Taboo is an
eight-part FX miniseries. The story takes place 1814 and stars Tom Hardy
as the fictional James Delaney, the long
thought dead heir of the real small isle of Nootka
Sound. Upon returning to England after twelve years as a prisoner in Africa
and with a stolen bag of priceless diamonds, Delaney soon finds himself the
unwelcome subject to the greed of not only his half sister's husband for Nootka Sound, but a loathe and feared target
of the East India Company and the Prince
Regent over land rights for the small island during the waning war between Britain
and America.
Taboo is a very sad and
deeply dark series in which Delaney, a half Nuu-chah-nulth
Indian, and half Englishman, is
obsessed by his personal demons. One of
whom is his dead Nuu-chah-nulth mother
who died in a mental asylum and is said to have attempted to drown the newborn
Delaney shortly after his birth, and his incestial relationship with his half
sister. As for the madness of his mother, her madness was probably self induced
protection against a society that rejected her aborigine background.
It is hard the find any characters in
this series who possess any redeeming qualities that sets them apart from the
other as being overly good or bad. Delaney himself quickly proves that he is an
antihero who only wants to sell Nootka Sound for profit. This is a feat that nearly
costs him his life and eventually causes him to sell the isle to the newly
formed America in order to save himself and curtail the plans of the East India
Company and the Prince Regent.
It seems that nearly everyone who has any
dealings with Delaney meets with a reversal of fortune or just ends up dead,
including his half sister who kills her husband after she realizes that he only
married her for her impending possession of Nootka
Sound. Unable to cope with the brutality from her husband, being rape by
the minister, and Delaney's unexpected rejection of her own cruel nature, she
drowns herself in the Thames, and in turn adds herself to Delaney's list of
ghostly demons. However, she was not totally to blame for the path in which her life ventured, because this was
a woman of the early 19th century who was subjugated and objectified and never
had any chance of experiencing what it was to be a "Me".
Nevertheless, after much deceiving and a great deal of killing,
Delaney frees himself of the East India Company and the Prince Regent and sets sail
for America with his illegitimate son, his father's widow, the gun powder, and
a motley group of
thieves and murderers.
From start to finish Taboo is one of the most dreariest
series to date. Its fast pace storyline while intriguing is its only saving
grace. There is no true moments of happiness or heartfelt laughter in the
series and even after Delaney succeed in stopping the of the East India Company
and the Prince Regent, there is a note of uncertainty about their future from
Delaney and his crew.
In addition, this note of uncertainty is
contradictory in that it includes no real
sense of closure, and the sense that Delaney's new ship could very well meet
the same end as the Company's illegal slave ship.
Created by
Tom Hardy
Edward "Chips" Hardy
Steven Knight
Written by
Steven Knight
Edward "Chips" Hardy
Directed by
Kristoffer Nyholm
Anders Engström
Starring
Tom Hardy
Leo Bill
Jessie Buckley
Oona Chaplin
Mark Gatiss
Stephen Graham
Jefferson Hall
David Hayman
Ed Hogg
Michael Kelly
Jonathan Pryce
Jason Watkins
Nicholas Woodeson