Old School. Biblically Independent.
By Dustin Rowles | TV | March 30, 2023
Back in the aughts when it was still popular to get DVDs mailed to us by Netflix, I got obsessed with a British show called MI:5 in America (in the UK, it was called Spooks). It surprisingly killed off a big-name star in the second episode, years before Game of Thrones made killing off characters thought to have plot armor a popular thing to do. It’s also where Matthew Macfadyen and Keeley Hawes met and fell in love. Macfadyen was the male lead, and he was very British: Stiff upper lip, humorless, grim. He’d be replaced by Rupert Penry Jones and later Richard Armitage. Both would basically fill the role of the handsome, serious lead male.
That’s how I best knew Macfadyen before Succession, and it was such a pleasant surprise to see that he had versatility — he could be funny in the HBO series. On the other hand, I’ve seen Armitage in a dozen projects or more, and I’m not sure I’ve ever seen the man smile or emote in any fashion whatsoever. He’s a very serious man, and that apparently also extends to Netflix’s sexual thriller, Obsession, a limited series based on Josephine Hart’s novel Damage. It looks like 50 Shades crossed with Fatal Attraction, and whether he’s stalking a character played by Charlie Murphy or having sex with her, he has that same grim expression. The man broods and broods and broods.
It’s been a while. It’s good to see an old-fashioned erotic thriller. This one comes to Netflix on April 13th.
