The stereotype of fantasy and its adjacent genres is that audiences should ostensibly enjoy themselves. This means creating action scenes that are high on wonder, spectacle, and dazzling visual effects, and low on blood, guts, and general viscera. OnlyGame of Thronesand its acolytes acquainted us with the ideathat popular fantasyneed not be all fun and games all the time – take the show’s infamous “Red Wedding” as the key example of an unfair fight, an unexpected instance of gratuitous injustice in a magical world; a massacre, in short.
The Bastard Son & The Devil Himself, a new UK-producedNetflixseries based on Sally Green’syoung adult novelsentitledHalf Bad, is decidedly heavy on the massacre part. This doesn’t mean that it isn’t a pleasurable watch. The show, which feels like a weird soup ofHarry Potter, the aforementionedGame of Thrones, and1980s coming-of-age movies, absolutely aims to entertain and delight viewers with its world-building and handful of likable characters. But from the very jump, creator Joe Barton (Giri/Haji) makes a point of emphasizing the especially cruel brand of violence at the heart of this world.
What is The Bastard Son & The Devil Himself?
Here’s the basic gist. Two clans of witches spar over control of Europe. They are the Fairborns and the Blood Witches (though novelist Green called them the White Witches and the Black Witches). There is a severe imbalance of power between these two groups, with the Fairborns so completely controlling the narrative that it is hard, at first, to believe any other version. At the center of this conflict emerges the young Nathan Byrne (Jay Lycurgo), the abandoned product of an ill-advised union between a Fairborn and the most infamous of all Blood Witches. After a series of mishaps, Nathan goes on the run, enlisting the help of various misfits along the way, including Annalise (Nadia Parkes), the black-sheep daughter of Soul O’Brien (Paul Ready), who we can say, for brevity’s sake, is effectively King of the Fairborns.
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The whole thing is a complex mess of moving parts and not always perfect in its attempts to keep viewers on the same page. But it is also not necessary to fully grasp the mythology to appreciateBastard Son’s emotional throughline. Because in the midst of all the plot architecture and ensuing chaos, the brutality is what shines brightest.
The Bastard Son is Based Around Abuse
Abuse is a recurring motif from the first episode, with protagonist Nathan being made to suffer relentless vitriol and physical attacks at the hands of classmates, with parents and school authorities willfully looking the other way. There is also an attempted murder in this first chapter, grotesque to the point of ridiculousness; in any other show, it would feel like jumping the shark, but in this one, it only establishes the world’s baseline levels of hatred and violence, and is merely the tip of the iceberg.
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While undergoing training to take on the show’s (supposedly) greatest villain, Nathan is put through the ringer in a gross distortion of an uplifting sports montage. Here, his Fairborn coach Ceelia (a singular, steely-eyed Karen Connell) traffics not as much in tough love as she does in rampant assault and constant beratement. It seems as though the point is not necessarily to make Nathan stronger, but to persistently remind him of how weak he is. This is the educational ethos of the Fairborn Witches, and an example of their intolerance toward anybody who is even slightly different.
This World Hates Nice People
The poster child for this abuse is Nathan’s half-sister, Jessica, who makes Dudley Dursley look like a loving older sibling by comparison. In an early scene, when the two are young, Jessica (as played by Kitty Anderson) reminds Nathan of his tortured heritage in a way that is so blunt and expository that it seems almost poorly written. But her approach only begins to make more sense as we see her age into Isobel Jesper Jones’ gleeful, demonic portrayal. Though Jessica is not the primary antagonistic force in this first season, Jones’ twisted performance renders her the most heinous of all the characters.
It is this thick fog of nastiness that makes certain beams of light all the more noticeable: Lycurgo’s Nathan, the endlessly watchable Nadia Parkes as his friend Annalise, and the dry Emilien Vekemans as their unlikely pal Gabriel, who plays sassy Sherpa to their tour through hostile territory. The magnificent chemistry between these three, Lycurgo and Parkes in particular, is part of what keepsTheBastard Sonfrom falling into unnecessary bleakness and depravity. The first two or three chapters might have you believe that this world is run on unending psychological torment and abuse. But unlike other protagonists in similarlyuninviting dystopian universes, Nathan, Annalise, and Gabriel prove that being a nice person is not an inherently difficult task; it’s just that the world isn’t too keen to let them in on that secret.
