The Beast in Me. Netflix.

A clinker that is at best a paint by numbers thriller that we've seen many times before. The plot concerns a damaged writer, Her last book was a tell all about her horrible relationship with her father, and horrible male relationships is underlined throughout this series.

The damaged writer has gone through a terrible loss, and is also separated from her wife, a gooey realist painter whose work is immediately gobbled up by a make believe gallery director who shows lots of mediocre art in her big big gallery and just happens to be married to Mathew Rhys the villain of the piece. I'm not giving anything away here, since Rhys is threatening and nasty from the get go. His performance is so over the top which I guess will make some think "Gee what a great performance it is". It isn't.

The damaged writer is played by Claire Danes who gives another one of her mannered performances, who cries on cue, and is distraught on cue. Look I don't hate her, but she seems to gave the same performance over and over since her Homeland days. Into her life in Oyster Bay comes a controversial real estate billionaire who has recently moved in next door to her with his new wife, Ms. gallery director (the first one has gone missing or has she?) and his ferocious mean dogs that scare Claire.

The billionaire has I said is menacingly played by Matthew Rhys who wants to build a big running path behind the properties including Claire's and she wants no part of it. Rhys is also planning a huge hudson yards like project in the city with the help of his menacing dad played by Jonathan Banks who looks horrible and over acts throughout. The menace is underlined and the politics are as they use to to say "ripped from todays headlines"

Aggie/Claire is having problems writing a next book and an idea is hatched for her to write a tell all about her new controversial neighbor and his missing wife. The plot is so far fetched and stretched out that I don't understand the attention and good reviews it's getting except that maybe the people who liked it have never seen a good thriller, noir or otherwise.

There are really no surprises, everything is so in your face, and the murders are also predictable including one which involves the victim getting smashed in the head with a small bad sculpture. Hell if I'm going to get smashed in my head by an art work it had better be a Noguchi

, a Brancusi or a nice small Henry Moore. The rest of the cast is ok, neither here nor there, and they fill their parts with nothing more than what is required of them. This beast is not in me.