Mix 'The Jinx' and 'Sesame Street,' and you get Benedict Cumberbatch's 'Eric'
Why name a show Eric? Not instantly evocative, the title of this Netflix drama proves a curiosity in its opening moments, wherein a young boy proudly watches his puppeteer father perform on a show that looks strikingly similar to Sesame Street. Friendly puppets sing a happy song. But no one here — neither the father, Vincent, nor his son, Edgar — nor any of the crew members who are quick to curse out the former — are named Eric. So what gives?
This is just the first puzzle of Eric, a mystery miniseries of six episodes set in 1980s New York City. Benedict Cumberbatch stars as Vincent, a soured Jim Henson figure who created a massively beloved children's television show featuring puppets, called Good Day Sunshine. To be clear, Eric creator Abi Morgan, writer of Shame and The Iron Lady, isn't reimagining a scenario in which Henson was a snarling misanthrope. The beloved Muppet maker exists in the world of Eric and is described as a "god" by the oft-vicious Vincent, who followed in his path. But where his TV show is about bringing joy and education to children, Vincent's attention on his own 9-year-old son, Edgar (Ivan Morris Howe), is intense and even abrasive. So when the boy goes missing — the inciting incident of this crime show — audiences may well wonder if the cause of his disappearance is close to home.
Wait. So who is Eric in Eric?
Revealed in episode 1 of the new Netflix series, Eric is the name of a monster that Edgar dreams up. In sketches, Eric is a towering figure, with patches of gray and silver fur. The boy tells his dad that Eric speaks in a very deep voice, and perhaps he could be a new addition to Good Day Sunshine as a walk-around puppet? (This means a puppet that requires a performer to don a full-body costume. Think Big Bird, but with an attitude problem.) There's just one issue: When Edgar pitches the idea to his dad over dinner, Vincent is an asshole about it, bellowing advice on how to better sell Eric instead of listening to his child.
This sparks a big, loud fight between Vincent and his wife, Cassie (Gaby Hoffman), who dotes on Edgar and can give right back when it comes to her husband's roar. The next morning, Edgar goes missing while walking to school. From there, the series introduces a cascade of characters familiar to New Yorkers. There's the building super, grandfatherly to the children, but with a past that has Edgar's parents giving him a second look. A local nightclub owner, fresh out of prison, insists he's gone legit, but there are shady characters skulking about his place. On the tail of suspects is a former vice cop turned missing persons detective, Michael Ledroit (McKinley Belcher III), who suspects this case could tie back to the unsolved investigation into 14-year-old Black boy's vanishing. Meanwhile, an ambitious deputy mayor's pledge to "clean up" New York involves not only a curious connection to a garbage disposal company, but also an inhumane push to banish unhoused people from the city's streets and subways.
Amid all this, Vincent becomes convinced that if he can build Eric and bring the monster to life on Good Day Sunshine, his missing son will see it and come home. Making matters more complicated, Eric begins to appear to Vincent, frustrated and fully formed, a hallucination that haunts him with all his darkest thoughts tumbling out of a big, fanged and furry maw.
How is Eric like The Jinx?
This is not a crime drama that swiftly assures you that Eric's antihero is a good guy at heart. Instead, Eric presents its central protagonist Vincent as a selfish, wrathful drunk who hollers at his coworkers, his child, and his wife with reckless abandon. When Edgar goes missing and Vincent says in a statement to the press he's "sorry," you might well wonder what he's apologizing for. And where did he get that nasty scrape on his forehead? The cops soon call Vincent in as a suspect. And since he's the eccentric, rebellious, and maybe murderous son of a family of New York real estate moguls, Vincent might remind you of The Jinx's unsettling subject, Robert Durst. Are these similarities superficial? Or did Morgan find inspiration in the true crime icon?
While Vincent's posh — and emotionally shutdown — parents offer a whopping $25,000 for information that might lead to the boy's return, their son spits at the money. But wouldn't any man — no matter his pride — want any tool to get his kid back? His resistance becomes seeming evidence against him, but also a new window into this complex character.
Thankfully, the series won't keep us hanging too long on the mystery of what happened to Edgar. The answer comes by episode 3, but for the characters, there is still so much more to uncover.
Eric delves into the issues of New York City, past and present.
Against the backdrop of '80s New York, Eric has plenty of places to explore in terms of darkness. The central missing persons case evokes the emerging stranger danger hysteria that would grip parents of latchkey kids, thanks to national news stories about missing children. Morgan smartly recognizes the racial imbalance within investigations. A missing white child scores media attention while a missing child of color might be ignored by the press. In Eric, a thread grounded by a mourning Black mom (Adepero Oduye) drives home the horror of this disparity, as she pushes Detective Ledroit, who is also Black, to recognize not only the media's indifference, but that of the NYPD as well.
Detective Ledroit faces pushback from white colleagues as he ruffles feathers in pursuit of the truth in the cold case. Meanwhile, he hides his own truth because of deep homophobia in the era of the AIDS crisis. Ledroit is a gay man with a partner dying of the much-stigmatized disease. Amid the grim cases of his professional life, he's grappling with the potential exposure of his personal life during a time of profound grief. And that's not all.
Eric also exposes the city's recurring war against the poor. (Perhaps Eric refers cheekily to current NYC Mayor Eric Adams, who has been criticized repeatedly for his anti-unhoused people policies and his bloated NYPD budgets.) In the show, the aforementioned deputy mayor is quick to point to the homelessness problem as a source of rising crime rates, a popular propaganda tactic to criminalize the impoverished over addressing the issue of poverty. As the series goes on, Eric expresses empathy for these marginalized people, shining a light on the everyday indignities and merciless injustices they face because of institutionalized bigotry.
Eric might begin with a white, wealthy, straight male protagonist who, with so many advantages, is his own worst enemy. But Morgan seems to follow the path of Orange is the New Black creator Jenji Kohan, who used a privileged protagonist as a Trojan horse to explore less represented experiences, perspectives, and people. And it works here, too.
Sure, you might be drawn in by the curious premise of Eric, an imaginary monster who might save a missing kid. You might be hooked by the show's central mystery or the allure of Benedict Cumberbatch, who has attracted fans since Sherlock and throughout the MCU. But I'd wager what will keep you watching is how Eric expands to be about so much more than one New York jerk and his curious neuroses. Don't get me wrong, Cumberbatch sinks his teeth into the role, switching from chipper puppeteer to domestic terror with the same ease with which he leapt from Sherlock to Smaug. However, what hits hardest in Eric is how the stories of all its characters weave together, creating a tapestry of the city that feels true to its time, but also achingly relevant right now.
Eric — all six episodes — debuts on Netflix on May 30.
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