Busy bee director and producer of content for screens big and little Steven Soderbergh collaborates for a third time with writer Ed Solomon — following their 2021 period noir drama "No Sudden Move" and the 2018 experimental murder mystery "Mosaic" — for "Full Circle," a six-part social cum family cum crime drama that premiered Thursday on Max. It is fueled by coincidences, hidden connections that look like coincidences and the random acts of panicky people.
CCH Pounder plays Savitri Mahabir, a Guyanese racketeer in the Richmond Hill neighborhood of Queens, New York, whose insurance office makes money knocking off the people it covers, then paying itself the benefits. Apart from what might strike one as an unsustainable business model, things have been going from bad to worse around her, to the extent that she feels she is under a curse — well, in fact, she is — and has determined that certain ritual actions are required to remove it and repair a "broken circle."
For reasons that will eventually become clear, if not exactly sensible, the supposed remedy is to kidnap Jared (Ethan Stoddard), the privileged son of Sam (Claire Danes) and Derek (Timothy Olyphant), and the grandson of Sam's father, Jeffrey (Dennis Quaid), a food media figure popularly known as Chef Jeff, who seems to be all brand and no substance. (Sam and Derek run his business.) Quaid plays this role not just with a ponytail but an intricately braided ponytail, and in a voice that sounds modeled on that of co-star Jim Gaffigan.
