‘SAFE’ THRILLER,
No one’s ‘Safe’ from hidden secrets in Netflix thriller
First, we have to talk about that accent. Michael C. Hall makes his return to series TV in Netflix's thriller “Safe” (premiering Thursday). You remember Hall. He was the lovably neurotic embalmer on “Six Feet Under” and the even more loved serial killer on “Dexter.” The North Carolina native stars as surgeon Tom Delaney, the grief-stricken widower and father of two daughters. Like everyone else in this United Kingdom production, Tom is British, and Hall leans fully into the accent.
That might be the most disorienting part of “Safe's” opener. Hall sounds a bit like actual British actor Russell Tovey, who's serving time on ABC's miserable “Quantico.”
He's convincing, but it takes some getting used to.
“Safe,” from the mind of mystery writer/executive producer Harlan Coben, focuses on a gated community. Tom thinks he's fulfilling his promise to his late wife, Rachel (Katy Carmichael), by raising their girls in such a location, where he knows all his neighbors.
“People are entitled to their secrets,” Tom's best pal Pete (Marc Warren, “Snatch”) tells him, serving something more like a warning.
As “Safe” unspools, it turns out Tom knows nothing about those closest to him, even his oldest daughter. Sixteen-year-old Jenny (Amy James-Kelly, “Coronation Street”) resents Tom for something that happened the night her mother died one year ago. What that was is just one of the mysteries to be explored during this eight-episode season.
Jenny has a boyfriend, Chris (Freddie Thorpe), a 19-year-old who dropped out of university and lives with his parents — a belligerent Neil (Joplin Sibtain, “Hard Sun”) and a kindly Zoe (Audrey Fleurot), a high school art teacher.
After another tense family outing, Neil spitefully tells his son that he and his mother are going to divorce.
Maybe that's why Chris is so determined to drink away his troubles. At the home of another teenager who sells drugs on the side, a party gets out of control. As one family bands together to dispose of a body, Tom realizes both Jenny and Chris are missing.
Tom calls on his current girlfriend, Sophie (Amanda Abbington, “Sherlock”), a police detective who is breaking in a new partner, Emma (Hannah Arterton), who is working her own agenda. Sophie also has her ex, Josh (Emmett J. Scanlan, “Hollyoaks,” doing that dangerous/charming thing he does so well), living in a van on her lawn.
Does this seem like a lot?
I haven't even talked about the odd text messages or the sex scandal that seems like a frame-up. Netflix released only the first two episodes for review, and I hesitate to mark a grade given that I have no idea whether the series can resolve even half the questions it raises.
“Safe” is one of those series, like HBO's “Big Little Lies,” that focuses on the lives of the beautiful and the well-to-do. It doesn't suggest the rich are just like us. It suggests they are even more miserable, and in the case of “Safe,” probably quite monstrous. That's a story that translates just about everywhere, apparently.