The eight-part series Kaos is a new release on Netflix. The series reimagines the mythology of ancient Greece in a modern world. Remaining faithful to ancient mythology is a tripartite division of rule between three godly brothers. There is Zeus, played by Jeff Goldblum, with his sister-wife Hera (Janet McTeer) on Olympus. This Olympus consists of a stunning palazzo with a beautifully-tended garden. Poseidon (Cliff Curtis) appears to be of the typically cynical macho Mediterranean type that lives an epicurean life on his luxury yacht, The Trident, and has little interest in the running of divine affairs. He is not quite so simplistic, though, as a more profound side to this character is revealed as the series progresses. As for Hades, played by David Thewlis, he is the chief bureaucrat of the monotone underworld.
The narrator for the series is Prometheus (Stephen Dilane), and he, as would be expected from his traditional mythical representation, is shown chained to a sheer rockface, having his liver pecked at by an eagle for having angered Zeus. As for human beings, they are understood to be spread out over the Earth, but the series focuses on Krete, a state run by a president named Minos. This state has that mix of casualness and authoritarianism that marks the setting of the 1996 film Romeo + Juliet.
The storyline of the series sits upon the prophecy: “A line appears, the Order wanes, the Family falls, and Kaos reigns.” As with prophecies from ancient Greek times, the meaning of this is unclear and certain characters read their situation into this couplet. Key among them is Zeus, who, having discovered a wrinkle upon his face, reads this as “a line appears.” As this occurs concurrently with certain people of Krete manifesting disrespect to the gods, Zeus understands his rule is at risk.
As is the case with his brothers, Goldblum’s Zeus is not typical. Tackily preening about in his tracksuit, he is an egomaniac and sociopath who is indifferent to the pains and struggles of others – including those directly caused by him. For instance, when Zeus realizes that he has just unjustly executed a slew of his ballboy servants, he just lets out a mischievous self-reprimanding “Oops!” He also manifests a mixture of naïvete and paranoia, being sure, for instance, that the other gods are speaking about him when he is out of the room. Also, as surely befits a Greek god, he shows a penchant for barbecued lamb. The series is worth watching alone because of Goldblum’s fantastic performance. Yet, he is well-matched with his spouse, Hera, who is perhaps even more deeply ambitious than her husband. She is certainly far more astute and manipulative than he is.
Although I have begun with an overview of the gods, this series reflects a key element of ancient Greek mythology, an element that is not unique but is not found in many other mythologies such as those of the Egyptians, Norse or Mesoamericans, which is the central role that human beings play within it. The gods are, of course, highly important in Greek myth, but the main stories involve them interfering in human-led dramas rather than it being all about them. That is why the 2004 film Troy was able to dispense with characters of gods while still being able to depict the Trojan War. Thus, though one of the storylines in Kaos draws out the effect of the paranoia of Zeus on the rest of his family, the gods are not always present, as the series seemingly seeks to impart the idea that human beings can and should attempt to control their own destinies.
Furthermore, it is unsurprising that led by a god like the Zeus outlined above, the gods themselves are not universally popular in Krete. Nevertheless, the attitude amongst the people varies from hatred through generalized indifference to a toadying form of love. The other main storylines of the series are about the various trials of human beings, key ones of which come to despise the gods as harmful and exploitative. One of the humans is Eurydice (Aurora Perrineau), “who prefers Riddy,” who ends up in the underworld. The man who loves her, Orpheus (Killian Scott), seeks to go down and bring her back from the realm of Hades. This outline, save for the nickname, would seem indistinguishable from the classic tale of Eurydice and Orpheus.
Yet the brilliance of this series is that it uses the myths of the classical world but plays with them in such a way as to make them new. Thus, the story of Eurydice and Orpheus is quite unlike the classical version.
Balance
What is particularly brilliant about this series is its ability to strike balances. It balances ancient time-hallowed stories and a modern retelling of them. As such, even the viewer familiar with the myths of the classical world is left guessing how the stories will play out and may be surprised by the frequent and brilliantly placed plot twists. It strikes the problematic balance between reverent and irreverent to this ancient material. It strikes a perfect balance between dramatic suspense, emotional depth and great laugh-out-loud humor. Then, within its modernizing of myth, there is a balance between grand sets such as the Cave of Polyphemus being recreated as a dive bar replete with all its accouterments to fantastic small details such as Medusa having momentarily to lightly pat her headscarf to place one of the snakes underneath it.
It also strikes a good balance between being accessible to viewers who know little to nothing about Greek mythology and providing a rich trove of references to this mythology for those who know it. These range from breakfast cereals with names such as “Gaea’s Granola” or “Achilles’ Heels,” a gas station chain named Tyndareus and the three-headed dogs modeled on the classical hellhound Cerebus in the underworld. Finally, in terms of its storytelling, it strikes a balance between cynicism toward human behavior and optimism that human conditions can be improved.
Casting
The casting of this series has been superb. Mention has been made of the brother gods and their sister, but there are also particularly brilliant performances of other gods. Dionysus, played by Nabhaan Rizwan, is far from a Nietzschean Dionysus with his vulnerability, but his childish emotional state, which has retained a great deal of compassion, makes him an extremely engaging figure. Then there is Rakie Ayola’s bespectacled Persophone, rendered by her straight and managerial, both in her domestic and work life – which, as a key bureaucrat in the underworld, of course, overlap, but who manages to endear the viewer through her love for her husband Hades, her fundamental decency and her cowing to the more powerful gods but failing to be overwhelmed by fear for them.
The most sympathetic characters can be found among the humans. There is Ariadne, or Ari, played by Leila Farzad, who has grown up wracked with guilt being told that as a baby, she was the cause of her twin brother’s death. There is Caeneus, played by Misia Butler, who experienced the greatest trials in life yet who, like the greatest of human beings, has been ennobled by them into becoming a figure of great compassion. Yet, human characters of this type are not the only ones worthy of watching. For instance, the minor character of Prue (Rosie Cavaliero) as an insufferable rule-bound gossip is a delight.
Themes
As for its themes, love is a key one in this series. Charon, who has suffered for love, declares that “love makes people very stupid.” Poseidon reveals that when in love, “it’s like your heart’s outside of your body,” which is “awful.” Zeus defines “human love” as “that needy, cloying unsophisticated stuff that they experience” and judges it as “not something to be admired.” It is a “weakness.” Zeus also tells Dionysus that gods do not “love anything lesser than ourselves,” though it ought to be noted that Zeus manifests no more love for his fellow immortals than for human beings on Earth unless his occasional neediness for Hera is regarded as a warped kind of this emotion.
Yet, human-style love is one of the redeeming life-affirming themes of this series. It is one of the gods, the aforementioned lovely Persephone, that recognizes this. She counters the idea that love is a “weakness,” arguing that it is indeed the “opposite.” She should know. For she is not the abducted Persephone of traditional myth, but rather she has formed a true loving relationship with Hades, represented not only by the way she fusses over him but also by the delightful, proud American Gothic-inspired smiling portrait of the couple that hangs on the walls of their bedroom. In the monotones of the underworld, Hades and Persephone have found a happier existence than in the paradisiacal yet paranoid palace of the gods in Olympus.
Yet the series is not so simplistic as to promote the cliched conception that love is the greatest good, which saccharine pop songs are awash with. It also deals with the issue that love can indeed be “cloying,” as Zeus puts it. Riddy, in her relationship with such a singer of pop songs, Orpheus, feels drowned by his love for her, especially with his star status; he makes his love a public theme. It all prevents Riddy from realizing her true self, and she feels her life is “wasted.”
Love is also questioned by being tied to another key theme in the series – that of self-sacrifice for the greater good. A number of the characters in this series feel forced to give up on love to serve the higher purpose of what they regard as the good of the community. Prometheus says, “The greater good always comes at a personal cost.” At least in one case, such sacrifice seems to be rendered positively. However, Prometheus, who has sacrificed love to stand up to tyranny, is more ambiguous. Success in overthrowing the gods will be of direct political benefit to himself. Thus, the series subtly raises the question of the purity of motives when dealing with the cause of “the greater good.”
In the series, the celestial and earthly tyrants, Zeus and Minos, also appeal to a higher motive for their actions than their own selfishness – in their cases, family. Yet, indeed, both are also shown to be fundamentally inspired not by any principle but by naked self-interest.
With the earthly tyrant Minos, the issue of human responsibility for their actions is also raised. At one point, Minos committed terrible actions. He has acted on orders from the gods, yet when Minos exclaims to his distraught daughter Ari, “I didn’t have a choice,” she retorts, “Of course you did. Shame on you.” Minos in this series thus resembles Agamemnon, who sacrifices his daughter Iphigenia in classical myth and, like him, fails to escape his moral failing by attempting to shift the blame for his actions. The point is that responsibility for all of our actions – and their subsequent outcomes – ultimately lies with us, regardless of the trying circumstances surrounding them.
The question of whether we are free to act as we will is less clear. One key issue in the series is fate. In this series, it is understood that each human being is born with a prophecy. As is the case with the aforementioned prophecy, they entail ambiguity. There is also a reflection of ancient Greek myth in the series in that they are actually brought about through the attempted avoidance of fulfilling prophecies. The possibility of forging a completely free life if a person liberates themselves from an obsession with their prophecy is raised in the series, but whether that is actually possible remains unclear.
Türkiye Connections
A viewer from Türkiye may pay extra attention to those modernized elements from the original Greek myths that took place in what is now Türkiye. The best known of those, of course, is the Trojan War. The Trojan War is over in this series, but its effects are not. The traumatic brutality of its ending is not shown but, perhaps even more effectively, tersely summarised by Prometheus in what he says of the war widows and former Trojan royalty Hecuba and Andromache. He relates that “both of their husbands had been butchered in front of them and Andromache’s only child, Astyanax, had been thrown from the city’s walls when the Trojans surrendered.” In this series, some refugees from Troy, including Hecuba and Andromache, are settled in Krete. The perspective taken upon them varies according to nationality. Ari from Krete tells them that they have been “adopted” and given “refuge.” Hecuba, however, retorts that they have no “equal rights” and are subject to “segregation.” It is the case that events that the viewer sees give the truth to the latter account. It is also claimed by a Trojan that “We were the most powerful people in the world, which is precisely why everyone takes such delight in our fall.” In the implication that jealousy caused the war and the brutality meted out to the Trojans and their subsequent harsh exile, the series shows the Trojans much as the classical record does.
The other Anatolian connection is that of the Amazons, the tribe of all-women warriors that lived on the coast of the Black Sea. Here, they are modernized into a tough gang of women who reside in a dusty trailer park. The law by which boys born in the tribe are exiled before they reach adolescence is also classical and is revealed in the series. It is done in a particularly poignant and moving manner, affecting one such boy who feels lost outside of his homeland and attempts to return, only to face the ultimate sanction for doing so.
All in all, this series is a delight to watch. Indeed, it is the best that I have seen on a streaming service this year. If any fault is to be found with it, it is that one wonders if the Meander water, which powers up the gods, is not all that it is cracked up to be. Zeus cannot read or cater to the true characters of others as evinced by his belief that despite his torturing treatment of him, Prometheus remains his “best friend,” and as such, the only criticism of the series I can make is how a figure so inept could have seized, and more importantly maintained power for so long, is inexplicable. Nevertheless, to have dealt with this question would necessarily have involved making Zeus more astute, a marring of the delightful and hilarious portrayal by Goldblum, so this issue can be allowed to slide. All in all, for those interested in Greek mythology and those who know little to nothing about it, I highly recommend this series.
Review: 4¾ out of 5
