Kaleidoscope is a new Netflix heist series, released when the clock met the New Year. The TV series is loosely-inspired by the real-life story that happened during Hurricane Sandy, where seven billion dollars in bonds went missing in downtown Manhattan. The show uniquely tells the story of its heist, making it a complete puzzle where not everything and everyone is what they seem. Here’s why you should be watching Kaleidoscope.
Unique Structure
Netflix
Kaleidoscope tells the story of Leo Pap (Giancarlo Esposito) and his team trying to steal seven billion dollars. The series has a unique structure, as you can watch the episodes in any order you want, as long as White, the heist episode, is the last one you see. That means there are 5,040 (!) ways of watching the show. Each episode has the name of a color that’s important for that episode, and tells one part of the story.
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Once you’ve watched the whole series, you’ll have seen episodes that expand from 24 years before the heist, to six months after. That way, you’ll know and understand each character and what happened to them to want to be part of the heist, and how it went for them after. Although this idea might sound gimmicky, it absolutely changes your experience watching it. Since we’ve all gotten used to being amateur detectives through criminal whodunnits like CSI, Kaleidoscope allows you to not only enjoy the heist, but also everything that has happened before and after, as you’re the only one watching it this particular way.
About the structure, creator Eric Garcia told Newsweek: “I had a group of about 10 people in my writers’ rooms and my writers, writer’s assistants, script coordinator, really everybody in the room worked together, and we had a ton of whiteboards, and a ton of note cards we had, it was a very A Beautiful Mind over there.” Netflix has tweeted different orders of episodes to watch, from the classic detective story to non-linear, and some people have been thinking about which is the best way to watch it satisfactorily.
The Heist Genre Is Always Fun
From Ocean’s Eleven to Widows or Inside Man, the heist genre is always a fun one. The charismatic lead character must recruit a team with a certain set of skills so they can surpass the incredibly complicated and specific security measures. There’s always a bad guy, even though the lead characters are thieves, they’re good thieves, or at least they’re stealing from someone much worse. The crew plans the heist, telling the whole plan so that when things go wrong (they always go wrong, and the crew must improvise), we understand what’s happening. Kaleidoscope is no different, as it gets inspiration from some of the best heist movies. Even some films that are not in the heist genre per se, use the format to create a thrilling action sequence in the middle of their movie; as the original Mission Impossible did with the vault scene where Tom Cruise is almost touching the floor.
Money Heist proves the genre still works today, as it was one of Netflix’s biggest success stories, even creating a Korean remake. Although it’s more used for movies than TV series, the medium is proving to be great for the genre, as having many more hours allows the audience to empathize with characters that are much better developed, and when things go wrong, we suffer with them much more.
Why does the heist genre still work all these years later? It might be because heists are kind of like a magic trick, where even if you look closely, something is always happening that you’re not aware of, making the revelation of the truth much more satisfying and amusing. The technological jump that the world has had in the last 30 years has made the genre even better. Now, there are much more difficult counter-measures to surpass, so our heroes must be even smarter and smoother than in the times of Rififi, The Killing, or the original Italian Job.
Great Cast
The show wouldn’t work without a great cast. Most episodes focus on different characters, making them the leads and protagonists of their own stories. If there was only a great lead character actor, the show would suffer in those episodes where he doesn’t appear. Thankfully, in Kaleidoscope, that’s not a problem, as the cast, full of known actors, and younger stars who’ll be recognized from now on, works great. The charismatic leader is none other than Giancarlo Esposito, giving a performance that might be seen as one of his best works in the future, but that’s not all.
The cast of supporting players are Rufus Sewell (The Man in the High Castle) as the bad guy, and as part of Esposito’s crew, there’s Spanish star Paz Vega (Spanglish), Rosaline Elbay (Ramy), Hollywood leading man Jai Courtney (Terminator Genisys), Peter Mark Kendall (The Americans), Niousha Noor (Here and Now), Jordan Mendoza (As Seen on Comedy Central), and as a woman in the middle of everything, Tati Gabrielle (Uncharted).
This group of actors makes the show better, as each of their characters has their interests and ideas of what should be happening, who are allies, and who they shouldn’t trust at all, as there might not be as much honor among thieves, as it’s sometimes said. Everyone in the cast gets their time to shine, not only in the heist, but especially in the episode that tells us more about them, be it in flashbacks on what’s really their motive for doing the job. Without an incredible crew of characters, the show’s format wouldn’t work, as you might’ve seen an episode with a less skilled actor first and left the show altogether.
Thankfully, that’s not a problem for Kaleidoscope, a different show with a new format; one that allows every viewer to watch the series as a unique experience. If you’re a fan of the heist genre, you should be watching this TV show.
