Projects like "Pistol" exist within the tension of what the audience is expecting and what never realized it needed to know about its subject – in this case, The Sex Pistols. Space like that should have given series creator and writer Craig Pearce and director Danny Boyle ample room to take a famous rock n' roll story and create something unexpected and illuminating.
To some degree, the FX on Hulu series achieves this, only by way of its performances as opposed to the band's history. There's an appropriateness in that, given that the band's legend is more tied to what it represented than its musicianship. However, its symbolism was powerful enough to define a genre of music that was already alive and pulsing before the Sex Pistols existed and persists 45 years after its biggest hit, "God Save the Queen," mocked Queen Elizabeth II's Silver Jubilee celebration.
