ROLLING STONE's Chris Vogner is calling NETFLIX's OBSESSED "the kinkiest" drama the streamer has ever had. In making that declaration, he confesses to much more than just lack of information.
GRACE: Can you imagine me in a three-way?
[Will and Karen laugh]
KAREN: Honey, I can barely imagine you in a two-way.
GRACE: Come on, I mean, it's not outside the realm of possibility.
WILL: Grace, I can see me in a three-way. I can see Karen in a three-way.
KAREN: Oh, honey, every night with Stan is a three-way: me, him, and Johnny Walker Black. Just the three of us.
WILL: But you're-you're just not that girl.
KAREN: [laughs] No way. No how.
GRACE: Hey, I have been know to get a little crazy in the boudoir. Some might even call me . . . kinky.
[Will and Karen laugh hysterically]
GRACE: Hey!
WILL:
Sweetheart, people who are truly kinky never use the word "kinky."
KAREN:
And who the hell says "boudoir"? "Hey, hey, look at me. I'm kinky, and I'm in the boudoir."
"People who are truly kinky never use the word 'kinky'." If it's worth saying, it's probably already been said on WILL & GRACE (Season 3, episode 6, "Love Plus One" written by Richard Rosenstock). "People who are truly kinky never use the word 'kinky'."
People could describe OBSESSED as sad. As pathetic. As tired. As non-compelling. There are numerous terms that describe this hideous series.
Jay Farrow (Rish Shah) complains at one point, "Anna, I haven't even met your mother!"
It's bad acting, it's bad writing, it's bad nirvana for connoisseurs of truly rotten garbage.
You might not get why the audience is howling so let's back up a moment. Jay hasn't met Anna's mother. But Anna has met Jay's father. She's met him and then some.
Richard Amitage plays Jay's father William. He and Anna (Charlie Murphy) have met, their pelvises have met, their privates have met. If you're wondering, yes, Jay's parents are married. Mom Ingrid is played by (Indira Varma).
At the start of the 90s, this material made for a bad book. Then it was turned into a 'thriller' that flopped, Louis Malle's DAMAGE which barely scraped up $7.5 million in North America. Overwrought and tedious, someone felt it was perfect for a Greek Opera -- those with that feeling weren't consumers of opera.
Now the garbage has been turned into a streaming trash.
For a project to work, you have to care about the characters. But William has everything -- including a loving wife -- and he's willing to sleep with this woman -- have an ongoing affair with her while she's seeing his son. And Anna? She not only repeatedly sleeps with William but accepts Jay's marriage proposal.
Who are these people?
Not anyone you'd want to know.
They hump each other repeatedly in one unconvincing scene after another. Armitage conveys more passion when he's alone sniffing a pillow for scent and jerking off and humping the mattress. If the sex scenes are bad -- and they are -- what's worse is the post-coital scenes as the shot tries for clever angles to frame Armitage in such a way that you don't see his flaccid penis.
You watch appalled at what you are seeing. You're disgusted not pulled in.
If he wants to cheat on his wife, get a divorce -- or at least find a woman who's not engaged to your son. And what kind of person sleeps with a man's father and also agrees to marry the man?
This is beyond stupid. Where do they think this ends?
As the four-part series winds down, William shows up at Jay's bachelor party and tells his son, the one he's cucking, "I just want you to be happy."
How?
But you know when he says it, everything's about to get worse. And it does, as it finally and slowly dawns on Jay. He rushes to Anna's place, running up several flights of stairs, unable to speak to him mother that he's called on his phone. He gets to Anna's door and it's locked. He knocks the door down and sees his father taking a blind folded Anna from behind. He backs up and falls over the railing, several flights to his death. His father, nude, rushes down the stairs to embrace his dead son.
Charlie Murphy is lousy in this -- it's hard to imagine any actress being able to pull off the role of Anna. But Charlie Murphy reaches new lows in acting and it's because she never reacts in any way that seems remotely human. True, she was blind folded when Jay burst in. But even with the blind fold off, Murphy makes the choice to not react.
The man who proposed to her, that she was going to marry the next day, is dead. Is dead and dead because he discovered her having sex with his father. And she's blank and emotionless.
As the final episode winds down, we're supposed to feel sorry for Anna and William. Details are piled on, Anna's father molested her -- and did so with her mother's knowledge! Who cares? None of that justifies what she did or brings Jay back to life. On what would have been her honeymoon, she comes on to a stranger until his wife shows up and then she's grinding against a strange man on the beach before later slapping him. None of it matters.
None of it redeems these characters.
Instead, we're left nodding along with Ingrid whose last words to her husband are, "You should have killed yourself."
