaving Guyiana and coming to New York City to start a new life and get some help from Louis sister Natalia. She’s currently in a relationship with Aked that she doesn’t want to be in and wishes her brother and his friend didn’t follow her here. The rest of this show is a journey for the three of them to get out of their situation and go back home. There is a ton of tension in the story through the desperation of these young people trying to navigate this violent world they find themselves in, and all three actors really sell you on each character and each choice. They will make you care and worry for each one and hope they can all get on the same page and just escape all this mess. Now I guess I should talk at least some about the White characters. Claire Danes and Timothy Olyphant play Sam and Derek, a very well-to-do couple who lives in Manhattan, with Sam being the daughter of Jeff (Dennis Quaid), a celebrity Chef. They have a teenage son Jared (Ethan Stoddard), who has a penchant for losing stuff. Both Danes and Olyphant start out playing what you would expect, but the show starts showing new facets to them very early on that takes this show to places you wouldn’t ultimately expect.
Now these things are shown thanks to my biggest surprise – Zazie Beetz as Inspector Harmony. She plays one of the most asshole, disheveled, hard noses, never stop working Colombo style Detective that has ever been detected in the prestige tv era. I saw this as a surprise because I would’ve never thought of her in this type of role in this type of show. That right there lets me know what Soderbergh is on and why he’s a damn genius. This show is beautiful and does some things filmmaking-wise that I feel, at times, I must’ve been tripping. I can’t confirm if he’s changing the framerates of different sections of the show. Still, it feels like it’s there, and also how each group is shot as some parts feel like a documentary and others like watching CCTV feed to even some parts like watching a one-room stage play shot by Michael Mann in the year 2000 on DV. All these things add to the story and perspectives of the characters you’re watching and, again, the tension. This show is all about tension and doesn’t completely let you go until the last episode. Full Circle feels like the HBO shows I fell in love with 26 years ago when I first started watching OZ on Sunday nights. This show or miniseries is one of the shining examples of 2023 so far. I wonder why this show is a streaming-only show on Max and not something taking up that Sunday night slot now that The Idol is over, but hey, I’m not getting paid the big exec bucks, so what do I know? What I do know is that you all should watch this show as soon as you can.
Score: A
RIOTUS 