As temperatures drop, the promise of a guilty-pleasure thriller about a mysterious man who infiltrates a family with the intention of destroying its patriarch is an enticing invitation. With two episodes set on the shores of a Grecian vacation home, a beautiful cast, and a twisted mystery at its center, Prime Video’s “Malice” should draw the attention of viewers who have made streaming series like “The Hunting Wives” on Netflix and “All Her Fault” on Peacock into hits.
Everyone loves a good piece of escapist nonsense—shows in which the plot threads and character motives don’t have to ring true as long as they entertain. And yet, even the guilty pleasure has its breaking point and can vary in quality. When done well, we don’t mind irrational behavior and inconsistent characters in the name of thrilling twists. When done poorly, we get “Malice.”
Creator James Wood’s six-part series opens in Greece at the gorgeous vacation property of the Tanner family, led by the charming Jamie (David Duchovny). From the beginning, the writers drop narrative crumbs about Jamie’s past and personality. He’s a bit abusive and bullying to his son, and asks people to stay off social media, implying that maybe there’s a scandal about to burst. Almost hysterically, numerous “clues” dropped in the first couple of episodes just disappear, as if the writers forgot to weave them into their incredibly inane final act. What’s the opposite of a Chekov’s Gun? What do you call it when a playwright puts six loaded guns on a table and then forgets they’re there?
Anyway, we also meet Jamie’s wife Nat (Carice van Houten of “Game of Thrones”) and watch as Nat’s BFF Jules (Christine Adams) arrives at the Grecian mansion with her husband Damien (Raza Jaffrey), their son, and the family tutor Adam (Jack Whitehall). From the beginning, Adam is clearly the villain of the piece, a sort of Tom Ripley figure who has worked his way into Jules and Damien’s family just to get closer to Nat and Jamie. How do we know this? He tells us. And not through narration. “Malice” is the kind of show wherein Adam drops off a passed-out, drunk Jamie one night and tells him that he could kill him, but has chosen to destroy him instead. We get it.
The most significant problem with this “Ripley”-inspired tale of a suave conman who tries to destroy the life of a wealthy businessman is that Tom Ripley needs to be charismatic and brilliant. We need to believe that smart people would let him into their inner circle in a way that would lead to their destruction. This simply never happens with Adam Healey, a character whom Whitehall plays like an obvious sociopath. He’s dead behind the eyes, which could be a choice to amplify how his quest for vengeance has destroyed him on the inside, but it also means that no one who has built a business from the ground up would leave him in their house alone, or around his children, or around his wife, etc.
And yet there are tiny little choices that will keep viewers with “Malice,” including a convincing performance from Duchovny as the kind of man who often ignores the harm done by his business choices. He’s casually selfish in a manner that can be convincing and could have made his Scrooge-esque downfall into thrilling television if Wood and company had the courage to really follow through on that idea.
Without spoiling, Adam’s plan to destroy Jamie’s life, and his motives for doing so, are so half-considered by the writers of “Malice” that they culminate in a finale that has no narrative or thematic conviction. It’s a show that never figured out where it wanted to end, and so picks one that could work as well as any other. The revelations and final choices feel so casually considered that they collapse under any sort of analysis. It doesn’t leave one marveling at the arc of a villain or even a victim, just feeling mistreated by bad TV.
Whole season screened for review. Now on Amazon Prime.
