**Black Rabbit**
*Starring:* Jason Bateman, Jude Law, Cleopatra Coleman, Abbey Lee, Dagmara Dominczyk, and Troy Kotsur
*Created by:* Zach Baylin and Kate Susman
While Jude Law’s criminally underrated crime thriller *The Order* failed to make its mark on the awards circuit, its production ultimately led to a limited series poised to become Netflix’s next big conversation-starter—if it can break through the binge-model barrier.
Created by *The Order*’s Zach Baylin and Kate Susman, **Black Rabbit** is a dark, cautionary tale about brotherhood, addiction, and keeping things above board. If you thought Cain and Abel were bad, you simply haven’t met Jake (Jude Law) and Vince (Jason Bateman) Friedken yet.
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### A Slow Burn with Explosive Payoff
*Black Rabbit* starts slow, introducing audiences to Jake Friedken in isolation from the chaos he’s on the precipice of experiencing. He’s a well-dressed glad-hander who manages to circumvent being pinned as a sleazeball by virtue of being a down-to-earth guy who loves his son, maintains a good relationship with his ex-wife (Dagmara Dominczyk), and boasts a degree of earnestness that isn’t just for show.
All of these elements are revealed within the first five minutes as Jake makes his way to his restaurant—the eponymous Black Rabbit. Things fall apart quickly once he arrives and gives a little speech about the ethos of the restaurant, wanting to make a place where the night could go anywhere.
In the seconds that follow these ominous words, gunmen emerge, things get stolen, and people get shot. It’s an explosive introduction to the world of *Black Rabbit*, with many nuances to the scene even better appreciated on a rewatch.
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### Flashbacks and Flourishes
With a gun shoved in Jake’s face, *Black Rabbit* jumps back in time to precisely one month before the hold-up. Flashbacks are a divisive storytelling tool, but Susman and Baylin skillfully circumvent their usual pitfalls by maintaining the same pace and stakes in the present, the recent past, and childhood flashbacks.
Some moments are pure fun, used to color the narrative with glimpses into the brothers’ former lives as rock stars. Who wouldn’t enjoy a Temu Kurt Cobain-styled Jude Law singing grungy music alongside Jason Bateman and a disturbing number of rabbit-headed bodies? It’s a brief diversion from the tense, nail-biting storyline playing out in the present.
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### A Tense Whodunit
With the mystery of who would assault Jake and the restaurant family unfolding, *Black Rabbit* takes on the form of a gripping whodunit. As presented in the premiere, Vince has dropped back into Jake’s life after circumstances drove them apart—and he’s nothing but trouble.
Vince is the kind of trouble who lacks remorse after killing someone, conjures convincing lies out of thin air, and has a laundry list of enemies across New York City waiting for him to land in Manhattan again. Chief among them is the local bookie, Joe Mancuso (Troy Kotsur), who has longstanding ties to the Friedken family and an axe to grind with Vince.
Joe’s son, Junior (Forrest Weber), is hot-headed and desperate to appease his father. Meanwhile, his right-hand man, Babbitt (Chris Coy), tries to keep him in line.
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### Brothers at Odds
Both Jake and Vince are grifters—but in very different fonts. Vince isn’t as slick or clever as Jake, but he knows how to use his squirrely, beleaguered personality to his advantage. He quickly goes from black sheep to prodigal son, if only for a brief moment.
Jake remains well aware of his brother’s flaws, but like many people with troubled family members, he desperately wants to believe this time will be different. As someone glibly remarks later in the series, “Vince may be an addict, but Jake is addicted to his brother.”
Law and Bateman fully sell this Cain and Abel dynamic to the point that you forget you’re watching two of the greatest dramatic actors of their generation doing what they do best. For eight episodes, they’re simply a pair of born-and-bred New Yorkers bickering with a familiarity that feels genuinely brotherly.
They never quite try to one-up each other when going toe-to-toe, but the script and their performances tip the scales from time to time in ways that make you question who you should be rooting for.
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### Trouble Inside and Out
Trouble was already lurking within the Black Rabbit long before Vince showed up—his return simply exposes how ill-equipped Jake is at running a restaurant. Jake’s inaction isn’t as malicious as Vince’s outright recklessness, but the willful negligence he displays when it comes to the staff he calls family shows how similar the two brothers really are.
*Black Rabbit* toys with the incestuous nature of the restaurant industry, especially within a place where the lines between employee and family blur—with mixed success. Despite being a main subplot, much of the interpersonal drama within the Black Rabbit gets overshadowed by Jake and Vince’s runaround to escape their bookie debts.
This is a shame, because some of the best dynamics in the series exist outside the brothers.
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### Supporting Cast and Dynamics
The Black Rabbit starts out as Vince’s lofty dream before his recklessness forces Jake to cut him out of the picture. Together, they’d assembled an underdog team:
– Wes (Sope Dirisu), a rising music star and investor
– Estelle (Cleopatra Coleman), his esteemed interior designer girlfriend
– Roxie (Amaka Okafor), an ambitious chef ready to make a name for herself
– Tony (Robin de Jesús), Roxie’s bright-eyed and formidable second-in-command bartender
– Anna (Abbey Lee) and Mel (Gus Birney), their hosts
By design, these characters primarily exist when they’re directly in the path of Jake or Vince. While this sometimes leaves them feeling underdeveloped, it ultimately serves the narrative—both men are so self-centered these characters cease to exist unless they’re in the brothers’ periphery.
Jake and Estelle’s relationship is a surprising bright spot, but it’s hard to gauge how much of it is sincere and how much is driven by Jake’s self-sabotage.
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### Standout Performances
Four years removed from his Oscar win for *CODA*, Troy Kotsur remains a stalwart performer. His role as Joe Mancuso in *Black Rabbit* is quite small despite appearing in most episodes, but he haunts the narrative. When on-screen, he shines as an intimidating mobster-type, though there’s a duality to the character that’s never quite explored to its fullest.
Another standout is Gen (Odessa Young), Vince’s estranged daughter, who finds herself a victim by association. Although she has a very minor role, her handful of scenes—particularly with Bateman—stick the landing.
Morgan Spector weaves in and out of episodes, commanding every scene with the same intensity he brings to *The Gilded Age*, albeit with a far more menacing aura.
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### Minor Flaws and Final Thoughts
*Black Rabbit*’s only real flaw is that it has so many compelling characters we don’t spend enough time with them. The series may sometimes get lost in its own unrelenting pace, but it manages to deliver a satisfying—albeit devastating—conclusion that feels frighteningly true to life.
That unsettling realism is ultimately what makes the series so compelling, though it also presents a hurdle.
Each 45-minute episode demands a hefty breather once the credits roll—something the binge-watch model isn’t built for. Given the series’ style and reliance on a fully engaged viewer, *Black Rabbit* could well be a sleeper hit long after its initial drop.
The element of mutual assured destruction set within a restaurant makes this new Netflix series feel much closer to *The Bear* on coke.
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**If you’re drawn to intense drama grounded in flawed characters and morally complex relationships, *Black Rabbit* is a series well worth your attention.**
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