Colman Domingo Stars in Netflix Thriller

Playing like an Alfred Hitchcock wrong-man-wrong-place thriller if you replaced a Jimmy Stewart-style Everyman with Shaft, Netflix‘s The Madness is an eight-episode thriller built around the theory that, given the right opportunity, Colman Domingo is capable of being the baddest mutha on the planet. And as a proof to that theory, it is entirely successful.

The series is a pure star vehicle for Domingo — as if people had sat in a room and brainstormed cool things Colman Domingo could do, cool things Colman Domingo could say and cool things Colman Domingo could wear, and then turned Colman Domingo loose to elevate its level of cool even further. There’s an underlying giddiness in almost every frame at this being a thing that the hard-working Emmy-winning, Oscar-nominated star gets to do. And with its premiere date falling on his 55th birthday, it’s a heck of a gift for an actor who has surely earned this showcase.

That being said, the vehicle around Domingo is altogether less gratifying. For three or four episodes, it’s straightforward, run-of-the-mill pulp with just enough acknowledgment of the real world to give it teeth. But the second half becomes increasingly generic conspiracy stuff, leading to a two-part conclusion that’s more smug and sanctimonious than the preceding action can justify. 

Domingo plays Muncie Daniels, a former teacher and community activist who has transformed himself into a progressive television pundit. As the story begins, the Philadelphia-based Muncie is on the verge of achieving a dream: He’s guest-hosting a nightly talk show on CNN and his friend and agent Kwesi (Deon Cole) is certain that if this works out, a regular hosting gig could be next.

Things are going well for Muncie, but they aren’t perfect. He and his wife Elena (Marsha Stephanie Blake) are heading for divorce, his doting son (Thaddeus J. Mixson’s Demetrius) is a big fan of weed and his daughter (Gabrielle Graham’s Kallie) is nearly a stranger to him. Muncie is also struggling to work on a book of some sort, so he heads out to a cabin in the Poconos. 

Then, after a power outage, Muncie goes to the cabin next door and discovers its resident (Tahmoh Penikett) being dismembered by two men in masks. Soon, he’s on the run from a wild assortment of groups and organizations, including local police, the FBI, an Internet-fueled legion of white supremacists — did I mention that the guy next door was a far-right influencer? — and various corporate goons. A rising figure in a media landscape that too often prioritizes discord, Muncie is now embroiled in his own conspiracy, and it goes all the way to … nowhere interesting, actually. 

The Madness was created by Stephen Belber (Tape), and the fact that his background is primarily in theater rather than long-form yarn-spinning shows in the narrative’s rudimentary structure. Jumping between Philadelphia, New York City and the Poconos with little regard for time or geography, there’s a first-draft feeling to the way that Muncie carries out his investigation. Maybe it’s because Muncie isn’t a detective and doesn’t have the instincts of one that he goes from one place to the next getting exactly one lead at a time, but it feels like the outline of a mystery, not a mystery. 

Along the way, he becomes embroiled with fringe groups on both the right and left, returning when in doubt to a skeptical FBI agent played by John Ortiz and a wise and highly connected cigar store owner played by Stephen McKinley Henderson (the latter in his second great Netflix performance this month).

There are times when The Madness, which features VJ Boyd (Justified) as co-showrunner, demonstrates some welcome nuance. Although much of it was filmed in Ontario, the series has a good sense of Philadelphia as a stratified powder keg of a city. Its pointed references range from MOVE to the demographic makeup of several neighborhoods to Penn and Temple’s land acquisitions and their impact on the local real estate market. Characters say “jawn” occasionally for purposes of authenticity. Since Domingo is a Philly guy, I assume he pushed for those details.

The details on those fringe groups are less effective. A storyline about the Poconos neighbor’s estranged wife (Tamsin Topolski’s Lucie) is far more, “Hey, let’s humanize the white nationalists in predictable ways” than I had any use for. The way those factions intersect with the media, darker corners of the internet and Generic American Capitalism is meant to be represented by series’ title, but nothing here is really wild enough to live up to it.

Especially once it becomes clear that Muncie’s increased paranoia and family history of mental illness aren’t really what the show is about, there’s a transition from The Madness to The Blandness. By the finale, which is supposed to force Muncie to make big personal choices, I stopped buying any of what the show was saying on a bigger picture level. The ultimate unraveling of conspiratorial revelations is a big fizzle. 

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What keeps The Madness from ever becoming something wholly disposable is, as you may have guessed, Colman Domingo. In the opening minutes, we see enough of Muncie’s life — he enjoys going for long runs and is trained in jiu-jitsu — that his transformation into almost a pure action hero feels justifiable. Other details about the character, like his background in teaching and community organizing or his passionate but disturbed father, are pure exposition, or at least the gilding around the otherwise “wrongfully accused man goes on the run to clear his name” lily.  

Domingo makes Muncie properly outraged, but he mostly captures the frustrating inconvenience of this situation he’s been put in. Muncie may come from a blue collar background, but he enjoys the finer things. He spends most of the series in a spectacular and spectacularly versatile peacoat. When he’s trying not to be noticed in public, he’s abetted by a string of designer sunglasses. When he needs to go undercover at a snooty club, it isn’t enough to borrow just any suit — he borrows a perfectly tailored Tom Ford suit.

I didn’t stick around to the very end of the credits to see which brand names got “promotional consideration” for their associations with Domingo, but I guarantee that Netflix is leaving money on the table by not including a “For more on Colman Domingo’s wardrobe, go to…” call to action link at the end of each episode. 

The directors, including Clément Virgo for the first and last two installments of the season, understand the proverbial assignment. Whether Muncie is sitting at a dingy motel smoking a joint in a hoodie or running through the forest with henchmen in hot pursuit, Domingo is constantly lit and framed with a precision normally reserved for a Tom Cruise or the industry’s Timothée Chalamet of the Week.

The supporting cast is elevated by veteran character actors like Henderson and Ortiz, plus the always welcome Cole, who got his own comparable vehicle with the very good Average Joe. (That one aired on BET+ and therefore didn’t get as much exposure.) Two additional character actors are quite good as well — one gets a great single scene and the other emerges briefly in midseason as a mid-level villain. I wish the actors playing Muncie’s family had more to do, though I thought there were interesting aspects to Kallie’s character and Graham’s performance that added to the series.

I kept watching Domingo’s performance here and thinking of Bob Odenkirk in Nobody, in terms of how fun it is to see actors taking advantage of this sort of against-type casting. It’s not a thing I’d want them to do every project, but it’s one of those brass rings that every great sketch comedy guy or musical theater guy should have the opportunity to grab at one point in their career.

If somebody wants to give Domingo the opportunity to shoot guns, choke out bad guys, rant about income equality and strut down alleys in a jacket so cool random bystanders have to compliment him on his attire, I’m here for it. Even if I wish the show around him were better able to carry its momentum for its full duration.