There’s nothing creators love more than a good old-fashioned Greek myth adaptation. Whether it be movies, TV shows, or musicals, artists relish delving into the expansive archives of this culture’s mythos to try a new spin on some classic tale. It has yielded countless adaptations over the years, each trying out some new element while largely maintaining these mythological plots — and then there’s Kaos. Created by Charlie Covell, this new Netflix series immediately sets itself apart by truly embracing the source material and imagining what the societies of Ancient Greece would look like today. It’s a modern take on these long-practiced narratives that perfectly fuses elements of modern life with the archaic practices that make them so alluring to creators. There’s one distinct aspect of this show that truly sets it above the rest. While the gods and their flippant cruelty towards the human race are important to the story, the series spends most of its runtime showcasing the disastrous effects these almighty deities have on the people who devote their lives to them. It’s a human element missing from not only most myths but also the other adaptations.
‘Kaos’ Takes a New Spin on Greek Mythology
For all of its innovation, Kaos doesn’t immediately seem that different from your typical adaptation. The first episode introduces viewers to a modern version of Crete, one that maintained its devout belief in the gods of ancient myth while still evolving into the modern world viewers know today. It’s intriguing to watch modern society through this lens, with current industries and technologies coexisting with temples to the gods and yearly sacrifices. The series introduces watchers to an anxious Zeus (Jeff Goldblum) and his extended family, with beings like his embittered wife, Hera (Janet McTeer), and his fun-loving son, Dionysus (Nabhaan Rizwan), having to withstand this “king of the gods'” every whim. Yet this day’s stress is special because, to the annoyance of everyone around him, Zeus is sure an ancient prophecy that foretold his demise is coming true, that the ethereal kingdom he’s spent eons building is fated to collapse very soon…though, the show doesn’t focus too much on that, at least not right away.
Rather, this series focuses on a character who any Greek myth buff will recognize: Eurydice (Aurora Perrineau), or Riddy, as she likes to be called, the ill-fated lover of the legendary musician, Orpheus (Killian Scott). The plot veers away from your typical adaptation by granting this woman’s struggles the same spotlight it does Zeus’, spending ample time in its pilot showing her internal conflict over whether to tell her husband she no longer loves him. While the spotlight on Riddy may seem strange, this first episode actually foreshadows so many of the core elements that will persist throughout Kaos. By following Riddy, audiences see not only how the gods’ control creates a ruthlessly authoritarian society but also a massive amount of personal anguish that comes with their rule, as she lost her mother because she was “called” to have her tongue ripped out and become a priestess. The series’ introduction is capped off perfectly by Riddy’s shocking death, making it clear that, unlike the adaptations before it, Kaos was not interested in the traditional myth story; the gods would not get all the attention in this retelling.
‘Kaos’ Exposes an Often Ignored Aspect of Greek Myths
Whether it be adaptations like Kaos or the ancient myths, it’s easy to focus on the wondrous tales of gods’ jaw-dropping feats and not the many ways they use them to destroy humans. For every story of a goddess challenging a mortal to a competition or a god loving a mortal, there’s an untold number of humans as collateral, those whose lives were completely ruined by these deities’ boredom and decision to “play” with humanity. The characters in this series display that unaddressed pain well; while Riddy’s is terrible enough, her fellow harbinger of doom, Ariadne (Leila Farzad), had her entire family torn apart by Poseidon (Cliff Curtis). His decision to force her father to have children resulted not only in her twin brothers’ decades-long torture but Ariadne’s endless dread, being told by her dad that she’d accidentally killed her sibling. There are countless examples of how the Pantheon’s flippant behavior destroyed someone’s life. Still, the most shocking comes when Hera discovers that Zeus has gotten a human pregnant and, after she traumatizes and turns the mother into a bee, she orders her husband to “get rid” of the newborn — which he does, to the horror of all watching.
Kaos imbues its re-telling of these narratives with a sense of reality that is too often lost in adaptations. Actually give a spotlight to the humans in these stories. It gives the human characters a platform, and exposes how blatantly brutal these gods can be. This is only possible because of the program’s awareness of its mortals, using their personal experiences to communicate its central message, while finally granting depth to the characters who’ve acted as nothing more than set dressing for far too long.
‘Kaos’ Doesn’t Ignore the Gods, but Uses Them in a New Way
While Kaos does spend much of its runtime focusing on human characters, that doesn’t mean the show ignores the gods. Entire episodes are shaped around these beings, each installment showing some new way that they terrorize humans and the intense interpersonal animosities they hold against one another. It doesn’t neglect the gods, but Kaos uses these scenes to further the stories of the humans at its center. This adds a necessary weight to the entire story, while still featuring the cool mythological aspect that adaptations love! It may seem strange for a series filled with Gods to focus on the people they rule over, but Kaos knows that if you focus on the people in these myths, you create a mythic adaptation unlike (and better than) any that viewers have ever seen.
Kaos is available to watch on Netflix in the U.S.
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