If you think you’ve seen every kind of thriller, let us tell you right away: The Beast in Me will captivate you like no other TV show or movie in recent years. Not only because of the presence of two prominent actors like Claire Danes and Matthew Rhys, but because beyond the mystery, it touches a part of you that often stays hidden in order to move forward in life. Clearly, from notable producers like Jodie Foster and Conan O’Brien, we could only expect a resounding success: the fact that The Beast in Me has been in Netflix’s Top 10 since the day after its release.
The miniseries starts off calmly, almost deceptively. But you immediately sense that something stirs beneath the surface; that everything is permeated by unspoken tensions. Aggie Wiggs, masterfully portrayed by Claire Danes, is a character who leaves a mark not so much for what she says, but for what she cannot express. She will remind many of a moment when something important was lost, yet life went on, even though a part of oneself remained stuck.
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What strikes most in the series is the way it deals with pain. Not as an isolated event, but as a space in which one lives. Aggie no longer writes, no longer dreams, no longer breathes as she should since she lost her son. Anyone who has ever experienced an unexplainable emotional void will feel this reality almost tangibly.
Then enters Nile Jarvis, played by Matthew Rhys: enigmatic, distant, and at the same time magnetic. But don’t expect a love story. Between them there is no affection, but a fracture. A shared ground made of shame, remorse, lies, voices, and personal tragedies. Probably readers also know someone who attracted them not for kindness, but because they saw in him or her that part of themselves they prefer not to acknowledge.
What The Beast in Me masterfully manages to do is make you ask, episode after episode, which mask you wear in front of others. We all wear one, sometimes to protect ourselves, other times to appear stronger, and yet others not to betray ourselves before our darkest thoughts.
Perhaps unintentionally, the series invites us to a dialogue with ourselves, a sort of self-analysis. About what it means to suffer; how easily one can become prisoners of a lie told to survive; how fragile the balance is between who we are and who we could become if the beast emerged from our darkness.
But don’t worry: despite such premises, it’s not a series that leaves us feeling “empty”. It’s intense, certainly, but also deeply human. It tells of people who get lost, hold on, make mistakes, and search for meaning. And of how two individuals can become mirrors for each other in the most unpredictable moments.
Furthermore, The Beast in Me works perfectly as a pure psychological thriller: the tension builds, power plays, journalism, politics, partial truths, and secrets intertwine, making you realize that the truth is never where you expect it. But what makes it different from many others is precisely this invitation to perceive the imperfect humanity of the characters. There’s no need to know anything in advance. No need to guess the culprits. We just have to be ready to feel.
If you recognize yourself in at least one glance from Aggie or in a silence from Jarvis, know that it’s no coincidence. Because The Beast in Me, available now on Netflix, is not just a series. It’s a silent confession of who we are when life breaks something inside us — and how we choose to move forward.
