The Beast In Me Is An Elevated Netflix Miniseries
Succession meets Gone Girl in this Netflix miniseries.
Once a network is established enough, it becomes its own descriptor. When someone says a “Lifetime movie,” you know what to expect — an over-the-top melodrama often preying on suburban paranoia. A “Hallmark movie,” on the other hand, evokes red-and-green sweaters and big-city women returning to their hometowns.
In the era of streaming, these stereotypes are now applied to different services. Apple TV is known for its sci-fi, Disney+ for franchise TV, and Netflix has become increasingly associated with the crime thriller miniseries. Sometimes these come with a political bent, like The Bodyguard or The Night Agent, or maybe a supernatural tone, like Bodies or Wayward, but the Netflix stamp remains: a gritty, elevated tone and episodes that always make you stick around for one more.
But the latest entry in this genre is something a little different. This show takes the “Netflix miniseries” formula and morphs it into a heart-racing story of class, trauma, and suspicion.
The Beast in Me focuses on the complicated pairing of Niles Jarvis and Aggie Wiggs.
The Beast In Me stars Claire Danes as Agatha “Aggie” Wiggs, a once-renowned true crime writer who is now languishing in a Long Island suburb, writing articles about boring historical subjects and living in a giant house she can no longer afford to renovate. She’s still recovering from the loss of her young son in a car accident, which drove her away from her wife Shelley (Natalie Morales.)
But everything changes when the mansion next door is bought by Niles Jarvis (Matthew Rhys), the charming son of real estate mogul Martin Jarvis (Jonathan Banks.) Niles moved out of the city to escape his reputation as a person of interest in his wife’s disappearance. Aggie and Niles start a cautious alliance: he’ll go on the record with her for a new book, but only if she approaches him without any bias.
Over the show’s eight episodes, there’s lots of what you expect from a Netflix miniseries, including a conspiracy, dirty cops, false flag operations, and shifting allegiances, but there’s also elements that are more akin to a Gillian Flynn HBO series. Niles Jarvis is like a combination of Kendall Roy from Succession and Robert Durst from The Jinx, and Rhys plays him with the perfect balance of charm and sleaze. He’s not fully Joe from You, but he’s still got a menacing edge. Adding to this is Aggie’s skill as a writer, which makes the entire series feel like an adaptation of a novel that doesn’t exist.
Jonathan Banks’ Martin Jarvis anchors a corporate drama subplot that feeds into Niles’ past.
We won’t say much about just what happens at the end of the series, but it involves an affordable housing protest, attack dogs, a birding journal, and an extended flashback sequence in the penultimate episode, all punctuated by some of the best needledrops on the entirety of Netflix. There’s definitely no way that this story could continue in another season, but by the end, I was hoping Aggie would stumble on another big mystery.
Netflix crime thrillers may be a dime a dozen, but this one deserves to stand on its own merit, shining with great performances, a twisting story that keeps you going, and a humble protagonist with plenty of flaws. The Beast in Me may feel paint-by-numbers in the beginning, but by the end it’s chaotic but meticulous, akin to an Expressionist masterpiece.
