Kaos, the new venture from Charlie Covell, the creator of Channel 4 drama series The End of the F**king World, is anything but chaotic. Multi-stranded, immaculately paced and plotted, it’s a reimagining of Greek mythology that is subtle and intricate, witty, rigorous, hugely intelligent, funny and brutal. It flies.
Covell’s script is a masterpiece – so confident, so apparently effortless, so light on its feet – as it builds an alternative modern world in which pantheism (and Zeus) still rules, and gods mix with mortals, rarely to good ends. The eight episodes are stuffed with action, jokes (however much events darken as we go on) and grace notes. A huge cast of characters is deployed without a single one feeling underdeveloped or unnecessary, with Covell using them to interrogate what it means to be human, to have power, to be desperate, to have free will or not. They are all folded seamlessly into its furiously fun embrace.
I can give you no better – or certainly no shorter – indication of the overall tone of the thing than to say that Jeff Goldblum plays Zeus. White-suited and debonair, he swaggers happily round his sprawling palace and gardens on Mount Olympus until the day a new monument to him in Krete is publicly unveiled and found to have been desecrated by a gang of Trojans. Then he finds a new wrinkle on his forehead that he decides must be the fulfilment of the first part of a prophecy that will see his reign end and chaos rule instead. All of his neuroses and insecurities begin to flare (to such a degree that within a few episodes it feels like quite a departure in its vulnerability for Goldblum, best known for roles based on impregnable cool) as he plots vengeance on humanity. His wife, Queen (and sister, as an asterisked onscreen caption notes) Hera – the suitably magisterial Janet McTeer – tries to encourage him to keep his dignity and the doling out of punishments and the investigation.
The initially unseen narrator of events turns out to be Prometheus (Stephen Dillane) – former friend, current prisoner (chained to a rock, liver eternally pecked at by an eagle, it’s all coming back to you now) and immortal enemy of Zeus. He is doing his best to bring about the fulfilment of the prophecy ASAP, helped by various unwitting humans down on Earth and residents of the underworld. This is overseen by David Thewlis as Hades, which would have been an equally good way of cueing you into the tone of the thing, now that I think about it.
Eurydice, known as Riddy (Aurora Perrineau) is about to break up with her devoted rock star boyfriend, Orpheus (Killian Scott), when she is killed in a car accident and finds herself on a literal ferry across the Styx. With the help (or hindrance – the god of pleasure being something of a minor chaos merchant himself) of Dionysus (Nabhaan Rizwan), Orpheus sets out to bring her back from the underworld, via some heartbreaking scenes involving the couple seeking their dead son. Such moments are scattered throughout the series, whenever you are in danger of enjoying it as a mere romp, reminding us that the ancient myths deal in hard, eternal truths as well as allowing us to laugh at gods and mortals shagging about and getting changed into bees for their trouble. While Orpheus fights to reach his beloved, however, she is busy forging a connection with Caneus (Misia Butler) and discovering even worse things about their new home than you might imagine for the underworld.
There is much, much else unfolding, too, ready to be knitted together in the fullness of time by Covell’s skilled hands. Ariadne (Leila Farzad) is uncovering the treachery of her father, Minos, while Daedalus (Mat Fraser) is feeding something of monstrous mien down in a sort of … labyrinthine prison beneath their palace. Billie Piper plays Cassandra, all but destroyed by the burden of forever being ignored and disbelieved. Medusa (Debi Mazar) is waiting in the wings (“The Medusa?” an underworld newcomer asks in celebrity-stricken awe. She lets a snake out from under her headdress to prove it. The fan is thrilled) and there is just about everyone else you’d find in a classical education and/or a children’s book of myths and legends, too.
Love stories tumble over treacheries while scenes dance along the edge of comedy/tragedy (just ask Zeus’s ballboys) and the Fates and Furies spike people’s and divinities’ wheels. You don’t know quite what the next twist or turn may be, but you know that it will be funny, profound, moving – or all three – as well as being as compelling and rewarding as you could wish. It’s an absolute triumph – thank Covell and the gods.
• Kaos is on Netflix.
