‘The Madness’ Review: Netflix Series Will Drive You Crazy
Look, there’s been a lot of bad television this year. I’ve had the (dis)honor of reviewing some of these shows, but none have stretched my critical credulity quite as much as The Madness. It’s a mish-mash of genres, a political thriller-slash-murder mystery with some flat family drama to try to up the pathos of the proceedings, all coming together for a toothless, vague, and confused end product. It’s a series that lands even more awkwardly in November 2024, given how much the show thinks it has to say about contemporary American politics. After all, how can you possibly take a show seriously after the phrase “Antifa on meth with uzis” is uttered with complete and total earnestness?
But I’m getting ahead of myself. At its most basic level, The Madness is about an occasional CNN contributor named Muncie Daniels (Colman Domingo) who gets framed for the gruesome murder of a white supremacist after stumbling upon his corpse and getting chased by his killers. The deceased is a sort of Q-from-QAnon type figure known as Brother14, anonymously revealing supposed secrets and conspiracies as well as amassing a huge online following, so it makes sense that he made some enemies; what remains a question is why these enemies sought to pin his death on Muncie.
You’re likely to have many more questions in the opening episodes of the series, because it plays fast and loose with its plot. It isn’t until nearly halfway through the series that Muncie becomes a wanted man, but by the end of Episode 1 there are rumors all over the internet that Muncie killed this beloved far-right online oracle. How do these people know that Brother14 is dead before the authorities do? How do they know that Muncie was in close proximity to him before he was killed? How do they know where Muncie is at all times? The story collapses under scrutiny, and The Madness invites tons of it.
Another maddening part of The Madness is Muncie’s bone-headedness. We know from the start that he did not commit this murder, but he does his damnedest to make it seem like he could’ve. He omits important information when talking to authorities, all but ignores FBI agent Franco Quinones (John Ortiz) even when he offers help, and goes off like a vigilante to investigate this mystery himself—inevitably making things way worse as a result. At one point while confiding in his friend and lawyer Kwesi (Deon Cole), Muncie insists, “I’m not a criminal.” Kwesi’s response? “Muncie, with all due respect my brother, you sure acting like one.” Watching Muncie dig a deeper hole for himself is dumbfounding, making him a frustrating character instead of one you’d want to root for.
The politics of the show also fail to resonate. The Madness spends its time on several different prime suspects of the murder, from other members of the white supremacist group to the aforementioned “Antifa on meth with uzis” to shadowy billionaires who wield untold influence. This latter group ends up a main focus of the series, as Muncie and other characters spout empty platitudes about disinformation, media manipulation, and corporate interest. It might have felt like a cutting and poignant plot a decade ago, but it’s a pretty dull revelation when the richest man on the planet is a headliner of this country’s next administration (especially after he all-but paid voters).
Even the series’ take on political extremism comes off dated and unexamined. Antifa is invoked throughout the episodes, each time landing with the subtlety and nuance of a Facebook post from that one extended family member you don’t talk to. The white supremacist group, a made-up community called The Forge, gets some depth from Lucie (Tamsin Topolski), but not much. She’s the ex-wife of the murdered Brother14 and is working towards deprogramming from her time in the group, but The Madness never takes a hard look at her former beliefs. Instead, Lucie is able to conclude towards the end of the series that The Forge and other racist groups are “just a symptom. . .of people fucking with people.” How very specific and politically poignant.
The Madness thinks it’s smart and subversive, but it fails to say anything new. Yes, “big media” perpetuates its own narratives and we clearly live in a world where truth can mean many different things to people, but the show goes broad and cartoonish when trying to express that. It feeds into conspiracies rather than interrogating what causes people to create them, and its actual plot becomes nonsense as a result. For instance, the last thing this show needed was a deranged British assassin (Alison Wright) on Muncie’s tail, but that doesn’t stop The Madness from making such a strong and wrong choice. The series only gets more ridiculous from there, and you’ll only get more exhausted with it.