Stream It Or Skip It: ‘Full Circle’ On Max, Where The Investigation Into A Botched Kidnapping Brings Out Lots Of Secrets

There are certain writers and directors that you give more leeway towards than others. We’ll admit that right now. Steven Soderbergh is one of those directors, and Ed Solomon is one of those writers. The last time they collaborated, on the online/linear hybrid series Mosaic, was a challenge. Their new series, Full Circle, is more straightforward, but still provides viewers a bit of a struggle right off the bat.

FULL CIRCLE: STREAM IT OR SKIP IT?

Opening Shot: A voice says, “It never begins. Thus, it never ends.” Then we see the picture of a wealthy family with the face of a teenage boy circled, interspersed with a rendering of a real estate development project.

The Gist: In Queens, we see someone get killed, and a bag of money taken. The man who ordered the hit looks in the bag and says there’s too much money.

At the funeral, the man’s sister-in-law Savitri Mahabir (CCH Pounder) tells her nephew Aked (Jharrel Jerome) and associate Garmen (Phaldut Sharma) that she’s going to go back home to Guyana to get some answers. Aked is eager for his family, who are the main Guyanese organized crime family in New York, to hit back at the man who ordered the killing. There, she visits a senior family member named Willoughby (Franklin Ojeda Smith), who gives a picture of the Browne family, with the face of a teenager named Jared (Ethan Stoddard) circled.

Jared is the grandson of “Chef Jeff” McCusker (Dennis Quaid) and the son of Sam and Derek Browne (Claire Danes, Timothy Olyphant), who run the famous chef’s company. Jared’s behavior has been a bit off lately, as he’s been misplacing things. For instance, after some baseball practice with Derek, Jared loses his sneakers, which had his phone in them; he also lost a prized hoodie. What he doesn’t know is that they were stolen by a kid named Nicky (Lucian Zanes).

Meanwhile, Mel Harmony (Zazie Beetz), a postal inspector, lobbies her boss, Manny Broward (Jim Gaffigan) to put her on the case involving Mahabir’s organization, who commits insurance fraud by murdering, as she calls them, “bums and vagrants” with policies they’ve taken out on them. It’s as much to save her job as to be on a more exciting case. But Manny is tired of her antagonizing act, so he refuses. She decides to work on the case on her own time.

Louis (Gerald Jones), the brother of Natalia (Adia), a masseuse who works for Mahabir, is recruited with his friend Xavier (Sheyi Cole) from Georgetown, Guyana to work on the kidnapping of Jared Browne. Not long after they get to Queens, they’re tested with orders to kill a wheelchair-bound client. Xavier does most of the dirty work; Louis, not realizing that they’d be asked to do something so extreme, tells his sister that those deaths are on her hands.

Aked is put in charge of the kidnapping, and it seems that by the time word of it gets to Natalia, it sounds like they’re going to kill Jared. She starts hatching a plan with Louis. In the meantime, Mel intercepts Xavier, letting him know that she has CCTV footage of what they did to the guy in the wheelchair, in an attempt to turn him. He calls her and tells her something is going down in Washington Square Park, but later then calls her and says nothing is happening.

Jared gets a call from Nicky, telling him that he has Jared’s stuff and where they can meet. Aked and his associates have scouted Jared’s movements, but are immediately thrown off when he leaves his building on his bike. He calls Sam and Derek from Jared’s phone and makes very specific demands, involving Chef Jeff and his Atlantic City casino credit line. But the family is relieved when Jared walks in the door and tells them what happened. The problem is, now Nicky is in grave danger.

What Shows Will It Remind You Of? Full Circle, written by Ed Solomon and directed by Steven Soderbergh, has the mystery vibe of a show like The Undoing with the semi-creepy vibe Soderbergh and Solomon fostered in their last TV collaboration, Mosaic.

Our Take: We struggled through the first episode of Full Circle because of all the people and stories that we’re introduced to, in both the Mahabir organization and everyone surrounding the Browne family and Chef Jeff. The reasons behind why Savitri Mahabir has been giving orders to kidnap and/or kill Jared, only with the notion that they are sacrificing “a son for a son,” are purposely muddled, making us wonder just what in the hell is going on.

We have other issues with the story as presented to us in the first episode. Just what is Chef Jeff, who seems to be a guy who’s quirky enough to play chess in the park late at night, into that has crossed the leaders of a Guyanese organized crime family? Also, we’re not sure why, but it feels like Soderbergh has directed Beetz, a very capable actor, into making Mel one of the least hard-bitten cops we’ve ever seen; she talks to suspects like she’s making dinner plans. It’s a tonal mismatch that we know must be purposeful, but we’re just not sure why just yet.

We’re also not huge fans of the Black crime family targeting the rich, white family. Maybe we’ll see more evidence during the rest of the series that the Brownes are less than honorable, but it feels like we’re seeing a disparity in the roles of the two families that’s at the very least tone deaf.

There seems to be potential for all of these tangled threads to be untangled as the season goes on, explaining all of the first episode murkiness. There’s a reason why Danes and Olyphant are playing Jared’s parents that goes beyond the two of them just being wealthy and intense. Beetz is going to wend her way into this case in a way that shows her making inroads no one else can, though we wonder when she’s going to get other federal agencies involved when it comes to, you know, all the murder and other crimes that the USPS doesn’t have jurisdiction over.

To be honest, we’re much more intrigued with internecine dealings within the Mahabir organization than anything else, and how Natalia, Louis and Xavier work to bring the organization down from its lowest levels. Do we care about the privileged family that gets threatened? Not really. And we’re not sure what their motivation will be to get heavily involved with the abduction even though they know their son is safe, beyond ensuring this kid they don’t know is also safe. The whole first episode felt just that impenetrable, and that’s not an encouraging sign for the rest of the limited series.

Sex and Skin: None.

Parting Shot: An older man takes a line chalker and makes a perfect circle, the famous arch in Washington Square Park in the background.

Sleeper Star: Adia is intriguing as Natalia, as it seems like she’ll be much more involved in the story than the first episode indicates.

Most Pilot-y Line: Xavier calls Mel and asks if she can get him home to Guyana in exchange for information. She says she can’t, but “But I can try to make your life easier in direct proportion to the information given. Divided by, of course, how seriously you’ve already fucked your life.” That line feels like it could have been half as long.

Our Call: We’re going to give Full Circle a very tentative STREAM IT, because we’ve got confidence that Solomon and Soderbergh have a way to bring these characters and stories into a tighter focus. But, boy, it might be a tough first couple of hours getting to that point.

Joel Keller (@joelkeller) writes about food, entertainment, parenting and tech, but he doesn’t kid himself: he’s a TV junkie. His writing has appeared in the New York Times, Slate, Salon, RollingStone.com, VanityFair.com, Fast Company and elsewhere.