Steamy, sexy thriller series are almost always campy in some respect or another. But a new Netflix thriller from Colombia is so over-the-top that it may make the most reverent fan of the genre roll their eyes.
MEDUSA: STREAM IT OR SKIP IT?
Opening Shot: A woman floating unconscious underwater, seemingly tied down to something.
The Gist: We flash to the same woman, Bárbara Hidalgo (Juana Acosta), on a boat by herself. As she navigates the boat to a spot where she wants to sun herself, she thinks to the announcement that she will be the new CEO of Medusa, one of the most massive and powerful conglomerates in Colombia. She’s taking the company over from her father Damian (Diego Trujillo), who founded the company. She also thinks about some sexy times with a man who may or may not be her husband.
Then the boat explodes, sending her hurtling under the surface. She’s alive but appears to be tied down. Two men approach her underwater, rob her jewelry and cut off the ring finger on her right hand.
Police detective Danger Carmelo (Manolo Cardona) is put in charge of the case, which at first is considered a missing persons case. He suspects essentially everyone in Bárbara’s family: Cousin Jacobo (Sebastian Osorio), her uncle Camilo (Luis Fernando Hoyos), her aunt Jackie (Adriana Arango), plus a distant cousin, Cristian (Carlos Torres), who was named CEO in her place. There’s also her stepmother Ursula (Mabel Moreno) and half-sister Viviana (Juanita Molina). Even her husband, Esteban Arco (Sebastian Martinez), isn’t beyond suspicion. The only one Danger seems to believe is Bárbara’s teenage daughter Maya (Mariana Mozo).
Bárbara is saved by a mysterious woman who nurses her back to health in a remote hut using natural remedies. Bárbara’s memory of the day of the explosion is sketchy, and some pieces of her memories before that are missing. She certainly shocks her family when she returns; they gave her up for dead. Danger gets evidence that the explosion wasn’t the accident that his superiors think it is, and he continues to investigate after they close it.
What Shows Will It Remind You Of? Medusa is a steamy thriller along the lines of Deceitful Love, with some Succession mixed in.
Our Take: Pretty much everything about Medusa is patently ridiculous, so your enjoyment of this series will depend on how much you tolerate this ridiculousness. This isn’t a story with subtlety; hell, the main detective’s first name is “Danger”, for heaven’s sake. It’s a story about a woman who will find out how much of a shark she was before someone tried to kill her, and the sniveling members of her family that wanted what she ended up getting.
The company’s name is Medusa, and the Hidalgo patriarch, Damian, carries a walking stick with a bust of the mythical snake-haired Gorgon as its handle. The company is called Medusa because, like the mythical figure it’s named after, it’s multi-headed, with extreme influence on most of what’s going on in Colombia. Like we said, this is not a show that’s full of nuance.
This isn’t going to be a show of personality deep dives or character development. There will be lots of Danger sleuthing around the Hidalgo family, lots of family arguments, lots of sex and lots of shots of rich people doing rich people things. There will probably be sex between Danger and Bárbara. And every time we refer to the detective by his first name, we shake our head.
Medusa is the kind of show you’re going to either enjoy for its over-the-top silliness or think is one of the worst shows you’ve seen in a long time. One thing’s for certain, though: You won’t think of the show as “meh.”
Sex and Skin: Lots of both.
Parting Shot: Danger tells Bárbara that it’s likely that someone close to her was responsible for the attempt on her life.
Sleeper Star: Really we could just throw a dart at the cast list and give this award to one of them.
Most Pilot-y Line: When Danger hands Bárbara his card, there’s a closeup of a business card that has “DANGER CARMELO” in big letters.
Our Call: SKIP IT. We’re in the group that thinks the campiness of Medusa detracts from the show instead of adding to it. But if you’re ok with the silliness, then you might be in for an easy-to-watch, sexy thriller.
Joel Keller (@joelkeller) writes about food, entertainment, parenting and tech, but he doesn’t kid himself: he’s a TV junkie. His writing has appeared in the New York Times, Slate, Salon, RollingStone.com, VanityFair.com, Fast Company and elsewhere.
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