TV Review: Aquarius
I watched the entire first season of Aquarius on Thursday, June 16 in anticipation of the commercial free season two premiere event that aired on NBC that night. While I normally do not like to go through shows that fast, it proved to be a fitting way to consume this imperfect but very compelling crime drama.
The series in set in Los Angeles in the late 1960s. David Duchovny stars as Detective Sam Kodiak, who at the start of the series is tasked with finding Emma Karn (Emma Dumont), a teenager who joins the Manson Family. The series follows two plot lines that occasionally intersect; Kodiak and his cases (which usually are tied to larger ideas like race or gender) and the exploits of the Manson Family in the years leading up to the infamous Tate-La Bianca murders of August 1969.
The goal of the show, I'm guessing, is to depict the cultural landscape that made it possible for someone like Charles Manson to wreak as much havoc as he did. If that the show's goal, it's only partly successful. While there is the multi-generational conflict that seemed to define the era by way of Brian Shafe (Grey Damon), the young undercover narcotics officer working with Kodiak, we only get to spend time with the police and the Family itself, so life outside of those two groups remains something of a mystery.

Be advised that Aquarius is historical fiction, emphasis on the fiction. It's not interested in getting every detail about Manson right. That's what books are for. Much of the fun comes from the audience knowing more than the characters do. In one scene, Susan Atkins (Ambyr Childers) is seen reading Rosemary's Baby, the film adaptation of which was directed by Roman Polanski, the husband of Sharon Tate. The first episode of season two begins with a flash-forward to the night of Tate's infamous murder but jumping ahead eighteen months in the narrative feels very unnecessary. Anyone watching already knows what's to come.
Aquarius is just one of several projects that have been made about the murders in the past couple of years. There was February's Lifetime movie Manson's Lost Girls, which starred MacKenzie Mauzy as Linda Kasabian, the Family member who later was a key witness for the prosecution in the Family's trial. It was a sleek, stylish movie, but the movie was too narrowly focused on Kasabian to really get a complete picture of the events. And then there was the 12 episode arc on the Manson Family from Karina Longworth's excellent podcast You Must Remember This, which tells the story with a Hollywood angle. That was truly a gripping, edge-of-you-seat listen.
The second season of Aquarius airs Thursdays on NBC.
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