Today’s Series - Kaleidoscope
A new mini series on Netflix where the episodes are presented in random order to each subscriber allowing the story to be experienced anyway one chooses in order to impact your point of view. I really liked that idea when I first heard about it, but it didn’t really play like I thought it would.
For any series I discuss, there will be spoilers involved. Consider this the warning.
The order Netflix gave me was Green, Yellow, Violet, Orange, Blue, Red, Pink, and White. I moved Violet to the top and kept the rest. It’s pretty much the chronological order, but with the heist saved for last which the show prefers people to do.
I had imagined this show to really influence my thinking based on where I started. But that’s not what happened at all. Instead it was mini cliffhangers and then you get the full info later. Not exactly how it was advertised. I could see how someone would be lead to think they know what’s going on if they went in a more random order, but they’d have answers soon enough and eventually we all meet at the same point of view.
I will say, this show is pretty good. It has elements of Ocean’s Eleven, Reservoir Dogs, and a hint of GTA (a character even says as much).
It’s fun, incredibly well acted from the entire cast, and is a decent heist story. The problem? The ending is so bleak that I never want to rewatch it.
Giancarlo Esposito’s character of Ray learns the lesson that he has to let his desire for vengeance go because it will get him and his crew killed. His daughter saves him by stealing the bonds back and sending them to the Triplets. That’s the big twist and final reveal. But…Ray ends up dying anyway as does most of the crew, and the two left alive are miserable anyway. So what exactly were they all saved from? I honestly feel the people making this show missed the point.
Take Agent Abassi. We learn her heartbreaking backstory of having to raid the mosque’s of innocent people after 9/11 which lead to her problems with addiction and in turn losing custody of her son. She turns things around, but can’t stop ignoring her gut, works hard at this case, and she ends up dead? What the fuck?!
“Well she pushed too hard and the rich people had her killed.”
“She remained an addict, she just transferred it to her work.”
And?! That’s the moral of the story?! A person is trying to fix a wrong in the world and they have to die for it? Because she didn’t stop to smell the roses, be with her son, and just give up on bringing criminals to justice, she’s dead? What kind of Jigsaw level thinking is that?!
By the end of this show, pretty much everyone we care about is dead or barely getting by. This series is like the anti Glass Onion for me. It sends the message of let the ultra rich win because it’s all pointless.
But then I got to thinking. What if that’s not what happened? What if there was one little hint that suggested otherwise?
In her last conversation with Ray, there is a FedEx package behind Hannah. It’s the exact same size box she and her sister used to swap out the bonds. She says she is sending the bonds back to the Triplets so that they can claim the insurance and double their money. But we don’t see that. What if she kept it? That makes her unreliable and we cannot trust her.
My theory: Hannah kept the bonds because she never really forgave Ray. She also wanted Roger taken down because she blamed him too. Hannah gets her revenge on both men, keeps all the money knowing her career is about to end, and provides for the family that raised her. She lies to everyone, the Triplets included, which means no one is looking at her, and she let’s the crew fall apart over the next 6 months.
Then when Ray called her, what happens shortly after? He’s killed. Presumably by Roger’s son, but how does a college dropout know how to track an expert thief? Hannah tipped him off.
So there you have it. Kaleidoscope only makes sense to me when I take the view point that Hannah was the mastermind all along. After all, we learn a lot about her as an adult doing this very thing in conning the woman in order to steal the gold bars. She has no problem emotionally manipulating people to achieve her goals.
We are also told that family clouds one’s judgement. It’s why Ray wavered at being a thief in the beginning and why Roger had no problem walking away. Hannah’s family is her sister of 24 years and her newborn baby. That’s who she takes this risk for.
So overall, it’s a good show, but nothing special. Go in whatever order you like, but odds are you will come to the same conclusion no matter what.
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