Meet Aggie Wiggs. She’s suffering from a case of writer’s block, or more so, captivating topic block. She lives alone in a nice house where she spends all day at her desk and keeps her adorable dog by her side. There is a room she refuses to enter that belonged to her now deceased son, who was killed in a car accident. Nile Jarvis, a real estate tycoon known for being the prime suspect in his wife’s death, moves in next door. He probably thinks he can turn a lesbian straight. It’s a big “Oh boy.” Aggie has finally found her muse.
The beast in me is the latest entry in Netflix’s massive library of miniseries, and it’s not exactly making a name for itself. The series, created by Gabe Rotter, lacks the special magic touch needed to be a breakout show. It’s no Adolescence Or Savage – it’s designed to slip through the cracks among the many other miniseries created in 2025. But that doesn’t necessarily make it a bad series. Actually, The beast in me can be quite enjoyable when you ignore the fact that it’s quite ordinary. Starring Claire Danes (Country) and Matthew Rhys (The Americans, Perry Mason) certainly give it some shine with their tantalizing chemistry when they’re together on screen as Aggie and Nile. These two prey on each other like predators refusing to be prey. This is the kind of show that is very good for short-term gratification. When the final scene fades to black in the eighth episode, viewers can sit back with relief, knowing that they have just ingested a delicious game of cat and mouse, and can remove it from their minds without getting too attached to it.
The beast in me preys on the obsession with murderers
The beast in me is not a true crime series, but it has many of the ingredients to make one. This is almost in the same vein as Only murders in the buildinga show about people’s obsession with true crime, but there’s nothing true about it. The fictionality of the stories in these two shows eliminates the risk of insensitive treatment of a controversial subject by potentially glorifying the events of a person’s assault and/or death. With The beast in meRotter and showrunner Howard Gordon explore society’s complex obsession with the psychology of murderers, even if the show sometimes gives in to it itself. Aggie becomes increasingly disturbed, but fascinated by the Nile, the longer they hang out. As a once-acclaimed writer, she feels this obligation to realize her creativity that has remained empty since the death of her son. Nile fills this void by simply existing, but it can be hard to tell whether she’s more interested in discovering the truth about her wife’s death, exploiting her story, or using it as an angry outlet.
The circumstances surrounding his wife’s death are revealed at one point, but it hardly feels like the show’s big eureka moment. The beast in me is oriented in a direction that aims to dissect Aggie’s state of mind after her introduction to Nile, rather than the other way around. The subversion of expectations is a welcome change from the usual habits of nitpicking, which led any murderer to commit crimes. Instead, The beast in me asks, “What happens to those who are consumed by this desire to know more about these horrible people? Choosing a writer who apparently doesn’t have much experience investigating criminal activity of this magnitude was a wise choice. This allows Aggie to be a good mix of capable and dangerously curious enough to cross the line a little too far.
The series begins to lose its grip when it wades into conversations about mental illness and how it affects family and friends. Without going into too much spoilers, the series does a good job of destigmatizing certain mental health issues and explaining that people with these illnesses are at greater risk of being taken advantage of by those with more power. Although not explicitly stated, this can be seen with Nile making the most of Aggie’s grief to get his son to take back his neighborhood and his book about him. But where things get irritating is when another character is depicted with stereotypical symptoms of mental illness that become their main personality trait. It also doesn’t help when the show presents this as a big reveal in a flashback episode near the end of the series, showing very little originality participating in a big trend of TV writing emptied of plot.
Claire Danes and Matthew Rhys connect with impeccable chemistry
Both Danes and Rhys are prolific actors on television, and that couldn’t be more evident with their harmony in The beast in me. Danes highlights the stress that comes with being a perfectionist, a writer, and a seeker of truth, all rolled into one. She uses small mannerisms like rubbing her face with her hands, not caring about ruining her appearance, to insinuate the messiness and lack of care she has for herself. Aggie feels like a real person come to life. Added pressure from the Danes is the troubling nature of Aggie’s relationship with her ex-partner and the aftermath of their son’s death. Every questionable thing Aggie does throughout the series to express her grief seems justified because of how Danes finds the good in her character.
Then there’s Rhys, who wanders around with a frightening presence until it’s time to become the elite player he knows he is. There’s a scene where he disgustingly eats a whole chicken like one of his rabid dogs, leaving some meat on the bones just so he can take another bite of the next wing. Nile follows the rules of psychological destruction and manipulation so perfectly to haunt his next victims in the shadows. Even when his vulnerability is exposed, Rhys suppresses it with a seductive smile to show how unbothered he is. In the rare moments when it explodes, it’s like the scene of an accident that you can’t help but watch through your fingers.
Rhys and Danois share the screen quite often, turning everyday interactions into interrogations most of the time. The brilliant thing the actors do is make it so that neither of them has any more power over the other. They frequently alternate between interrogator and suspect to examine the darkness within both their characters. The only odd complaint is that Aggie and Nile’s torturous relationship will make one wish Rhys and Danes would return to multi-season TV shows. The beast in me is a taut, bite-sized snack, but it doesn’t compare to the scale that Rhys and Danes featured on The Americans And Countryrespectively.
The beast in me slips through the cracks
The beast in me is definitely a strange sight, both a savory good time but also so clearly vanilla. There’s nothing wrong with playing a good old game of hide and seek between a would-be murderer and his investigator, but it might also need more sprinkles or at least some savory sauce to make it sweeter. The visuals don’t give much to compliment about the show: everything from the lighting to the cinematography is the opposite of brilliant. The set design, however, attracts attention because of its lived-in appearance. Aggie’s house is a painting of a writer gone mad, while Nile’s is a portrait of a husband gone strangely tame.
What may have kept the series from igniting a spark is that no other characters besides its leads have anything going for them. They all sorely lack dimension. Who are these people beyond the roles they play in Aggie and Nile’s lives? The show doesn’t need to explain it, but it should inspire the audience to feel he. However, he does not succeed. Nina Jarvis (played by Brittany Snow) is the third most important character in the series and she plays the typical role of a delusional housewife accompanied by bland dialogue. Brian Abbot (David Lyons) was supposed to play an important role in this puzzle, but he bowed out prematurely for some reasons. Most disappointing is the treatment reserved for Martin Jarvis, and more particularly Jonathan Banks (Break the bad, You better call Saul, Invincible). It’s shocking that an actor like Banks, who performs with such passion that it’s easy to forget his characters don’t actually exist, is woefully underused in a leading role. The biggest wait wasn’t whether Nile had killed his wife. This was when Banks would next appear on screen.
We can’t help but appreciate when a series is truly original these days, instead of being another spin-off, reboot, or adaptation. The beast in me will probably go unnoticed, which is fine. Not every show has to be a mind-blowing hit that shakes up the television landscape. The nice thing about it being a miniseries is that you don’t have to go through the whole conversation about whether it will be canceled or not. If it wasn’t a miniseries, it certainly would have disappeared (although is anything really a miniseries these days?). It’s so average that it can’t reasonably last much longer. But eight episodes and a shrug later, the only metaphor that can be used to aptly describe The beast in me it’s like a novel your mother buys at the airport to pass the time during the flight. A good read, but only when there’s nothing else to do.
The Beast in Me premieres November 13 on Netflix.