Known for her acclaimed screenplays for Shame, The Iron Lady, and The Invisible Woman, Abi Morgan is venturing into very different territory for Netflix’s miniseries, Eric. The ’80s-set psychological thriller stars Benedict Cumberbatch as a famous puppeteer and father who turns to a blue monster puppet named Eric to help find his missing son.
Here’s the synopsis: Set in 1980s New York, Eric is a new emotional thriller from Abi Morgan following the desperate search of a father when his nine-year-old son disappears one morning on the way to school. Vincent, one of New York’s leading puppeteers and creator of the hugely popular children’s television show, ‘Good Day Sunshine,’ struggles to cope with the loss of his son, Edgar, becoming increasingly distressed and volatile. Full of self-loathing and guilt around Edgar’s disappearance, he clings to his son’s drawings of a blue monster puppet, Eric, convinced that if he can get Eric on TV then Edgar will come home. As Vincent’s progressively destructive behavior alienates his family, his work colleagues, and the detectives trying to help him, it’s Eric, a delusion of necessity, who becomes his only ally in the pursuit to bring his son home.
New York of the 1980s is a very specific time for a story like this to be set. It’s a time when crime, corruption, racism, and the outbreak of AIDS were everywhere and the story of a missing kid could get overlooked. So in a way it makes sense that a father, already dealing with some guilt issues, might take an extreme approach to locating his child.
Cumberbatch is joined by Gaby Hoffmann, McKinley Belcher III, Dan Fogler, and Clarke Peters, with Roberta Colindrez, Jeff Hephner, Wade Allain-Marcus, and Phoebe Nicholls. Morgan wrote each episode for Lucy Forbes to direct.
All six episodes of Eric hit Netflix on May 30th.
