Jack Thorne’s 8-part series on Netflix, The Eddy, is engaging and watchable and will without a doubt spawn at least one follow-up season. The show centers on Elliot Udo (Andre Holland), an African-American ex-pat and owner of a jazz nightclub, the eponymous Eddy, and the musical director of the house band – as well as the father of an extremely likable though bound-for-trouble teen, Julie (Amandla Stenberg) who’s come to live w/ him after a falling-out w/ his ex/her mom. Over the course of the “season: we get to know most of the players in the jazz band and we follow Elliot on his struggles to support and guide the band, manage his tempestuous relationship w/ the lead singer, and deal with a criminal element that wants to buy into his enterprise and use the club as a laundromat for drug/counterfeit money. The plot itself is flimsy, and the pacing of most episodes is slow to glacial, but it’s best to accept this series for what it is: a study in character and in group interaction, the development over time of complex life/work/family relationships, and an homage to the ex-pat jazz scene still thriving, I guess, in Paris today. Each episode includes extensive jazz interludes as we watch the band prepare for performances and a studio album. Sadly, I wish the musical score was better – it’s neither avant garde nor memorable in an upbeat, pop manner – in fact I can’t remember a single tune or set of lyrics. Individually, though, most of the musicians are excellent, or seem to so me, and its fun to watch them perform and interact, musical quality aside.
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