Just because you’re paranoid doesn’t mean they’re not out to get you. Words I have lived by since I first saw them on a badge at a Camden market stall when I was 14. And here I am, still alive to tell you about it. Makes you think, doesn’t it?
It is the guiding principle behind all successful conspiracy thrillers, and The Madness has taken it to heart. Our hero is CNN-ish TV host and media pundit Muncie Daniels (Colman Domingo), who is on the brink of being offered his own show and all coming right with his world, professionally at least, and so takes a little break in the Poconos mountains to try to start his novel before fame interferes. Never do this, kids. You can write your book just as well in the safety of your own home as in a picturesque but isolated cabin, and there is less chance of coming across a murder scene in a sauna if you do. Alas, poor Muncie and his discovery of bits of his neighbour strewn across the polythene-sheeted floor of just such an amenity.
Soon, two balaclava-wearing men are chasing him through the woods. Soon after that, he has stabbed one of them with his fountain pen in self-defence and left him writhing in a putrid swamp while he makes his escape. Muncie passes out in the woods and the next day finds his tyres slashed. He must walk to the nearest town to report the dismembered body – if not the swamp’n’stabbing bit – to the cops. By the time they all get up there, of course, there is no sign of anything amiss, except for a bit of the supposed victim’s watch strap left outside the sauna.
Setup concluded, you can sit back and relax knowing you are in the hands of an expert team who are about to deliver a slick conspiracy thriller that is a cut above the rest. Precision-engineered plot machinery can be heard purring into life. Clues and red herrings are patted into place by unobtrusive hands. Muncie is given a trademark coat and a random stranger to comment on it so everybody is reminded that this is a bit better than all those shows that would simply give him the coat to look good.
As it becomes clear that someone is out to frame him for the murder, and even clearer that the police have no interest in finding out the truth, Muncie, of course, must start investigating on his own. And when this places his family in danger, he must find ways to keep them safe, too. Although not before getting his nearly-ex-wife, Elena (Marsha Stephanie Blake), to help him follow up a lead involving a swingers’ club. Hope springs eternal in the nearly-ex-husband breast.
(That said, The Madness does at least make Elena a more fully fledged character than the ex-wife of the wrongly accused hero usually gets to be. Typically, she is an afterthought. Here, you feel that they once had a relationship, that it worked and that it is rightly missed. There is also a wonderful performance by Gabrielle Graham as Muncie’s daughter from another relationship in a part that has been as tenderly written as it is played.)
An FBI agent, Franco Quinones (John Ortiz), drops the bombshell that the dead man was a key member of the racist far-right group The Forge, and the dive into online horrors begins. The Madness gains heft as it goes along, becoming a portrait of a world in which the truth is whatever you want it to be and a great fantasy will always beat reality when it comes to gaining followers and traction. Nor does the show itself always make it obvious who the bad guys and the good guys are. Antifa activists have their own agendas and can be just as dangerous as their fascist counterparts if they are equally convinced of their group’s righteousness.
As well as being smartly plotted and expertly paced, The Madness has a subtle but great line in showing how Muncie must navigate the traditional tropes as a Black man (police scepticism, approaching strangers for information, or simply being out and about in certain neighbourhoods). All the constraints an Everyman at the centre of a conspiracy thriller normally operates under are given extra, inescapable torque and the tension builds accordingly.
The Madness is clearly intended to be a small-screen star-making vehicle for Domingo, who has already made his mark in theatre and film (with an Oscar nomination earlier this year for Rustin and buzz building round his performance in redemptive prison drama Sing Sing). Whether the show gives him quite enough to do as an actor to make that possible, I’m not sure. He is called on to do a lot of looking terrified, pained then determined, but there are peripheral characters who have more to do, and though his presence and charisma are indisputable, the propulsive plot threatens to remain the greatest attraction.
• The Madness is on Netflix now.
