Netflix has invested millions of dollars in films and television shows in the last decade or so. A lot of their films and television shows are just mindless entertainment but some of them have a genuine interest to the public at large. Kaleidoscope is one of those shows. Where once the general public starts watching it and word gets spread around it will be one of those shows people can’t stop talking about. It’s that addictive of a show with a cool twist.
Leo Pap (Giancarlo Esposito, The Mandolorian, The Boys) is serving a prison sentence for robbery. He is a seasoned thief. He and his cellmate Stan Loomis (Peter Mark Kendall) decide they don’t want to be in prison anymore because he wants to see his daughter, Hannah Kim (Tati Gabrielle) again. He spent too much time in prison and he has been away from her for far too long. So he and Stan stage an elaborate escape but that’s only the start of their plan.
Leo wants to get revenge on the man that set him up and landed him in prison so he devises an elaborate scheme to rob a highly secure vault belonging to Roger Salas (Rufus Sewell) an old friend and business partner of Pap. In order to do this Pap has to assemble a crack group of experts to accomplish this feat. They need various kinds of experts and Ava Mercer (Paz Vega) an old friend of Pap’s, Bob Goodwin (Jai Courtney), and his wife Judy Goodwin (Rosaline Elbay) an ex-love interest of Stan’s. Along with a mechanic, CJ (Jordan Mendoza), they plan for months to set up and implement their planned robbery of the vault.
Kaleidoscope, as the word refers to it, is a series that has a number of episodes that intersect using a color sequence for each episode. Each episode is named after a color but takes place at a different timeline in the series of events that lead up to and after the heist. It’s up to the viewer to put the pieces to solve the mystery of said heist and what the motivations of the characters in the show truly are. This show is a true mind-bender but has a fantastic idea to back it up.
With a show that spans a big gap of time must also come a lot of changing of clothes and hairstyles. The various hairstyles from makeup changes for Esposito’s character are pretty interesting. He shows his diversity as an actor with all of his various disguises and looks in the series. The time jumps and so forth add an interesting production value and aesthetic to a series that already has a lot of very good elements in it. Garcia and company left no stone unturned.
Eric Garcia the showrunner/creator and writer has crafted a show with a lot of moving pieces. He has helped write a group of engaging characters that viewers can get behind. With a group of relative newcomers but the established actors like Sewell, Courtney, Vega, and especially Esposito all do a great job keeping viewers in limbo as to what the mystery of the series is and how the twist makes the show that much better.
With thieves and robbers and shady characters must also come the law and in the case of the show, there are FBI Agents that are fast on the trail of the team trying to rob the vault. The said FBI Agents in the series have their issues and want to prove to their bosses that they can do the job and overcome some personal issues from their past. Every mouse must have a cat chasing it and in this case, it’s a pretty slow cat because they are way behind in this mystery. Which makes for a fun series.
Kaleidoscope mixes in a very interesting premise with great execution by the writers, directors, and actors. The mixing up of the episodes for the viewer creates a mystery that makes for a fun and giving them to each viewer with a Netflix account in different orders was an ingenious idea by creator Eric Garcia. Television viewers have had a lot of experience with all kinds of shows so to create one that is new and interesting and has a new twist on the genre is pretty cool. This is going to be a water cooler-type show for sure. Giancarlo Esposito has another hit show on his hands. Everything he touches turns to gold.
4 ½ stars
Dan Skip Allen
From the Fourth Row! 