‘The Madness’ Review: Colman Domingo Attempts to Anchor Lukewarm Conspiracy Thriller

If there’s one thing our divided society can agree on, it’s that we live in a mad, mad world.

From rising technology to shifts in the media landscape to power dynamics and social movements, there’s chaos coming for even the most unbothered, and it sometimes feel like the walls are closing in.

That’s the feeling underpinning Stephen Belber’s “The Madness,” a Netflix limited series about part-time political pundit Muncie Daniels (Colman Domingo), who finds himself at the center of an widespread conspiracy after he finds a dead body. The body belongs to alt-right thought leader Brother14 a.k.a. Mark Simon, but Muncie quickly becomes a prime suspect for police — and a prime target for the dead man’s enemies to be framed for his murder.

Episode 1 establishes Muncie’s career and family, and includes the focused sequences of him being chased through the woods before the safety net of his world starts to dissolve around him. It’s laced with the right tenor and amount of paranoia and ends on an unsettling note. It’s hard for the show to maintain that pacing and momentum throughout; the episodes that follow vacillate between action-movie levels of movement/violence and repetitive conversations about what Muncie faces and how to deal with it (including some disproportionately calm responses, given that someone plants the deceased watch in his car during the pilot). The audience is ostensibly meant to feel Muncie’s claustrophobia and conclusion, but keeping the show in his POV hampers the storytelling when many key events take place offscreen.

Marsha Stephanie Blake and Colman Domingo in ‘The Madness’AMANDA MATLOVICH/Netflix

Domingo does what he can with that deliberately trapped perspective, finding moments to connect with all his costars and anchor Muncie in human relationships. He still feels deeply tied to his separated wife Elena, played by Marsha Stephanie Blake in a thoroughly convincing portrayal of two people who have just shared too much even if they need to spend time apart. Thaddeus J. Mixon plays Muncie’s son Demetrious, getting better with each episode in direct correlation to the size of his role, but it’s Gabrielle Graham who leaves the strongest impression as daughter Kallie, whom Muncie fathered with another woman and who treats him like a mix of friend and caretaker.

One of the more surprising relationships to emerge is the one that develops between Muncie and Mark’s widow Lucie, and how actor Tamsin Topolski plays someone used to turning the other cheek until it becomes too much. And she doesn’t pop up until later, but stay tuned for Alison Wright’s return to covert operations (with her English accent!).

As it goes on, “The Madness” offers a somewhat interesting look at how people in nefarious networks protect each other; white supremacists, politicians, billionaires, and so on. The show was written and filmed before the 2024 election, but the cultural fractures examined here were no less present a few months ago (or years, or even decades). But it never really commits to unpacking these power structures outside of the show’s universe, where things spiral and stray too far from the pilot’s inciting incidents. As Muncie keeps telling people in his life, he’s only a part-time political expert — and so is his show.

Grade: C+

“The Madness” is now streaming on Netflix.