If you put Benedict Cumberbatch into a series people are going to be interested. This was true with Sherlock and it is true with this new series called Eric. I didn't know anything about it other than the fact that it took place in 1980's NYC and had Cumberbatch in the lead role. That was enough for me and I presume for most other people to get interested.
I didn't even watch a trailer for it before I dived in but the trailer does kind of give away a lot of the overall plot.
src
The story here is that Vincent (Cumberbatch) is a creator and puppeteer for a Sesame Street type of show filmed in NYC. Given that, we would presume that he is this family-oriented, kind sort of person but he isn't that. He is a drunk that is susceptible to drug use and he has a rather abusive home life that is negatively affecting his son, Edgar.
One day when Edgar is meant to be walked to school, Vincent and his wife instead get into yet another heated argument in the hallway of their condo building and Edgar walks out of the house to go to school on his own. Edgar, never returns home from school that day.
This is the part of the story that I actually was invested in because it appears as though we are going to be subjected to a very interesting twisting of the story as to who is actually responsible. We see the story through a number of perspectives and one of them is at detective at the NYPD who is in charge of missing persons' cases. Out of all the characters I would say that his is likely the most interesting.
src
Detective Ledroit is a big piece of the overall puzzle here and they are able to have his own story unfold as the episodes go by as well. I think they could have done more with his character but I also think they did enough. He is very dedicated to his job but feels a tinge of guilt because he has kind of put another missing child case on a back burner because of this new one that came in. As it turns out, and of course this was going to happen because a big part of the story is eliminated if it doesn't, his old case ends up being related to the new one.
After Vincent's son goes missing for several days, clues about what might have happened to him keep coming up and the suspect keeps changing. They do a good job with this to keep us guessing including starting at the very beginning where it appears as though multiple people are watching Edgar as he walks to school.
src
The thing that at first seemed kind of interesting to me, but later on really didn't have that much to do with the overall plot, was that Vincent starts hallucinating about this bigger puppet, named Eric, that follows him around and talks to him sometimes eliciting a verbal reaction from Vincent that makes other people think he is nuts.
src
I think in a lot of ways that the introduction of the large puppet character was added to the story so that the "Good Day Sunshine" company (the one that is like Sesame Street) could be further introduced to the story and also so that Cumberbatch could showcase his "Smaug" voice again. Cumberbatch was an executive producer on the show after all and therefore would have had creative control anyway.
To me, the Eric character was necessary only to draw out the storyline for more episodes and while there is some decent back and forth between Vincent and Eric, ultimately, the hallucinated monster puppet thing doesn't really accomplish anything of substance as far as the storyline is concerned. The real story here is the one of Detective Ledroit and his mission to find the kid, as well as the father's admissions about his own shortcomings as a father. Go ahead and disagree with me about this one if you want to but ultimately the monster "Eric" doesn't really do much for the story other than eat up about 30% of the screen time. I would have been perfectly fine if he hadn't been a part of the story at all and the series instead had been called "Edgar."
Should I watch it?
I think that you can probably skip this one although there are some pretty great performances in this overall. To me, the just kind of missed the mark with this by attempting to make the story revolve around a hallucination whose involvement in the story, once you've seen it all, is kind of stupid. I know that of the past 3 series I have watched that this has been my least favorite but I guess since I finished it all, you could say that it was decent enough for some people.
Like a lot of Netflix series or just series in general, I feel as though about half of this story could have been completely eliminated and the series would have been the same. Basically, I was disappointed and think many others will be as well. That being said, there are worse ways to spend your viewing time.
the only legal way to stream this is via a Netflix membership