The drama mixes jump scares with pretentious lines from one of Aggie’s books (“The truth is, we need our villains alive and well, because without them we’re left to face ourselves”). The writers acknowledge that these things fit together a little oddly, because at one point they have Aggie’s publisher say of her book about Jarvis: “It’s like In Cold Blood meets The Year of Magical Thinking. The mash-up we didn’t know we needed.”
There is also a sub-plot involving the Jarvis clan – Nile’s father is played with menace by Jonathan Banks, the hitman from Breaking Bad – and their latest housing project, which is being blocked by a city councillor. But it’s not terribly interesting.
Although Rhys succeeds in making your skin crawl every time Jarvis appears on screen, it’s Danes who dominates the show. There are web pages and YouTube videos dedicated to “The Claire Danes Cry Face” after her performance in Homeland, and we get to see it here in all its glory – the furrowed brow, the wobbly lip, the quivering chin. And these days it actually feels like a privilege to see an actress in full command of her features.
