Pop Culture Happy Hour - The Madness

Episode Date: December 2, 2024

In the Netflix series The Madness, Colman Domingo plays a CNN pundit who witnesses a brutal murder, and then finds himself on the run as he's framed for the crime. What follows is a paranoid thriller full of sinister forces, evil billionaires, underground militias, devious assassins, and lots of red herrings.See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for sponsorship and to manage your podcast sponsorship preferences.NPR Privacy Policy

In the Netflix series, The Madness, Coleman Domingo plays a CNN pundit who witnesses a brutal murder, then finds himself on the run as he's framed for the crime. What follows is a paranoid thriller full of sinister forces, evil billionaires, underground militias, devious assassins, and lots of red herrings. I'm Aisha Harris. And I'm Stephen Thompson. Today we are talking about The Madness on Pop Culture Happy Hour from NPR. It's just the two of us today. So in the first episode of The Madness, we meet Muncie Daniels.

He's a Philly-based CNN pundit who's going through a divorce and at a crossroads in his career. He's played by Coleman Domingo. Muncie rents a house in the Poconos where he can decompress and work on his book, but he quickly finds himself the only witness to a grisly murder. It turns out the victim was a notorious white supremacist, and Muncie quickly realizes he's being framed, which means he's got a problem with not only the police and the FBI, but also white supremacists seeking vengeance.

Over the course of eight episodes, we get a sense that there are even larger forces in play, and we also get to know Muncie's family and associates as well as some of the other players involved. Naturally, this being a paranoid thriller, not everyone is looking out for his best interests. The Madness is streaming now on Netflix. Aisha, what did you think of the madness?

I was mostly on board with this. I love Comin Domingo. I think he's great. he is playing a character that I think we've rarely seen in this kind of genre exercise. I love the fact that he's, you know, this black political pundit who used to be this on-the-ground activist and has since shifted into a more glamorous and less radical position as like a talking head. And, you know, now he's being thrust into these various webs of extremism and having to like deal with that. And I also think it's interesting, like, for this to come out at the time that it is, you don't really have to squint too hard.

to recognize some of the real-life analogs that were likely the inspiration for Muncie, Van Jones. There's a pun in this show involving Don Lemon. Yes, Don Lemon. The Black Lives Matter, founders and supporters, like Patrice Cullors, Dorey McKesson, all of them have sort of faced the same kind of criticisms of like once you seem to be for the people

starting, you know, organization on the ground stuff, and now you're kind of like, maybe you're a little too much into your celebrity. Maybe you're enjoying, you know, hobnobbing, with the A-list a little too much. So I think it's really interesting to put that into this conspiracy thriller framework. And I admire the attempts to do it. I don't think it necessarily always successfully does so.

Overall, I think it's fun. Well, fun is a weird word. I don't know if it's fun, but it's engaging enough, I think, to keep going. Like, at the end of each episode, I was, like, ready to press play again. So, yeah, I enjoyed it. I'm curious to hear how you felt about it, Stephen. Yeah, I felt the same way. I think that the key to the success of this show is that Coleman Domingo performance at the center of it. I had the experience last year of being kind of frustrated because I love Coleman Domingo as an actor, but I didn't love either of the movies that he was in, including the one that he was nominated for an Academy Award for. Rustin. Rustin. Yeah. Yeah, he was also in the color purple. And I definitely had this thought of like, this guy is a towering actor whom I'd like to see get bigger and better role. And this really gives him something to chew on.

I saw a man get chopped up last night. And now I feel like I'm walking around with the bulls eye on my back. I know. There are tons and tons and tons of paranoid thriller elements to this show, and it leans into kind of all of them over the course of eight episodes. But at the heart, you have also a really interesting and nuanced and expansive kind of character sketch of this guy. the evolution of his relationship with his estranged wife, with his son, with his kind of secret daughter. And by the way, I loved the performance by Gabrielle Graham as Callie, his daughter, who has this kind of laid-back, seen-it-all quality that I think really works well.

I love this performance, and I love how rich and layered they allow the characterization to be. He is on a number of journeys at once. He's not simply trying to stay alive. He is not simply trying to unravel a conspiracy, clear his name. He's also working through these relationships with his family. And I think if you didn't have such a strong performance at the center, I might have gotten more hung up on some of this show's flaws. It certainly has a lot of plot threads.

We acknowledged in the intro a lot of red herrings, including kind of some detours that only questionably really even need to be there, where it feels like they're past. padding and stretching a little bit, when they don't really need to. It's still, it's an overstuffed story. And so some of that stuffing feels a little extraneous or doesn't necessarily ring true. There's kind of a subplot involving a kind of Antifa type operation that I just didn't think worked at all or made any particular sense. It was very weird. It was very weird. And then like it picks it up, but then it kind of drops it. Yeah. It comes and it goes. And then like,

by the end of it, I was like, oh, I forgot. There's an entire, like, militia that he spent, like, one or two scenes with, and then they, like, kind of fade, recede back into the background as, like, all these other bigger entities stay in the fold. Yeah. And there are moments and characters where every once in a while, they kind of then try to weave that thread back into the plot, and you're like, oh, yeah, that guy. Or, oh, right. Or, oh, I miss that guy. You know, I thought the performance by John Ortiz as Franco, the FBI agent, and you're like, oh, the FBI agent. is a really nice, kind of shaded, interesting, multi-dimensional performance that I really loved in this show.

Did you want them dead? You've been vocal in the past about the need to fight. Hey, folks could look at that and say, hey, maybe Muncie Daniels decided to take this crap. Maybe the FBI did, too, and they needed someone to blank. You watched too many movies. There are tons of great character actors, including some we won't spoil, that are woven into this plot.

But on balance, for me, it's that central performance that really lets this hang together. Yeah, I did say, you know, I was ready at the end of each episode to press play. But I do think this could have benefited from being like a tight six episodes instead of occasionally meandering eight episodes. Because this is a show, like, as with all conspiracy theories, there are a lot of characters, a lot of names you have to remember, because oftentimes they're not on screen. It's just people talking about those characters, and you have to be like, wait, who? What? Who is this? And it leaves in eventually, it's not, it goes beyond sort of the sort of neo-Nazi world. And then it brings in, like, climate change comes up, like, becomes a threat in it. And it's like, cobalt mining comes into play. Yeah. And again, I so admire the attempt to sort of try and untangle and represent this weird age we currently live.

where like people do not trust the media, politicians, like, and this is very much a show that's like, follow the money, follow the money, follow the money. And like, it leads to all of these different threads. And in real life, this is true. You know, of course there are Peter Thiel's in the world. But it does get a little too much up its own, but I think to its detriment. Now, I will say, yeah, the John Ortiz performance I really, really love, I found that this show was able to, despite all of the headiness, occasionally dig into more a little bit of levity,

there's a scene where him and his soon-to-be ex-wife, who he's, they both clearly still have feelings for, who's played by Marcia Stephanie Blake and her name's Elena and the show, they go undercover to a Swinger's party. I'm like, okay, this is an interesting Hollywood version of the way Springer's parties apparently work. Sure, why not? And that's where it gets a little bit fun. It felt a little bit like, oh, this is like a fun sort of spy thriller, too. But I kind of wanted a little bit more fun. Throughout this joke, he is constantly on the run and able to evade various, you know, people trying to capture him. Yeah, he never goes under disguise. Like, he always looks exactly like Coleman Domingo, same facial hair. Yeah, he doesn't shave his beard at one point. I'm like,

why have you not shaved your beard? Not that that's going to make that much of a difference, but to a lot of white people, you could be a completely different person when you shave your beard. All he does is like pull up the collar or he might put on a hat and like shaded it. And I'm like, my dude, you are all over the news. Everyone is looking for you.

There's a bounty on your head. And I wanted more like disguises, you know? Sure. I mean, but that also gives the show the opportunity to have him kind of, he's in different levels of danger of being found out depending on where he is. When he is in the kind of Philly underground

versus when he's kind of moving through the corridors of power, it's interesting the way he's able to, every once in a while, he's just recognized and it's like, oh, how can I help? Yes. When he encounters black people, it's very different from what happens when he encounters white people. There's a great scene towards the end in one of the later episodes where he, you know, he manages to evade a very dangerous situation yet again, and someone finds him and saves him. and this guy, he's very much giving, living in a bunker type of vibes.

Off the grid. Off the grid, completely off the grid. He talks to him about, like, how he envisioned him, how he saw him in the public eye before all of this stuff went down. And then how he sees him afterwards. And he's like telling him, yo, I'm so happy you kill that white supremacist. This shows that you're like trying to get back to your roots. And this exchange happens. This is a turning point.

Moncy Daniels is the... catalysts living up to your pop's legacy. I didn't kill brother 14. I just got caught in Mr. and I'm just trying to protect my family. It's worth noting that like Muncie's father was a radical. Right. Like he was known for being a radical activist.

And I just find that exchange very, it is a tale as old as time, especially when it comes to black American characters in movies and TV shows where there's this pull between the revolution and, you know, walking on the other side of the revolution, can those two things merge? And I appreciated that the show tries to sort of disentangle that. And the fact that, like, him being on the run is sort of like, there are obvious sort of parallels to the Underground Railroad and those sorts of things and how he's able to, you know, find community in very unexpected places

and, like, even, like, hang out and grill with one of the people who just, like, who's, like, He's like, oh, you're hiding out at your daughter's place. Like, hey, come out and have some barbecue. It's like, sure. Why not? Yeah, and for me, those scenes worked a lot better than some of the kind of corridors of power stuff. Not to spoil anything. In the very last episode, there is a scene involving broadcast media where there is something authorized to be said on broadcast media that no broadcast media organization would ever.

ever allow in 100 trillion years because they would have been immediately hit with a 10-figure lawsuit. I'm not always sure that this show has the surest handle on how broadcast media work. Oh, God, no. But at the same time, as a paranoid thriller, you're always going to suspend a certain amount of disbelief. You're always going to have a certain amount of like, well, that part is silly. That would never happen.

How did he get out of that scrape? et cetera, you're always going to have some reservations. But for me, I think the strongest endorsement that I really had of this show is it's eight episodes. It adds up to, you know, about six and a half hours or whatever. And I'm more or less just next episode, next episode, next episode. Was I kind of seeing ghosts out of the corners of my eyes after a while, like living in this kind of paranoid universe in which every car that drives by may contain a menace?

Absolutely, but that's the joy of a paranoid thriller. And I think for all of its flaws, I think it coheres into something that has a magnificent performance at its center, a bunch of really terrific supporting performances revolving around it, ultimately found it immensely satisfying, even if I don't think it stuck the landing in every way. Yeah, I agree. To some extent, this show also kind of reminded me of Spike Lee's Black Klansman in a way. Absolutely. Especially in the scenes where you have the white supremacist who is founded at the beginning of the show, his wife plays a big part in Muncie's sort of this whole conspiracy that he's unraveling. Or actually, I think it's his ex-wife. At least estranged.

They were separated at the time at minimum. Her name is Lucy, and she's played by Tamsin Topolsky. And she's left the whole Aryan Brotherhood or whatever he was a part of. Whatever you want to call it. Whatever you want to call it. A forge, they call it. Forge, yes, she's left that. But then she becomes a key part in trying to help him. Yeah, I think Tampson Topolski does a really nice job with this role. And I think their kind of uneasy alliance is pretty interesting.

Yeah. She is often used as a little bit of a plot device in ways that I think that characterization could have been a little richer, even though I really liked the performance. Yeah. Also, man, this show deploys character actors. Yeah. So beautifully. I can watch Stephen McKinley Henderson, who plays his friend, I, Isaiah is one of those faces, one of those guys. Every time he pops up in something, I'm like, oh, it's that guy. Yeah. I love that guy. Yeah. He was the best part of Civil War.

Anytime he pops up, it's great to see him. And I'd recommend it. Yeah, me too. All right. We want to know what you think about the madness. Find us at facebook.com slash PCHH. That brings us to the end of our show. Aisha Harris.

Thanks so much for being here. It was fun, Stephen. Thank you. This episode was produced by Hufsafafafi. Lathema and Liz Metzger and edited by Mike Katzif. Our supervising producer is Jessica Reedy, and Hello Come In provides our theme music. Thank you for listening to Pop Culture Happy Hour from NPR. I'm Stephen Thompson, and we will see you all tomorrow.