Unlike so many dramatic “limited” series that end on a note making it clear they’re hoping for and planning on a Season 2, Steven Soderbergh’s complex and richly layered and beautifully filmed “Full Circle” on Max does exactly what the title promises by the time we reach the final, perfect shot of its six-episode run: It brings us full circle in a way that makes every step of the journey so worthwhile.
Of course, many limited series merit a second season; heck, many of the characters in “Full Circle” could easily warrant a return visit. Still, there’s something especially rewarding about sticking with this series through some admittedly murky passages, only to see how the masterful Soderbergh and the veteran scribe Ed Solomon (who collaborated with Soderbergh on “Mosaic” and wrote the “Bill & Ted” trilogy and “Men in Black”) weave it all together in plausible and dramatically fashion. The ending of “Full Circle” ties up multiple storylines, and quite well.
With Soderbergh lensing New York City in visually striking tones, whether we’re in Washington Square Park or working-class neighborhoods, doorman buildings in Manhattan or bustling pizza joints, “Full Circle” tells a story of class warfare, immigration, family strife and festering wounds from long-held secrets from three distinct vantage points, with a kidnapping as the catalyst that eventually brings this trilogy of stories together.
On one side of the triangle, we have an eerie, supernatural-laced tale with the enigmatic and superstitious crime boss Mrs. Mahabir (CCH Pounder) mourning the loss of a loved one, which she believes cracked a protective circle around her family and unleashed a curse. Mrs. Mahabir is convinced the only way to close that circle is to orchestrate a crime that will restore balance to her world. Her brash and ambitious nephew Aked (Jharrel Jerome) is put in charge of the crime, and enlists the help of teenagers Louis (Gerald Jones) and Xavier (Sheyi Cole), who recently have arrived from Guyana and soon find themselves in way over their heads and desperate to return home before it’s too late.
In a New York seemingly a world away from the doings of Mrs. Mahabir, Derek (Timothy Olyphant) and Sam (Claire Danes) are a wealthy couple living in a spacious apartment and fretting over their socially awkward son Jared (Ethan Stoddard), who has a habit of losing things. Sam and Derek handle the media empire of Sam’s father, the ponytailed and quite pompous “Chef Jeff” (Dennis Quaid), who has become a hugely successful and famous culinary brand through his TV appearances and his books and his Chef Jeff-ness.
Finally, we have a U.S. postal inspector with the unlikely name of Melody Harmony (Zazie Beetz), a whip-smart detective who has borderline personality disorder and a tendency to be her own worst enemy, and her disheveled, cynical, put-upon boss, Manny Broward (Jim Gaffigan), who might not be the hapless schlub he pretends to be. For reasons I’m still not entirely sure of, it’s these postal inspectors who take the lead when a teenager is taken off the streets of Manhattan, with the kidnappers phoning in a very specific set of ransom demands.
The kidnapping goes sideways, and that’s putting it mildly. This sets off a chain of events that will result in bloodshed, shocking family secrets, revelations about crimes committed 20 years in the past — you know, the usual stuff that hits the fan when we get a modern-day film noir in which perhaps no one can truly be trusted.
Director Soderbergh and writer Solomon do a wondrous job of juggling so many characters and storylines (there are at least a half-dozen other subplots and key characters we haven’t even mentioned), and the cast is superb. Claire Danes can play this kind of frazzled, upper-class professional with the best of them, while Dennis Quaid and Timothy Olyphant play variations on characters they’ve handled so well in the past. CCH Pounder is her usual magnificent self, and Gerald Jones and Sheyi Cole are outstanding as the young Guyanese who see the American Dream instantly turn into the American Nightmare.
Perhaps most compelling is the pairing of Beetz and Gaffigan as the postal inspectors. Beetz delivers electric and almost frighteningly effective work as the obsessive Melody, who often sounds paranoid with her wild declarations — until those declarations turn out to be right. Gaffigan has proved again and again that in addition to being one of the best stand-ups in the world, he’s a versatile and compelling dramatic actor. As we noted, “Full Circle” stands so well on its own, but a prequel featuring Melody Harmony and Manny Broward would no doubt make for outstanding television.
