Malice is Prime Video’s latest entry in the ‘uber-rich eat themselves alive’ thriller canon, yet the morbid, wicked glee that should burst from a premise like this lands with a dull thud. Creator-writer James Wood assembles a series so enervating and arbitrarily plotted that it barely musters a pulse. Instead of provocation, it offers timidity—too tame and soft-footed to deliver any real pleasure. The show hews so rigidly to the template that its beats blur into a mush of déjà vu. Its central mystery is pounded flat, drained of tension by misspent detours and overwrought narrative calculations. Where’s the thrum of dread? Where’s the acidic wit needed to keep a satire-thriller like this strutting?
David Duchovny and Jack Whitehall occasionally spark in their cat-and-mouse dynamic, but the crackle never sustains. What should have been a messy, vicious two-hander plays out with barely a trace of venom. As each man tries to outsmart the other, the thriller struggles to justify its six punishingly long episodes.
Motivations never feel earned; characters pursue revenge and aggression on hollow, repetitive grounds. Retribution—usually ripe with sinister energy—lands here as cold, perfunctory, and largely purposeless. Even the central act of usurping another family’s empire lacks dramatic bite. The repercussions remain unexplored, untouched by rigor or heat. The series gestures toward intrigue at intervals, but never corrals it into a compelling trajectory. Where are the moments that crack characters open and reveal their depths? They never arrive, stifled by writing that is bland, inert, and chronically unwilling to get its hands dirty.
Malice (2025 TV Series) Recap:
The show opens with Adam (Whitehall) arriving in the States. He has a new job working for a family in Connecticut, plans that seem to be disrupted when he’s halted at security. Jamie Tanner, the head of the family for whom he worked, is dead. This doesn’t perturb Adam so deeply. Rather, he sees it as natural, given that Jamie was a reprehensible person. Jamie had it coming, Adam suggests.
An extended flashback ensues. We are introduced to several members of the Tanner family. Jamie has taken his family to Greece for a holiday. There’s his wife, Nat, sons Dexter and Kit, and daughter April. Jodie is the nanny. The family has gone with Jamie’s friends, Jules and Damien. Adam comes into the picture. He works for Jules and quickly starts inserting himself in Jamie’s family.
He’s the tutor of Jules and Damien’s children. Jamie’s family takes a shine to Adam, though Jamie doesn’t initially welcome it. He senses a threat to his position. Adam is spectacular and showy, full of imposingly playful antics. He flings Jamie’s passport overboard. He goes around killing octopuses. Manipulations start quickly and insistently. Nat becomes a prey. Adam forces Dex, which causes a subtle injury. He also gets Jamie sloshed and swears to kill him once an opportune moment presents itself.
How does Adam earn the Tanners’ trust?
Adam continues on a streak of viciousness. Jodie has food poisoning and is taken to Athens. Once Inspector Niko comes knocking, Adam postures as if Jamie had hurt Dimitri. Jamie is suddenly super-trusting of Adam. On Nat’s insistence, Adam becomes the full-time nanny and moves into their London house. Adam sneaks and builds bonds with Kit. Jules is upset at Adam being the Tanners’ nanny. Adam observes Nat dancing closely with Luc. When Jamie returns home, there are several discoveries. Adam goads Nat to bring her work team to the party at her place. Kit is at a party. He gets arrested because a girl overdoses. Adam poisons Jamie’s dog.
The next morning, Dex finds Frankie dead. Jamie discovers Kit has been arrested. It’s all a big soup, everyone having had their hands full after Adam has let off a slew of debacles, orchestrating full-on fusillades with precision. Adam continues to stir tensions between Kit and his father. Kit wants to play around, while Jamie is vehement that he return home.
But Kit is uninterested in listening to his father, and Jamie cedes. This allows the imposter to gain further primacy and wield a tight iron grip over matters in the family, destabilising everything. Danger lurks as his movements and actions escalate. Adam fabricates a narrative around Jamie, portraying him as a terrible person in the mind of Kit. Chafing persists between Damien and Adam. They have a row over the Thailand incident. Jules confesses to cheating on Damien.
Does Adam get apprehended?
Damien discovers that Sophie has been lying and that there’s no brother called Paul, much against earlier claims. Adam remains a firm interloper, spying on everything, and pounces on Damien. Adam dumps Damien’s body in the boot. Manipulating Jules in a web of false professions of love, the intruder is a canny weaver of plots.
Adam is pulled over by the cops for the kids not having their seat belts on. What is set up as a cliffhanger for the ending of episode 4 winds into a harmless reveal in the next one. There’s a search for Damien. Adam has covered all his tracks that could involve him in complicity. Damien has been on antidepressants before. This arouses pressing worry in his family.
Jamie gets called for an HR meeting. An employee has made a complaint. Adam had hacked into Jamie’s devices and sent off inappropriate messages to a female employee, Emily. She’s not intent on retracting her complaint. Adam dredges up Jamie’s sex scandal to the media. As much as Sophie insists that Adam not make the past meddle in the present, he carries on unbothered. The media will report the scandal no matter if it displeases Jamie. The family seeks to take a break, but April stays back in the house with her boyfriend, Joel. That night, robbers break in and clash with April and Joel.
Malice (2025 TV Series) Ending Explained:
Does Jamie outsmart Adam?
The final episode opens with Kit heading back home only to find everything emptied out by the robbers. Nothing remains. April is locked in the bedroom. Anxious, Kit informs Nat and Jamie what has gone down in the house. The family rushes back. The police seem to have hit a dead end and are clearly clueless. Nat scrambles for the passports that have thankfully remained intact. Jamie’s paranoia aggravates, and Adam lingers. It keeps getting worse for Jamie. Adam’s orchestrations have worked. He was fired from the company. Tensions between Jamie and Kit melt somewhat as the father thanks the son for tactfully taking care of the April situation.
Adam steals Nat’s phone, calls Jamie, and derides and flings it into the sea. Jamie tries to rush to Greece, worried that Nat is in a major complication. Jamie also realised he had given Adam’s father a substantial sum. Gradually, Adam’s family history comes to light. There had been a fire in the house, killing Adam and Sophie’s parents.
Jamie falls for the umpteen trap in trap set by Adam. Jamie tells Nat all that’s happened with Adam. The climax is a confrontation between Jamie and Adam. The former beseeches with the latter, entreating him to be logical instead of being propelled by revengeful, festering emotion. Even as Jamie tells the truth to Adam, the latter is unmoved. Instead, he shoots both Yorgos, Dimitri’s son, and Adam dead. The intruder is questioned, but the ending doesn’t specify whether he actually got away. This sets the stage for a second season.
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