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The Gist: Solosis a seven-part anthology series, created by David Weil ( Hunters), where each story revolves around one top actor (or in the case of the last episode, two), playing a character who explore what their definitions of humanity are. The writing is really stellar, and the acting is superb, both of those skills coming together to create something that is a series of monologues that rarely feel monologue-ish.While few ideas carry over from episode to episode — despite the show’s best efforts — this haphazard approach to technology as some all-consuming monolith rears its head once again, in a later episode. However, the theme that begins to feel most potent, especially once it’s made explicit by “Sasha,” is perhaps unintentional: the effects of pandemic-era isolation. Sasha has lived alone in a smart home for 20 years following an apocalyptic pandemic. Although her home's AI insists it is safe to go outside, Sasha refuses, preferring the safety and predictability of her house. Sasha refuses an ultimatum by the home automation company, and the AI shuts itself off.

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Nicole Beharie—Nera

And that’s the major problem with Solos. When we watched both the Hathaway and Aduba episodes, we never shook the feeling that we were watching acting exercises and not real stories. Don’t get us wrong: The acting that we saw was incredible. But they felt like something you could have seen on a blank stage in the pre-COVID days (or on Zoom these days), with proceeds going to the actor’s favorite charity. They’re fine performances — Aduba’s is especially good — but at no time did we believe that we were watching specific characters existing in their specific worlds. Dan Stevens as Otto, an NHS worker who steals a cure for Stuart to repair his Alzheimer's, later revealed that Stuart stole all his memories as a child on the day his mother died ("Stuart"). Stevens also voices Tym, the AI Space Shuttle in Peg's episode

Jacob is played by McCarrie McCausland at 15, Sephen Gray at 2, Percy Daggs IV at 6, and Andre Robinson at 11 ("Nera")Beyoncé Gave The Beyhive A Little Something To Be Thankful For With A “First Look” At ‘Renaissance' During Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade The tie-together at the end is almost perfect, except that the episode "Nera" is only vaguely referenced, and also didn't seem to share a mini-connection to any of the others, as the rest of the episodes all seemed to do. It is the most isolated of all of the episodes and has had me rewatching and pondering why. Was it editing that removed its connection from the rest or was it intentional? There is so much about it that doesn't fit with the rest. It does contain nearly all of the themes, but it has a really strong "one of these things is not like the others" feel all the way through it. Dolly Parton And Drew Bond Over Posing For Playboy On 'The Drew Barrymore Show': "I Have On Less Clothes Than You" And the last episode, with Freeman playing an elderly man named Stuart, holds a bit of a key to this parade of dirges. It’s Stuart’s voice we hear at the beginning of each episode, so he likely has something to do with all of these stories. But do we want to take the six-episode ride to find out that twist? Two episodes in and we’re not all that sure.

The themes that echo through each episode, and there are so many, are perfectly timed and toned for an "almost at the end" pandemic release. Stream It or Skip It: ‘Faraway Downs’ on Hulu, A Laudable Expansion of Baz Luhrmann’s ‘Australia’ That Tries To Repair The Sins Of The PastTaika Waititi Says Donald Trump Submitted A "List Of Demands" While Filming A 2012 Super Bowl Commercial, Including A Particular Camera Angle To “Make Him Look A Little Thinner” How 'The Buccaneers' Crafted Josie Totah and Mia Threapleton’s "Joyful" Queer Romance: "Never Even a Discussion" Kelley Curran Blames Turner's Penchant for "Self-Sabotage" for Her Soup Scheme Fiasco in 'The Gilded Age' Season 2 Episode 5 Two things to watch for that you might not think of on the first watch: 1: listen to the narration Morgan Freeman gives for each episode. Once you realize he's not just a narrator but a character, and what his role is in relation to all of them, the narration takes on new meaning. 2: look at the pictures they selected to fill the letters that open each episode. The highlight of the series is Sasha’s (Uzo Aduba) story: 20 years after entering an idyllic “stay home” during a deadly pandemic, she doesn’t trust her virtual assistant’s assurances that the outside world is now safe. The many allusions to covid-19 are a mixed bag – sometimes they feel poignant, but at other times they seem like a cheap, cynical way to mine emotion from the audience.