One of the positive side effects of the current “social distancing” protocol is that it is allowing me to dig out from under the pile of screeners I’ve allowed to amass in the past few weeks. The first show on the list for me to tackle? The recently released Amazon series ZeroZeroZero, a drama that spans three continents while telling three interconnected tales. Are you a fan of cartel dramas like Netflix’s Narcos? Then you’ll enjoy this limited series. Do you wish you had more stories about modern day mafia wars in Italy? This is the series for you. Love an interesting family drama that sees two adult children attempt to take up their late father’s business and thrive? Look no further than ZeroZeroZero.
The limited series (all eight episodes are currently streaming on Amazon) traces a drug deal from its origins in Mexico to Italy, shepherded along by a family of American middlemen. Naturally, it’s not a simple deal, as the cartel in Mexico is under siege by a local chapter of the national army, the mafia family in Italy is dealing with an attempted coup and an impending war from additional families in the area, and the middlemen are dealing with a devastating loss of their own. That’s a lot of pack into eight episodes, but the series is surprisingly taut, making sure the audience can follow each of the story’s three prongs while still maintaining the requisite level of suspense. And, as is so rarely the case with shows these days, the series has actual stakes: bad things happen to characters throughout the series and main characters don’t make it out alive.
The series is anchored by five strong performances. Harold Torres is sensational as Manuel, a former soldier in the Mexican Army who just happens to be a mole for the cartel operating in the area. What could easily be a stereotypical tough guy enforcer role is turned into a layered, complex character through both the strong writing and Torres’ impressive performance. Without a great deal of dialogue, Torres makes it easy to understand just what Manuel is thinking and feeling throughout his journey. We are allowed to see the human being behind the disciplined soldier, which makes each moment spent with this portion of the story all the more richer. On the mafia side of things, a generational battle for control of the family dominates the arc. The two central players are Adriano Chiaramida’s Don Minu, the elder statesman who desperately doesn’t want to admit that his grandson is jockeying for control of the region and attempting to thwart the shipment of cocaine that is essential for the family to maintain control. Stefano, played by Giuseppe De Domenico, is just naive enough to believe his power play will be easy, with minimal casualties. De Domenico is able to show us just how cocksure Stefano is in his abilities, and how devastatingly over-matched he finds himself within only a few episodes.
So much of the story explores generational shifts in empire building, from changes bubbling in the cartel as an upstart militia realizes they have the guns and ammunition to take over operations, to watching Stefano struggle to understand just why he can’t seem to have the same success as his grandfather. The generational layers of the mafia contrast nicely against the more recent roots of the Mexican drug cartel structure. Where one organization has had centuries to grow leaders among families, the other has had decades of brutal in-fighting where only the strong (and most heavily armed) survive. On the other side of things, without guns or centuries of history, is the Lynwood family, the middlemen who facilitate the transfer of drugs and exorbitant sums of money across the ocean. But the Lynwoods’ are dealing with their own generational crisis, as their surviving children are forced to ascend to their leadership roles in the family business ahead of schedule. And it’s here where the series sees its strongest performances.
The story of children taking on their father’s empire isn’t anything new, however ZeroZeroZero throws a twist on the traditional story: Edward Lynwood (Gabriel Byrne) has tapped his eldest daughter, Emma (an incredibly reserved and still Andrea Riseborough, who commands the screen whenever she’s on it), as his heir apparent. That’s no slight to his son Chris (Dane DeHaan, giving a tortured but easy to empathize with performance), it’s just that Emma is clearly suited for this particularly unsavory work (even if some of Edward’s clients dismiss her strength and power due to her gender), and Chris is suffering from Huntington’s Disease, a horrific degenerative neurological disease. Naturally, elements combine to force Chris into the family business as well, allowing DeHaan to show us the man behind the disease that is slowly eating away at Chris. And Emma? Well, Riseborough is the series’ through line – everything that unspools is, eventually, threaded through her. And she, in turn, becomes our surrogate for much of the series’ endgame. It’s rare that a limited series continues with gut-punching moments until its final shot, but ZeroZeroZero manages to do just that, and it’s Riseborough’s face that tells us all we need to know about what will happen as soon as the series fades to black one final time. It’s a hell of a chilling final sequence, made all the more impactful by Riseborough’s great work.
ZeroZeroZero isn’t a happy story, but it’s a well constructed narrative with some stand-out performances that fully sticks the landing. Yes, it’s violent (we’ve got a mafia and cartel war going on here, folks), but the series never revels in the violence. It’s wholly concerned with its characters, letting us know who they are and what makes them tick. The journeys they take may feel inevitable, but the show never shies away from showing us just what it takes for each of them to reach their goals (or, in some cases, how they fail in trying). Since we all seem to have some time on our hands, this is a solid binge option.
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