Created by Charlie Covell, “Kaos” is a mythological dark comedy-drama that deals with the connection between humans and the gods of Greek mythology. It follows three humans who learn about their connection to each other through their journey across different parts of the spiritual world. Despite the mythical overtones, the series shows its humans and gods in a semi-contemporary setting where they wear jumpsuits, Hawaiian shirts, shorts, and trousers like we do.
Besides, it features an exciting soundtrack filled with tracks from different periods of rock music instead of operatic tracks. This reimagining of the Greek myths stars industry veterans like Jeff Goldblum, Janet McTeer, David Thewlis, and Cliff Curtis. There are also some relatively new faces like Aurora Perrineau, Nabhaan Rizwan, Killian Scott, and Misia Butler.
Spoilers Ahead
Kaos (Season 1) ‘Netflix’ Recap:
“Kaos” on Netflix follows three humans as they realize their divine mutual connections. At the same time, the god Zeus starts getting insecure about a potential end to his reign as the king of the gods after he notices a wrinkle on his forehead.
What happens in ‘Kaos’ on Netflix?
“Kaos” on Netflix is a modern-day retelling of Greek mythology. Its first season has eight episodes that are about 45-50 minutes long. The episodes cover a series of grand conspiracies involving a few humans and the mighty Greek gods.
Kaos (Season 1) Episode 1 Recap:
The season opens with Prometheus (Stephen Dillane), the god of fire, discussing being a prisoner to Zeus (Jeff Goldblum), the king of gods. On Mount Olympus, Zeus lives in a luxurious mansion with the queen of the gods, Hera (Janet McTeer), and their son, the god of pleasure & frenzy, Dionysus (Nabhaan Rizwan). Dionysus is tired of Zeus not taking him seriously. So, he decides to do something to get his attention. Since Zeus and Hera do not value him, Dionysus steals Zeus’ watch. Later, Zeus notices a wrinkle on his forehead that makes him question his omnipotence. Prometheus, who keeps getting tortured by Zeus’ whims, leads Zeus to this overthinking cycle.
On Earth, in Krete, Eurydice AKA Riddy (Aurora Perrineau) lives with her partner, Orpheus (Killian Scott), who is a popular singer. We meet them on the holy day of Olympia. Riddy has just realized that she is falling out of love with Orpheus. But he is insatiably in love with her. At the supermarket, she crosses paths with Cassandra (Billie Piper), unaware that Cassandra is a Trojan priestess. Cassandra claims that ‘today’s the day’ for Riddy. While confused by Cassandra’s premonition, Riddy returns home but cannot muster enough courage to tell Orpheus that she no longer loves him. He prepares for his big concert and hopes Riddy will join the audience.
Riddy meets her mother to soothe her pain, who offers a prophecy, which makes Riddy defy the gods. Then, outside the church, she notices Cassandra and stops in the middle of the road to speak with her. That’s when she gets hit by a car and dies. Eventually, when Orpheus mourns her death, Dionysus joins them. But instead of offering the coin for Riddy’s transition, Orpheus takes it with him. Then, traumatized by her loss, he buys a gun. However, he misses the shot and hits Dionysus behind him. It doesn’t hurt Dionysus since he is a god.
Kaos (Season 1) Episode 2 Recap:
Riddy enters the underworld on River Styx and tries to understand her path in life after death. Hades (David Thewlis), the god of death, and Persephone (Rakie Ayola), the queen of the underworld, explain the process of the dead people’s ‘renewal’ to the Earth. Later, the two argue with Zeus, who expects them to fulfill his wishes even at the expense of their integrity. Riddy knows that she previously defied the gods and did not die on honorable terms. Eventually, it separates her from the other dead folks in the unresolved section.
Caeneus (Misia Butler), who takes Riddy away, died years ago in a bar while his mother stood aside. He has been in the underworld for several years. He waits to meet his mother. However, Medusa (Debi Mazar) has other plans for him. She orders him to be a diver. On the other hand, on Earth, Dionysus offers Orpheus a chance to meet Riddy after her death without dying. He takes Orpheus to ‘The Cave,’ which allows him to enter the underworld as a mortal. Despite Orpheus’s hesitation, Dionysus convinces him to participate in a contest to bring Riddy back to life and prove his love.
Orpheus contests with a couple, likely in their late 30s, who lost their child. They convey the required connection far better than Orpheus does. So, the Fates, Lachesis, Atropos, and Clotho offer the father a chance to enter the underworld and bring their child back to life. It annoys Dionysus, who earlier was confident about Orpheus’ win. So, to let Orpheus enter the underworld, he gives Zeus’ watch to Lachesis.
In the underworld, Riddy gets heartbroken after realizing Orpheus did not offer the coin. On the other hand, panicking about his omnipotence, Zeus anxiously looks for a source of comfort. He realizes that the mortals won’t worship him since they don’t fear him. He decides to remedy this situation by bringing chaos to their lives. While pretending to aid Zeus, Prometheus hopes that some humans will find their connection to the gods.
Kaos (Season 1) Episode 3 Recap:
Ariadne/Ari (Lelia Farzad), the daughter of President Minos (Stanley Townsend), has a tainted reputation for having killed her twin brother, Glaucus, by accident. However, her mother can’t accept that he is gone. The family attends a human sacrifice ceremony where a woman willingly kills herself, believing in the greater good. The people treat them respectfully, except Trojans, who convey their dissent by desecrating Zeus’ monument. So, Minos interrogates the Trojan representatives for dishonoring their gods but cannot locate their ‘seventh’ leader. Later, Ari confesses that she wants to have sex with her bodyguard, Theseus.
Zeus consults Poseidon (Cliff Curtis) about his plan to instill fear in the minds of mortals. After their discussion, Poseidon privately calls Hera, with whom he has an affair. Soon, he has a dialogue with Minos. Based on it, he tells Ari that the Trojans must be punished. Ari infiltrates the Trojans’ land with Theseus’s land. Meanwhile, the Furies – Alecto, Tisi, and Meg enter the world of mortals to torture the sinners.
Ari fears they are looking for her. Sensing her dread, Theseus shares an option for her redemption. He takes her to the seventh Trojan, but she cannot save his life. Minos sends his pawns to arrest this man. Then, he hangs the bodies of Trojans on the monument as a showcase of his power and to instill fear among people.
Kaos (Season 1) Episode 4 Recap:
Suspicious about his missing watch, Zeus kills his ball boys to find the one who stole it. Meanwhile, Orpheus prepares to enter the underworld. Right before, the wife of Orpheus’s male companion, Anatole, tells Orpheus to take care of Anatole. Orpheus tells Dionysus to take care of his cat. So, Dionysus enters Orpheus’ house to get hold of it. Then, Poseidon gets in touch with Dionysus and orders Dionysus to retrieve the watch he stole as soon as possible. Dionysus steals an identical watch and returns it to Zeus. By then, Zeus had killed almost all the ball boys.
Prometheus betrays Charon (Ramon Tikaram) by cutting his throat right after they share a bed. In the underworld, Caeneus meets the Trojan leader that Minos kills. The leader claims he has already passed through The Frame. Then, Charon orders Caeneus to finish another job. Caeneus befriends Riddy on everyone’s journey for renewal. There, he confronts his ominous past concerning his mother. Later, he and Riddy talk about their sorrows and get emotionally closer. Together, they enter a forbidden place to notice the dead humans turned into mere forms. Meanwhile, Zeus offers Dionysus a promotion in exchange for helping him with his mission against humans.
Charon rides a boat with Orpheus and his partner to their destination. He claims only one of them can fulfill their demand. Out of desperation, Orpheus tries to kill his partner. Charon notices a mark on Orpheus’s palm. He considers it Prometheus’s sign to save Orpheus and kills the other man.
Kaos (Season 1) Episode 5 Recap:
The Furies meet Ari not to punish her but to show her a glimpse into her family’s past. She realizes she is not the reason why her twin brother, Glaucus, died as a baby. Instead, it was because her father acted according to Poseidon’s orders and gave him up. So, she confronts Daedalus to know the truth about Glaucus’ forced imprisonment.
While Poseidon has a sexual affair with Hera, Zeus keeps torturing humans for amusement. Amid his paranoia, Zeus hears a rumor about Hera, who refutes any blame. To pacify him, she gets intimate with him. Meanwhile, in the underworld, the Trojan leader, Nax, suffers at the hands of Hades and turns into a form. Riddy and Caeneus see it happen from a distance and wonder about its cause and the consequences.
Kaos (Season 1) Episode 6 Recap:
Riddy tells Caeneus about her mother’s horrific sacrifice for the gods. Caeneus recalls a traumatizing event from his childhood, witnessing the death of a young boy. Whether it’s Riddy or Caeneus, they both suffered because of the gods. They get closer based on their shared trauma. Through the discussions, they figure out that there is ‘no Renewal’ for the mortals, and the family that could fall is the gods. They try to find a way to prove it. Meanwhile, Orpheus goes on a troubling journey to gain entry into the underworld after he proves his devotion to Riddy. There, he meets Riddy, who isn’t happy meeting him as he is.
Hades and Persephone meet Zeus at his mansion. At night, Zeus talks to Prometheus about his desire to destroy the fates. Prometheus warns him about its repercussions. Then, Hades meets Zeus to share his fear of reintegration. Zeus trusts they won’t run out of souls for renewal. He constantly undermines Hades’ authority and subjects him to painful torture. After a dialogue with Zeus, Poseidon meets Lachesis to learn that people can occasionally defy their prophecy.
Prometheus reveals the history behind Zeus’s becoming a god. Once, Zeus got tired of his father’s torture and killed him. Later, he absorbed his father’s soul and acquired his power. Eventually, Zeus got tired of insistent killing. Thus, the Frame was invented not to renew human souls but to harvest them to sustain his mortality. Anyhow, in the present, Poseidon and Hera meet Minos, expecting him to kill his son, Glaucus.
Kaos (Season 1) Episode 7 Recap:
On Olympus, Zeus hosts a barbeque for the gods to witness a prophecy being defied as Minos plans to kill Glaucus. Meanwhile, Ari realizes her father faked her brother’s funeral. Daedalus reveals the truth about Glaucus’ horrific past, which left him in a cell where he breathes under a horned mask. Daedalus helps Ari to meet Glaucus. Unlike others, she comforts him and rescues him from the burden of his mask. As Minos proceeds to kill Glaucus, he gets injured instead. Later, while Minos begs for forgiveness, Ari kills him.
Medusa realizes that a mortal man has entered the Underworld. So, she confronts Orpheus, Riddy, and Caeneus. Orpheus reveals that the god Dionysus helped him get there because he cares about his and Riddy’s love. He considers it their fate, but Riddy doesn’t. Riddy and Caeneus disagree on what their next step should be. Caeneus wants Riddy to return to life to tell the mortals what she learned about Hades, the Frame, and the Gods. But Riddy doesn’t want to return.
Meanwhile, Hades claims Orpheus cannot return to life either. On the other hand, Persephone sees it as an opportunity for them to send a message against Zeus. So, she decides to help Orpheus. Medusa brings Riddy to Orpheus as they plan to return to the Earth.
Kaos (Season 1) ‘Netflix’ Ending Explained:
In the final, eighth episode of “Kaos” on Netflix, Ari returns with Glaucus and reunites him with their mother. Minos’ death makes Zeus even more overly suspicious than before. So, concerned about Zeus’ health, Hera calls Persephone and seeks Hades’ help. Zeus meets Lachesis to seek help with his prophecy. He plans to destroy the fates to escape his destiny. Just when they are burning, Zeus notices his missing watch on Lachesis and understands Dionysus’ lie. Then, he returns to Olympus and shares his erratic opinions. Suddenly, Poseidon confesses his love for Hera, but she rejects it.
As Dionysus mourns his kitten’s death, Zeus meets Prometheus to discuss his present situation. Suddenly, Prometheus vanishes and ends up in Olympus. He walks up to Zeus’ throne and sits there. Zeus tries using his godly powers to dethrone Prometheus, but he realizes that he has lost them. So, he is also a mortal.
Does Orpheus bring Riddy back to life?
Caeneus tries to stop the dead people from going through the Frame in the underworld. There, he finally meets his estranged mother. Despite his warning, she decides to pass through the frame, and he joins her. It turns them into a form that Caeneus saw before. While caring for her, as Dionysus once promised, Orpheus brings Riddy back to the Earth.
During the journey, he talks about how much he sacrificed for it and expects her love in exchange. She refuses to devote her life to him for this reason. Once they return to Earth, Riddy doesn’t join Orpheus back to their old lives. On her way, Riddy meets Cassandra, who reveals that Riddy is also a prophet now, just like her.
Kaos (Season 1) ‘Netflix’ Review:
“Kaos” on Netflix is thoroughly insular. As a mythical dramedy based on Greek lore, it expects the viewers to know the details of mythical tales to understand their humor, which feels like inside jokes. The script refuses to explain even the tiniest bit to the uninitiated. So, it feels like a chore to sit through since you will not understand why some of its bits are witty. The overarching themes from the script are relatively easier to digest. In a contemporary context, let’s say “Kaos” is about a godly figure trying to save his empire after he realizes a threat to his godly stature. The ordinary folks realize the treacherous nature of his actions along the way.
The script explores themes of love, loss, fate, familial conflicts, and a crooked power dynamic. However, the season feels surprisingly lackluster since very few scenes deeply deal with its emotions. While Goldblum, Rizwan, McTeer, and Perrineau are particularly exceptional with their comedic timing, Leila Farzad seems to be the only saving grace if we’re talking about a dramatic heft. Of course, the show looks great, thanks to its impressive production design and cinematographic choices.
Otherwise, “Kaos” feels too amused/self-satisfied with its intellect in a mainly British way. It doesn’t have a dull moment because it features an eclectic cast. However, it also becomes overwhelming after a point and, thus, tedious. Although it is more ambitious than the usual Netflix affairs, it feels like a long chore.
