The country most of us live in, the United States,  is under a lot of pressure from within because of the last election and how the current president has made some crazy decisions. From the left side opinions, that is. It’s a pretty tough country to live in right now, no matter how you look at it. Zero Day is a series that hits pretty close to home on the threats that are lurking within the country’s corners and shadows. It does a great job at showing what potentially is going on right now in this country.

George Mullen (Robert Deniro) is an ex-president of the United States. He is living comfortably in upstate New York with his wife. He likes to swim and run to keep himself busy, but he still keeps up on the country’s events. When a power outage occurs out of the blue, it shuts down all the computers and electrical grids in the country. Causing many crashes and subsequent deaths and destruction. This sports the current President Mitchell (Angela Bassett) to form a commission to figure out what happened and who’s responsible for the cyber attack. She asks DeNiro’s character to head the commission.  After confining in some friends and family, he reluctantly takes the job.

A cyber attack of this nature in this country would not be easy for people with the no how and motivation to do so. Many Ameticans have coding skills now, and there are plenty of groups who would like to send a message to the upper echelon of the American government.  Let’s be honest. There are many disgruntled people in this country right now. An American terrorist attack is very likely these days. This show dictates that very well.

Ed Newman & Noah Oppenheim, as the writers and showrunners along with Lesli Linka Glatter as the series director, do a fantastic job of creating an atmosphere of dread in this show. There are multiple things that help create this atmosphere.  One is an online blogger, Evan Green (Dan Stevens), who uses his television show to spit vitriol at the current president,  Commission, and DeNiro’s character. He gets his information from somewhere shady, that’s for sure. A second thing is that crowds of rioters trying to break into various banks, business establishments, and homes of government officials help create much decent in this series.

With any show about political intrigue like this one, there are going to be shady government officials that have involvement in the outcome of the inciting incident. This show has at least one if not more government elected officials who are involved in creating some unrest in the country.  I love it when politicians are the antagonists of a show like this one. Matthew Modine is clearly labeled as that from the very beginning.  He plays the speaker of the house, Geyer. His ideals don’t exactly line up with the current president or the commission she formed.

The rest of the cast is filled with fantastic character actors like Lizzy Caplin as DeNiro’s characters daughter and Congresswoman in her own right,  Bill Camp plays the CIA director, Jesse Plemons and Connie Brittain play two different assistants and close friends in various ways.  One as an ex-lover and the other as a young man who he has helped in his career in political life. Clark Gregg plays a shady stock broker and investor who has a vested interest in the events that happened on Zero Day. This cast overall is fantastic. I loved seeing them all pop up on screen in their various roles, from good characters to bad.

Anybody who knows me, though, knows Robert DeNiro is my favorite actor. I’ve been a fan of his since I saw him in Raging Bull, The Godfather Pt 2, and Taxi Driver as a little kid. I probably shouldn’t have been watching these films, but alas, I did anyway. He has done it all in his career. The role of an ex-president going through some personal and political difficulties may be the most important role of his career. His real political beliefs are no secret to the masses who watch this series. He has brought some of those to this character for sure, but he has also brought his amazing acting ability as well. He is as believable as ever as this man going through this difficult situation. I was blown away by how terrific he was as this realistic character. Hopefully, he will garner some Emmy love for this performance. 

Zero Day is going to hit home for a lot of Americans no matter if you support the left or right side of the aisle politically or not. This show depicts an oh to real situation that could happen in this country. We’ve seen signs of it quite often.  The showrunners, Newman & Oppenheim, as well as the series director Glatter, all do a great job bringing this scenario to the forefront in this show. I was riveted every moment I was watching these events transpire. It made me completely worried while watching it take place in the context of the series. The cast from Emmy worthy DeNiro to Bassett, Stevens, Caplin, Camp, Plemons, and others are all bringing their A-game. This series shows how susceptible this country is to a cyber attack and how many enemies within it could genuinely have.

Zero Day streams on Netflix February 20th, 2025 All Episodes Review’d

5 stars

Dan Skip Allen