Jude Law in 'Black Rabbit.' Netflix Share on Facebook Share on X Share to Flipboard Send an Email Show additional share options Share on LinkedIn Share on Pinterest Share on Reddit Share on Tumblr Share on Whats App Print the Article Post a Comment Logo text TV's Golden Age of the '00s was built on the backs of antiheroes like Tony Soprano, Walter White, Don Draper, Dexter Morgan and Al Swearengen. But antiheroes are not forever, and the landscape became clogged with antihero shows that started strong and lost the thread (Sons of Anarchy); antihero shows that felt like soulless copies of previous antihero shows (Ozark); and antihero shows that felt like parodies of previous antihero shoes (Low Winter Sun). Black Rabbit The Bottom Line Bleak 'Rabbit.' Airdate: Thursday, September 18 (Netflix)Cast: Jude Law, Jason Bateman, Cleopatra Coleman, Amaka Okafor, Sope Dirisu, Troy KotsurCreators: Zach Baylin, Kate Susman Last year, my Top 10 list contained only one show, Netflix's deconstructed take on Ripley, centered on an antihero and, as we head into the fall of 2025, the antihero landscape is feeling dire. From the repetitive tropes of Taylor Sheridan's flotilla of thinly sketched western archetypes to the latest near-literal resurrections of Dexter Morgan, I don't have antihero fatigue so much as fatigue with shows that don't understand why Breaking Bad and The Sopranos were great - cake-and-eat-it-too shows that think the next evolution of the genre can be found in hollow redemption for poor behavior. Related Stories TV Noah Wyle and Stephen Graham Have Emotional Sidewalk Chat Following Emmy Awards TV Charlie Hunnam Goes Full-on 'Monster' in Haunting Official Trailer for 'The Ed Gein Story' Fast on the heels of HBO's relentlessly bleak Task, which made me yearn for the humor and warmth that scaffolded the bleakness in creator Brad Ingelsby's Mare of Easttown, comes Zach Baylin and Kate Susman's relentlessly bleak eight-episode Netflix limited series Black Rabbit, which made me yearn for the humor and warmth of human characters and narrative logic (and the religious/philosophical underpinnings that Task employed to at least tenuously justify its redemptive arc). There are parts of Black Rabbit that I appreciated, from a ground-level New York City vitality to a searing supporting performance from Troy Kotsur to a two-episode conclusion that's effectively tense, right up until a soggy ending that left me convinced the series has no awareness that its main characters aren't antiheroes, they just suck in very conventionally clichéd ways. Black Rabbit begins in medias res with an audacious jewelry robbery at a loud, underlit bash at the Brooklyn eatery that gives the show its name. We're introduced to owner Jake (Jude Law), genius chef Roxie (Amaka Okafor), well-dressed investor Wes (Sope Dirisu) and a few other background figures from the restaurant. Then the robbery goes bad, as such robberies often do. A month earlier, we're reintroduced to Jake before the series heads across the country to meet his black sheep brother, Vince (Jason Bateman, also the director of the first two episodes, if the dim lighting weren't already clue enough), loitering at a Reno casino. Vince is about to sell a book of rare coins, but the deal goes bad, as such deals often do. In the process of the deal going bad, Vince presumably kills a man with his car, but since it's never mentioned again during the course of the series, he's allowed to be treated as a lovable rascal. Fleeing the murder that will never be mentioned again, Vince retreats back to New York and finds Jake anxiously awaiting the review from The New York Times that he's certain will kickstart the fortunes of Black Rabbit; while Black Rabbit gives very little impression of knowing anything about the restaurant industry, it absolutely gives the impression of having been made by people who watched the third season of The Bear (and Uncut Gems and Ozark, over-represented in the DNA with Bateman, early director Laura Linney, composers Danny Bensi and Saunder Jurriaans and cutesy animated credits teasing the content of each episode). Vince's tattoo artist daughter (Odessa Young's Gen) wants nothing to do with him. His brother doesn't want to lend him money or relive the good ole days when they were part of a rock band that had one small hit. Plus, Vince owes a lot of money to vicious bad guy Joe Mancuso (Kotsur) - I'm truly not sure if he's a bookie, a mobster, a money-lender or if it matters - and Mancuso's screw-up son Junior (Forrest Weber) and Junior's slightly less inept partner (Chris Coy's Babbit ... yes, he's Babbit on Black Rabbit) are determined to make him pay up. It's not a spoiler that Jake gets embroiled in his brother's mess, nor that while Vince is the family black sheep, Jake is a screw-up himself in ways that are much less innocuous and much more reprehensible than the show thinks they are. (Note: In a better version of this show, Vince and Jake spend the third ep