It has been six years since Netflix first announced the development of the fantasy series Kaos. Now the wait is finally over and since the 29 August 2024 streams the first season with eight episodes on Netflix. But can the bitter comedy about arrogant Greek deities and misunderstood prophecies live up to the high expectations? The answer can be found here in the series check.
Zeus in crisis: What to expect in the fantasy series Kaos on Netflix
What if deities and legendary figures existed in the present? In the field of fantasy, several series have already addressed this question with different approaches. Kaos is a mix of fatalistic ensemble narrative like American Gods and funny mythological games that we already know from Percy Jackson: The Series – only with more violence and sex.
This is what Kaos is about: High above the clouds of Greece, the king of the gods Zeus (Jeff Goldblum) lives in a splendid villa, is served by pool boys in skimpy panties and has little love for his children or mortals. To put it in the words of his exiled friend and series narrator Prometheus: “He is a strict, incorrigible bastard.“
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Hera and Zeus
Apart from the annual human sacrifices that are made on Crete, this world seems quite peaceful at first. However, this will soon change when the neurotic and narcissistic Zeus discovers a wrinkle on his forehead. The resulting life crisis has nothing to do with the fear of aging, but an ancient prophecy to do:
A line appears, order ruins, the family falls and chaos reigns.
For Zeus, the omen of his impending downfall is clear. His family members Hera (Janet McTeer), Hades (David Thewlis), Poseidon (Cliff Curtis) and Dionysus (Nabhaan Rizwan) are now doing everything they can to keep the paranoid ruler of Olympus happy and prevent an escalation. But it is not just since Game of Thrones that we have known: prophecies should not always be taken literally and can disastrous self-fulfilling consequences have.
Kaos creates a fantasy world full of strange ideas
From the very first scene it becomes clear: Kaos is not a dark fantasy epic about warring deities, but a colorful social satire with plenty of humor. Anyone who has ever read one or two of the legends knows how grotesque, insidious and mean the behavior of the Greek gods can be. And Kaos sums it up wittily.
The gods like to change their form to seduce mortals; Hera turns the mothers of Zeus’ illegitimate children into bees for her garden; and gender and family relationships play no role in the sexual excursions of the narcissistic, horny Olympians.
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Orpheus and Dionysus at the pub quiz
Even away from Olympus, numerous Legendary figures reinterpreted in a modern way. The main roles are played by the muse Riddy aka Eurydice (Aurora Perrineau), who wants to separate from her rock star boyfriend Orpheus (Killian Scott) and ends up in the underworld; the politician’s daughter Ariadne (Leila Farzad) with a tragic family history; and the Amazon Canaeus (Misia Butler), who is sent straight to Hades by his man-hating family because of his transsexuality.
Whether it’s a pub quiz with the non-binary Moirai, the use of three-headed sniffer dogs when checking in to the underworld or an appearance by motorcycle-riding furies: Kaos has plenty of strange ideas in store for fans of Greek mythology.
The mix of legends and modernity finds the right balance between biting comedy and epic tragedy. As the many characters and stories come ever closer together, the exciting question arises: does free will even exist? Or has fate planned every chain of events long in advance?
Kaos wants to be Percy Jackson for adults, but fails due to a Netflix disease
The ingenuity of the interpretation of the legends has some similarities to the Percy Jackson novels and their film adaptations. Kaos even goes a step further and does not hide the world of legends and gods from people, but creates a fictional Greece in which prophecies, divine intervention and confession in the local Hera Temple are part of everyday life.
But where Percy Jackson revealed exciting and playful worlds, places and creatures behind the human disguise, Kaos denies the truly fantastic to want to. Everything is portrayed a little too down to earth. When even a mythological creature like the Minotaur is just a feral human with a mask and the Gorgon Medusa has to hide her (expensive) CGI snake hair under a headscarf most of the time, the suspicion arises that Netflix has made cuts in completely the wrong place.
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Medusa’s snakes get little exercise
Perhaps the budget is one reason why the series was stuck in the development stage for many years. Since fantasy fans have been spoiled by many visually stunning genre stories in recent years (including on Netflix), Kaos unfortunately cannot meet the expectations of a modern genre series and thus falls short of its potential.
Of course, there are some exciting sets to marvel at, such as the completely black and white underworld city and some other visual gimmicks. But Kaos lacks opulent showpieceswhich is made worse by another problem with many current Netflix series: the overly smooth, overly clean and artificial aesthetics that plague many of the streamer’s productions. We’ve explained here why the uniform Netflix look is damaging to series.
But does that make Kaos a bad series? Not at all. The eight episodes are extremely entertaining and series creator Charlie Covell (The End of the F***ing World) has created a surprisingly queer series – fitting for ancient Greece – full of endearingly shrill characters, fatalistic twists and a surprising amount of heart.
The first season of Kaos was released on Netflix on August 29, 2024. The basis for this series review were all eight episodes.