tick tock, jack
Now That Season One Of 'Rabbit Hole' Is Over, Is It Worth Watching? Here's What Critics Think
We wanted to do a round-up of the reviews for "Rabbit Hole" now that it's concluded its first season on Paramount Plus. The show stars Keifer Sutherland, a "fixer" who gets caught in a tangled web of mystery, twists, turns and backstabbing.
The series premiered on March 26 and ended May 7, so the entire first season is now available to watch (or binge). But a lot of shows get cancelled nowadays and nobody wants to watch a show knowing it ends suddenly and doesn't have a conclusion, or worse off, get stuck on a cliffhanger. So is this new show worth watching? Here's what the reviews say.
What it's about
The premiere, written and directed by John Requa & Glenn Ficarra ("Crazy Stupid Love"), has an intriguing set-up. It introduces us to John Weir (Sutherland) and his team of tech geniuses. They are corporate espionage operatives. What does that mean exactly? The opening scene features Weir at a bar, where he puts an operation in play that includes a prerecorded TV news broadcast that catches the attention of a power broker, who then sells massive amounts of stock based on the fake news, destroying a company. Weir and his people are hired to manipulate the markets from the shadows. They're James Bond with 401Ks instead of nuclear weapons.
In one of those odd juxtapositions that come with the streaming age, a new Netflix drama about an FBI agent in the White House, "The Night Agent," has a strong "24" vibe, while "Rabbit Hole," a Paramount+ series thriller featuring the star of that show, Kiefer Sutherland, doesn’t. Netflix might have cracked the code for another "24"-like franchise with "The Night Agent," a twisty thriller with high-stakes corruption reaching deep into the corridors of Washington and a stalwart FBI agent who suffers for our sins. Crisply told and smartly cast, the adaptation of Matthew Quirk’s novel issues a call worth answering.
The atmosphere of the eight-part season 1, created by Glenn Ficarra and John Requa, is a mix of good-natured dread with a dash of cynicism, and though I wouldn't say this in most instances, Mr. Sutherland is perfectly cast. He has an actorly capacity for epic arrogance and his character, John Weir, is nothing if not smug, even in the face of daunting assignments or federal authorities — whom he assures he is not engaged in corporate espionage.
A retread of Keifer's '24' years
For some viewers, that may be enough. Since "24" hit it big, Sutherland has kept plugging away at action-thrillers like "Designated Survivor," "The Fugitive" (2020), and various films. None have been able to match the rush of a real-time ticking clock, but there's clearly an audience to see the former Jack Bauer dig his way out of an impossible scenario.
You know who I miss? I miss WEIRD Kiefer Sutherland. Like the McRib, Weird Kiefer Sutherland was a limited-time-only event that took place between Sutherland's '80s and '90s run as a conventional movie star and then his '00s and '10s run as a conventional television star. At the time, I’m afraid many people treated Weird Kiefer Sutherland as an almost disappointing anomaly like, "Man, look how far Kiefer Sutherland’s career has fallen," rather than appreciatively tabulating all the wonderfully bizarre choices Sutherland was making in films like "Dark City" or even his one-minute cameo in "A Few Good Men."
You wouldn’t believe all the craziness that Kiefer Sutherland encounters every 24 hours in the Paramount+ spy thriller series "Rabbit Hole," but oh wait, you WOULD believe it or at least go with it, especially if you were a fan of the ludicrous but undeniably entertaining "24," which ran for 10 seasons over a 13-year span on Fox and firmly established Sutherland as one of the go-to TV action stars of our time.
A show all over the place
If there is one criticism of "Rabbit Hole," it's that it doesn't seem to know what it wants to be. There are moments where it's a loosey-goosey screwball comedy, and moments where it's a full-bore action thriller. The overarching theme — a plot to bring down the US by systematically undermining its democracy — feels like it's grasping to say something important about the state of the world. Tonally, it's all over the place. If I had to guess, it feels like "Rabbit Hole" was created as one thing, and then got bashed around in development trying to accommodate everyone else's idea of what it should be. As a result, it can be quite a formless watch at times.
Showrunners John Requa and Glenn Ficarra explained that they wanted to make a political thriller in the vein of "All the President’s Men," "The Parallax View," and "Three Days of the Condor." Mistrust of the government was high in the 1970s after Watergate and, as the pair explained after the show's SXSW premiere, the pair wanted to make a modern version of that. With date privacy issues, conspiracy theories, and the misinformation that abounds in today's world, Requa and Ficarra felt the time was right for their spy thriller story.
TL;DR
For now though, it's worth enjoying the ride.
It's messy, convoluted, and often incoherent, but it's also intense for those who value intensity over story and character.
