Taboo (series): Kind of slow, but really well made

Somehow the year 2017 managed to come and go with me not so much as even hearing about this film. The only reason why I know about it now is because someone in my local area who maintains our Plex server added it because a new season is in the works.

I knew nothing about it when I started watching including the fact that Tom Hardy stars in it and he was also a producer and co-writer of the whole thing.

src

It's got sort of a Peaky Blinders feel to it and in my mind, this is a good thing. There is a fantastic soundtrack as well, and this is always welcome. Rather than just being about some rich gangster types though, there is a sort of supernatural force involved but this is not clearly defined and we find out more and more about it as the show goes on.

This aspect of it will not appeal to everyone. My own mother, for example, doesn't like figuring things out in a movie and has a difficult time accepting that we, the audience, aren't supposed to understand everything at the moment. My mother couldn't enjoy the epic film Snatch because she simply couldn't get past the fact that we are not actually supposed to understand what Mickey (Brad Pitt) is saying in the film.

We aren't supposed to understand the powers that James Delaney (Tom Hardy) has at first, and it is hinted at that even he doesn't really understand his abilities.

The film basically starts out with James returning to his home city of London to attend his father's funeral. James has been presumed dead for many years after working in Africa and a ship he was on went down and he was presumed to have gone down with it. He finds out that his father left nothing of value in his will other than a plot of land in Canada, and the East India Trading company is very interested in acquiring it, but he will not sell it. We are not meant to understand why that is at first, but it has a lot to do with the war with America in 1812. I'm sure this will get more attention later.

src

As is often the case with series of this magnitude, a great amount of the first couple of episodes is spent on establishing characters and their relationships. It isn't terribly clear who the main players are going to be but there are going to be some faces that you will recognize such as "Tommy, the Tit" who appears above with his head tattoos and is a friend and confidante of James' and his name is Atticus. The actor's name is Stephen Graham. You may recognize him from such things as Snatch, Gangs of New York, and Pirates of the Caribbean among other things.

Other casting choices are very well-done and I am sure that Hardy's clout in the industry helped very much with making this happen.

src

One of the main baddies as far as I can tell so far is Sir Stuart Strange, who while it may take you a minute to figure it out, he was a rather strange yet important character in Game of Thrones. He was also in Pirates of the Caribbean and i don't think this is a coincidence.

The story isn't terribly clear at the start and this is something I am ok with, provided it is done well and we aren't subjected to a ton of filler that serves no purpose other than to take up time to extend a season to a certain number of episodes. There are 8 episodes in total and so far everything I have seen on screen is relevant to what is going on. Perhaps this "all you need, none of what you don't" has to do with Tom Hardy basically controlling everything in the making of this show. It was originally on BBC and at least back in 2017, they were pretty good at avoiding the unofficial certain amount of necessary episodes in a season that has downright ruined a lot of TV shows that otherwise might have been good.

There is a war brewing between England and the United States that you might have heard of that really did happen back in those times, but our focus is more on the war between James and the East India Trading Company, which according to the series is such a powerful organization that their influence supersedes the government and even the crown. I suppose it is yet another coincidence that the East India Trading Company was also a rather large part of at least one episode of Pirates of the Caribbean.

src

While there is a smattering of action here and there, this series is moreso about having quality dialogue and always keeping us, the audience, guessing about what everyone is up to. Just when you think you have it figured out they throw a spanner in the works that puts you back in the dark. This would annoy me in other series, but Taboo does it really well and clearly was influenced by the success of Peaky Blinders which was still in production and broadcast at the time this series was released.

The success of "Blinders" might be part of the reason why this didn't get a huge rollout back when it first was released, and this may have lead to me having not heard of it back then either. That and the fact that BBC shows aren't normally on my radar until they come to global streaming services, which this one has now.

This has a rating of 7-8 / 10 on most of the places that you look and I think it deserves this rating. New attention is being brought to it because of the impending release of season 2. It remains to be seen how they are going to handle the fact that all of the actors in season 1 are 10 years older than they were before. Some of them are no longer alive.

Should I watch it?

Even though I have almost entirely glowing things to say about this one I still do not think that this one is going to be for everyone. These days I feel like we need immediate gratification in a lot of what we watch and what can I say? 2017 was a very different time than now is as far as attention spans are concerned. This show will require you to pay attention and is certainly not something that you can be glancing at now and then between doomscrolling social media on your phone while you sit on the sofa.

The costumes, the acting, the script, the score, all if this appeals to me immensely, but I can understand why some people would find it to be a bit slow. I know my mother would probably switch it off before the first episode concluded. It will keep you guessing about what the eff is actually going on until things eventually come together. If you have the patience, I believe it is worth the wait.

That being said I know that this will not be for everyone. If you are not drawn in with episode 1, 2 and 3 are not going to change that.

_{There are a lot of places to legally stream this but Amazon Prime is the main one. You can watch it for free but with annoying ads on Plex, Pluto, Xumo, and Tubi. As far as I know (could be wrong) the 2nd season will be on Amazon}