In the picture

**Black Rabbit**

*Starring:* Jason Bateman, Jude Law, Cleopatra Coleman, Abbey Lee, Dagmara Dominczyk, and Troy Kotsur
*Created by:* Zach Baylin and Kate Susman

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While Jude Law’s criminally underrated crime thriller *The Order* failed to make its mark on the awards circuit, its production ultimately led to a limited series poised to become Netflix’s next big conversation-starter—if it can break through the binge-model barrier. Created by *The Order*’s Zach Baylin and Kate Susman, *Black Rabbit* is a dark, cautionary tale about brotherhood, addiction, and keeping things above board.

If you thought Cain and Abel were bad, you simply haven’t met Jake (Jude Law) and Vince (Jason Bateman) Friedken yet.

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*Black Rabbit* starts slow, introducing audiences to Jake Friedken in isolation from the chaos he’s on the precipice of experiencing. He’s a well-dressed glad-hander who manages to circumvent being pinned as a sleazeball by way of being a down-to-earth guy who loves his son, maintains a good relationship with his ex-wife (Dagmara Dominczyk), and boasts a degree of earnestness that isn’t just for show. All of these elements are revealed within the first five minutes as Jake makes his way to his restaurant—the eponymous Black Rabbit.

Things fall apart quite quickly once he arrives and gives a little speech about the ethos of the restaurant and wanting to create a place where the night could go anywhere. In the seconds that follow these ominous words, gunmen emerge, things get stolen, and people get shot. It’s an explosive introduction to the world of *Black Rabbit*, and many nuances to the scene are even better on a rewatch.

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With a gun shoved in Jake’s face, *Black Rabbit* jumps back in time to precisely one month before the hold-up. Flashbacks are one of the most divisive storytelling tools, but Susman and Baylin manage to circumvent the device’s fatal flaws by maintaining the same pace and stakes in the present, the recent past, and even childhood flashbacks.

Some of these sequences are pure fun—used to color the narrative with a glimpse into the brothers’ former lives as rock stars. Who exactly would argue with watching a Temu Kurt Cobain-styled Jude Law sing grungy music alongside Jason Bateman and far too many rabbit-headed bodies? It’s a brief diversion from the tense, nail-biting plotline playing out in the present.

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With the mystery of who would do this to Jake and the restaurant family, *Black Rabbit* becomes a bit of a whodunit. The fact, as it’s laid out in the premiere, is that Vince has dropped back into Jake’s life after circumstances drove them apart—and he’s nothing but trouble.

To elaborate: Vince is the kind of trouble who lacks remorse after killing someone, who can conjure convincing lies out of thin air, and who has a laundry list of enemies across New York City waiting for him to touch down in Manhattan again. Notably, the local bookie Joe Mancuso (Troy Kotsur) has long-standing ties to the Friedken family and an axe to grind with Vince.

His son, Junior (Forrest Weber), is hot-headed and desperate to appease daddy, while his right-hand man, Babbitt (Chris Coy), attempts to keep him in line.

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Both Jake and Vince are grifters—just in different fonts. Vince is not as slick or clever as Jake, but he knows how to use his squirrely, beleaguered personality to his advantage. He quickly goes from being the black sheep to the prodigal son, if only for a brief moment.

Jake is far from ignorant of his brother’s flaws, but like many people with troubled family members, he so badly wants to believe this time will be different. As someone glibly remarks later on in the series, Vince may be an addict, but Jake is addicted to his brother.

Law and Bateman fully sell this Cain and Abel dynamic to the point that you forget you’re watching two of the greatest dramatic actors of their generation doing what they do best. For eight episodes, they’re simply a pair of born-and-bred New Yorkers bickering at each other with a familiarity that feels genuinely brotherly. They never quite try to one-up each other when they’re going toe-to-toe, but the script and their performances tip the scales from time to time in ways that make you question who you should be rooting for.

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Trouble was already lurking within *The Black Rabbit* long before Vince showed up. His return simply exposes how ill-equipped Jake is at running a restaurant. His inaction isn’t as malicious as Vince’s actions, but the willful negligence he displays when it comes to the staff he calls his family shows how similar the two brothers really are.

*Black Rabbit* toys with the incestuous nature of the restaurant industry—especially within a restaurant where the lines between employee and family are blurred—with mixed success. Despite being a main subplot, much of the interpersonal drama within *The Black Rabbit* gets overshadowed by Jake and Vince’s runaround to escape their bookie debts, which is a shame because some of the best dynamics in the series exist outside the brothers.

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*The Black Rabbit* starts out as Vince’s lofty dream, before his recklessness forces Jake to cut him out of the picture. Together, they’d assembled an underdog team:

– Wes (Sope Dirisu), a rising music star and investor
– Estelle (Cleopatra Coleman), his esteemed interior designer girlfriend
– Roxie (Amaka Okafor), an ambitious chef ready to make a name for herself
– Tony (Robin de Jesus), her second-in-command and a bright-eyed, formidable bartender
– Anna (Abbey Lee) and Mel (Gus Birney), their hosts

By design, these characters only really exist when they’re directly in the path of Jake or Vince. While it sometimes leaves them feeling underdeveloped, it ultimately serves the narrative—because both men are so self-centered, these characters cease to exist unless they’re in their periphery.

Jake and Estelle’s relationship is a surprising bright spot, but it’s hard to gauge how much of it is sincere and how much is driven by Jake’s self-sabotage.

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Four years removed from his Oscar win for *CODA*, Troy Kotsur remains a stalwart performer. His role in *Black Rabbit* is quite small despite appearing in most episodes, but he haunts the narrative. When he is on-screen, he shines as an intimidating mobster-type, though there’s a duality to the character that’s never quite explored to its fullest.

Another standout is Gen (Odessa Young), Vince’s estranged daughter, who finds herself a victim by association. Though her role is very minor, her handful of scenes—particularly with Bateman—stick the landing.

Morgan Spector weaves in and out of episodes, commanding every scene with the same intensity he possesses in *The Gilded Age*, but with a far more menacing aura.

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*Black Rabbit*’s only real flaw is that it has so many compelling characters that we don’t spend enough time with them. The series may get lost in its own unrelenting pace, but it manages to deliver a satisfying—albeit devastating—conclusion that feels frighteningly true to life.

That unsettling realism is ultimately what makes the series so compelling, though it is also a hurdle for the story to overcome. Each 45-minute episode requires a hefty breather once the credits roll, and that isn’t something the binge model is built for.

Given the style of the series and the fact that its success is reliant on a fully engaged viewer, *Black Rabbit* could very well be a sleeper hit long after its initial drop.

The element of mutual assured destruction, set within a restaurant, makes this new Netflix series feel much closer to *The Bear* on coke.
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