Netflix series Eric follows the story of puppeteer Vincent (Benedic Cumberbatch) as he embarks on a journey to find his his 9-year-old son, who went missing on the way to school. Photo / Netflix
Netflix series Eric follows the story of puppeteer Vincent (Benedic Cumberbatch) as he embarks on a journey to find his his 9-year-old son, who went missing on the way to school. Photo / Netflix
Eric (Mature audiences) Limited series of 6 episodes streaming on Netflix
Created by Abi Morgan
Reviewed by Jen Shieff
Vincent (Benedict Cumberbatch), a Jim Henson lookalike, works in a 1980s TV studio where he’s the famous genius puppeteer behind a Sesame Street-type programme called Good Day Sunshine.
Over six episodes we watch him fall from being a national icon to becoming a deadbeat as a result of obsessively trying to find his 9-year-old son, Edgar (Ivan Morris Howe), who vanishes one day on his way to school.
Cartoons Edgar has left behind convince desperate Vincent they are a map leading to Edgar.
Recalling in detail Edgar’s description of titular Eric, a 7ft Muppetish, hairy, purple toothy thing that lives under Edgar’s bed, Vincent creates Eric in his studio and takes him along on his quest.
He’s unseen by anyone except Vincent as he lumbers along, talking to Vincent in a deep version of Vincent’s own voice, that only Vincent can hear.
Viewers will want to scream at Vincent to pull himself together, to stop imagining things, but Benedict Cumberbatch draws us in, making Vincent’s drunkenness and furious attacks on undeserving people make sense.
Audiences will care about Vincent and his looming insanity, wanting him to stop delaying and find his son.
Subjected to a lot of personal trauma since she wrote the script for The Iron Lady (2011), creator Abi Morgan is in an ideal position to use imagination to tell a survival story with the universal theme of trusting ourselves and knowing who else to trust.
She said to Rachel Cooke in the Guardian in 2022, “I know who I want in my boat now and I know what I need to survive.
“When you think you’re going to lose the person that you love, when you think that you’re going to die yourself, it becomes very clear what you need to stay alive and you don’t need as much as you think.”
In his quest, Vincent has to face up to his alcoholism, the disintegration of his marriage to Cassie (Gaby Hoffmann) and his awful relationship with his wealthy parents for who money has got in the way of everything important.
Cumberbatch holds the series together despite a range of potentially unwieldy subplots involving local government corruption, racial prejudice and homelessness.
The sad plight of Good Day Sunshine’s endearing producer, Lennie (Dan Fogler), adds poignancy.
A particularly intriguing subplot focuses on Detective Michael Ledroit (McKinley Belcher III), a closeted gay in repressive post-McCarthy United States, with a partner dying from Aids, hiding his personal life from his colleagues in the NYPD Missing Persons Unit.
Ledroit mysteriously frequents a nightclub whose supposedly reformed ex-con owner Gator (Wade Allain-Marcus) is hampered in his efforts to go straight by paedophile clients who seemingly won’t go away.
Despite resenting some of Eric’s insights, Vincent grows as a person as Eric shows him what’s at the root of his hopeless parenting and what he needs to do about his often vicious, always self-centred behaviour.
Vincent’s self-discovery will resonate with every parent, and everyone who knows or knew one.
