If the series has been largely about the ripple effects of one singular event at its beginning, the final series does service to the human core of its espionage plots by gradually stripping it all down to meet its end at the core of what it has always really been about. With this in place, Muhsin must traverse a devastated landscape of corruption on all sides that reveals honor in unexpected places. When one of his daughters disappears, he accepts a job with a British official, played with sneering, unhinged gusto by Bertie Carvel, as part of a scheme to restore honor to Iraq by building a new police force.
Waleed Zuaiter draws you in as former Iraqi police officer Muhsin al-Khafaji, who must grapple with his previous sins both within his own mind and all around him, trying to keep his daughters safe during the American occupation and facing off against various players from Saddam Hussein’s rule who hold a grudge against him.
Hindsight 2020: Baghdad Centralĭetective stories are just as much about having a compelling location and protagonist and villain as they are about the mystery itself and Baghdad Central excels in all these areas, but with the added bonus of taking the audience outside of itself and asking it to go along from a point of view that may actually be in opposition to it. If 2020 was a year that demanded a lot of people - asking them to cast aside their expectations and find beauty in the darkness, to recognize and appreciate their connections to other people, and to take responsibility for the lives of strangers by putting on a mask regardless of their political beliefs - then it was filled with series that demanded the same of their viewers with the idea that this wasn’t a time to tune out of the world but to instead embrace the complexity that dominates reality and the best fiction. It’s surely a coincidence that the makers of such things rose to the occasion, making the usual Top 10 lists outdated and demanding addendums and expansions that brought them closer to something we can pronounce as complete.
If 2020 was the longest year ever then that meant there was more room for good TV series to stream than usual. Ethan Hawke and Joshua Caleb Johnson create magic in The Good Lord Bird