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It comes as a great surprise to learn that The Beast in Me is its creator, writer and executive producer Gabe Rotter’s first major work for the screen. Because it is, simply put, so very, very good. Even without two astonishing performances from the lead actors – Claire Danes and Matthew Rhys – the script, the sheer style and confidence of it all, would be things of beauty. But add what that pair are doing, and this clever, taut eight-part psychological thriller moves seamlessly into top-tier television.
Danes plays Aggie Wiggs (Rotter may still have some work to do honing his naming skills), a writer who made her name with a book about her troubled relationship with her father. She is currently stuck on her next book, about the friendship between supreme court justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg and her fellow judge but polar political opposite Antonin Scalia, not least because she is grieving the eight-year-old son she and her now ex-wife Shelley (Natalie Morales) lost to a drunk driver four years earlier. The driver, a young man called Teddy, who lives locally and frequent sightings of whom negate any chance of peace for Aggie, managed to delay a breathalyser test at the time and avoid being charged with the boy’s death. Aggie lives alone with her rage and grief in the large, empty house that was supposed to overflow with family.
Into her affluent neighbourhood comes multimillionaire scion of a real estate developer, Nile Jarvis (Rhys), who has been the prime suspect in his wife’s suspected murder since she disappeared without trace six years ago. His first act in his new home (where he lives with his former secretary/new wife Nina – Brittany Snow) is to ask everyone if he can cut a jogging trail through the nearby communally owned woods. Everyone agrees to let the suspected murderer have his way, except for Aggie. “I should hang out with more dykes,” he says admiringly. He is a deeply unlovely piece of work and exactly what she needs.
Thus are they brought together, forming the fundamentally antagonistic and compelling connection that fuels the rest of the show. Aggie is blocked with the RBG book, Nile points out with his characteristic lack of nicety, because it’s the last thing people want to read. “No one wants hope. They want gossip and carnage.” He suggests that she write about him instead. She declines.
Then two things happen. She is visited in the night by a drunk FBI agent, Brian Abbott (David Lyons), who was the lead investigator into Nile’s wife’s disappearance. He warns her that Nile “is not like us” and says he couldn’t live with his conscience if he didn’t tell her to stay away from him.
Then Teddy disappears. The morning after Aggie inadvertently identified him to Nile as the killer of her son, his clothes and a suicide note are found on the beach, despite his multiple future plans with his girlfriend and no sign of being in any mental distress.
The police have no interest in following up her suspicions. In order to pursue them herself, she agrees to write Nile’s story with him. As their central cat and mouse relationship progresses, along with a possible sapphic vibe from Nina (an agent who also becomes interested in representing artist Shelley), the wider narrative builds too. Nile’s father, Martin (the veteran character actor Jonathan Banks – you will know, and be as ever terrified by him, when you see him), comes into play, leading us to wonder if his son is a chip off the evil old block or merely tainted by association. Protests against the Jarvis company’s latest planned development mount, led by councilwoman Olivia Benitez (Aleyse Shannon), who has mayoral ambitions that may make her dangerously incorruptible or a useful ally to the Jarvis cause. Further complications and potential for blackmail, bluffs and revelations are added by Abbott’s affair with a married woman.
At its heart, though, The Beast in Me remains a two-hander between Danes as a wounded warrior struggling to rise and Rhys as an elusive mass of possibilities and contradictions. They spark off each other through beautifully written scenes designed to immerse you in the world of two people discovering what it means to find someone who truly sees you and accepts you in your entirety – even when that entirety drives others away – and how much of them you will accept in return. It is, they are, absolutely wonderful to watch. Awards will surely be given, and in the meantime you cannot look away.
