Ivan Radford | On 29, Aug 2024

Jeff Goldblum is Zeus. If those four words have got your attention, then Kaos is for you. Netflix’s playful riff on Greek myths is simultaneously mad, ambitious, serious and silly – and Jeff Goldblum is having a ball.

The series brings the gods of Greek legend slap bang into the modern day, with Zeus (Goldblum) lounging about lasciviously in his luscious palace in the sky above Krete. He’s not just powerful; he’s vain and petulant. He’s a perfect fit for Jeff Goldblum, who swans about with arrogance oozing from his silver-fox hair. But one day, when he finds a wrinkle on his forehead and a monument to the gods is defaced, he becomes convinced that a prophecy about his downfall is about to come true.

It turns out, we quickly discover, that it really is – thanks to a deprecating narration from Prometheus (Stephen Dillane), who has been plotting to bring about that the prophecy for years. Prometheus, as the story goes, is a prisoner being perpetually pecked by eagles. And is also hanging off a cliff wearing bright red speedos. Their frenemious bromance is the broad framing for the whole saga – Dillane’s outsider growing in confidence and Goldblum’s narcissist becoming more vulnerable and insecure – but a number of other godly players pop up, as Kaos picks and mixes bits of old favourites to craft a romp through celestial beats.

There’s Cassandra (a vivid, frazzled Billie Piper), who warns of future omens in the aisles of the local supermarket. There’s Hades (a chillingly down-to-earth David Thewlis), the lord of the underworld who spends most of his time leaving answerphone messages and doing admin. There’s Hera (an imperious Janet McTeer), Zeus’s formidable wife and sister. There’s Dionysus – a scene-stealing Nabhaan Rizwan, who impressed in the excellent Informer – Zeus’s half-human son who longs to be taken more seriously than his reputation of the god of partying. And there’s Poseidon, a swaggering sailor prone to appearing in people’s bathtubs – a welcome, rare chance for the wonderful Cliff Curtis to show off his comic chops.

Elsewhere, we encounter Orpheus (Killian Scott), a rock star who doesn’t realise that the love of his life, Eurydice – “Riddy” (Aurora Perrineau) – is about to break up with him, so doesn’t think twice about going on an impossible quest to save her life. And there’s Caeneus (Misia Butler), who is busy toiling away in the underworld helping people to cross over a threshold that will almost definitely prove to be more sinister than it appears. Oh, and there’s a labyrinth with a familiar growling presence lurking in the shadows.

Once you’re doing playing Greek mythology bingo, there’s a huge amount of fun to be had in seeing these characters burst into new life in unfamiliar ways – the series is just knowing enough to bring its own spin to the table, so that things can veer off in unexpected directions or flip from comedy to tragedy at the drop of a hat. By the time the Fates and the Furies appear, you’ve stopped trying to recognise names and are wincing at Zeus’s game with his ballboys or laughing at someone fangirling over a cameo by “The” Medusa (Debi Mazar).

All of this would be an impossible folly in many writers’ hands, but Kaos is the brainchild of Charlie Covell, who gave us The End of the F***ing World. He’s a superb juggler of tones, able to bring heartfelt emotion into a sequence involving a puppet and a piano, before having someone else make quips directly at the camera. The result is a dark and warped ride through witty meditations on life, death, humanity, power, free will and fate. And did we mention Jeff Goldblum is Zeus?

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