Page 108 - Time Magazine-November 05, 2018

TimeOff Reviews
TELEVISION
The things soldiers still carry
By Judy Berman
Netflix’s Bodyguard opeNs with a familiar actioN
scene: Riding a train with his kids, Sergeant David Budd (Rich-
ard Madden, most recognizable to viewers as Game of Thrones’
Robb Stark) spots a frantic transport cop. Minutes later he’s
talking down a would-be suicide bomber, a shaky young woman
in an abaya (Anjli Mohindra). But there’s a twist: David tells her narrows during scenes set in the present
that he saw friends die for nothing in Afghanistan, and that the
experience taught him to be wary of politicians. “You and I,” he
says, “we’re just collateral damage.”
It isn’t just a negotiation tactic. David’s tour of duty left
him scarred, disillusioned and deeply suspicious of the
government—wounds he shares with some of the veterans in Roberts comes to its shadowy parent company, Geist.
another show, Amazon’s Homecoming. Though their styles di- TV in Amazon’s Roberts is a Hitchcock heroine, lost in
verge, both shows fuse the political with the psychological to surreal new drama her own mind. As her remote, bro-ish
consider the lingering effects of combat on soldiers. It’s not a Homecoming boss, Bobby Cannavale is the military-
new topic for TV (see also: M*A*S*H, Homeland). But the way ▽
these stories zero in on the morally compromised institutions
responsible for individual suffering screams 2018.
Bodyguard, a BBC megahit that arrives on Netflix on Oct. 24,
is a six-episode sprint that subverts thriller tropes just often
enough to earn its reliance on them. A talented but unstable vet
BODYGUARD: NETFLIX; HOMECOMING: AMA ZON guard to government VIPs, Madden’s David never feels too If Bodyguard is the more thrilling of the
whose political outrage doesn’t mesh with his job as a body-
polished. When he’s assigned to protect a hawkish, power-
hungry Home Secretary (Keeley Hawes), it seems equally
likely that he’ll assassinate her. But the question isn’t just
whether he’ll turn out to be a hero or a villain; it’s whether
heroism is even possible in these conditions.
Homecoming may be the more hyped show of the two
on this side of the Atlantic, thanks to its pairing of star
◁
Madden and Hawes in
Netflix’s Bodyguard
Julia Roberts and director Sam Esmail,
as well as its origin as a popular podcast.
Coming to Amazon on Nov. 2, the 10-ep-
isode first season casts Roberts as Heidi
Bergman, a psychiatric professional who
once ran an experimental program called
Homecoming whose stated aim was to
ease traumatized soldiers back into so-
ciety. Years after her abrupt departure
from the facility, Heidi is waiting tables
at a dive when a Department of Defense
investigator (Shea Whigham) walks in
and inquires about one of her old pa-
tients, Walter Cruz (Stephan James).
That’s when she realizes she can barely
remember her time at Homecoming.
Esmail is divisivE.Though his
shambolic USA thriller Mr. Robot can
be exhilarating, its constant narrative
misdirection grew exhausting after
the first season. Thankfully, he wields
his paranoid style more judiciously in
Homecoming: tiny palm trees in Heidi’s
fish tank subtly underscore themes of
deception. Birds that emit terrible, bel-
lowing squawks set a freaky mood but
appear rarely. Slow pans and overhead
shots suggest surveillance. The frame
(which is actually a few years in the fu-
ture), almost like smartphone footage.
For the most part, Esmail lets his su-
perb cast tell the story of Heidi’s search
for answers about Homecoming and
industrial complex made flesh. James
builds a mystery into Walter’s every line:
Where is this gregarious vet now?
His story and David’s converge as
metaphors for the way politicians, in-
stitutions and corporations use soldiers
as pawns in games of power and profit.
two shows, it’s also the less surprising,
with a resolution as conventional
as its structure. Homecoming is
something more artful, its charac-
ters capable of genuinely shock-
ing and its conclusion cryptic

enough to haunt dreams.
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