Starring Australia’s own Naomi Watts, Gypsy is a new 10-part psychological thriller and drama series that will premiere on Netflix this Friday, June 30th. Before you binge, here are the top five things you need to know about this show:
1. The series was created by newcomer, Lisa Rubin and it sees Naomi Watts playing the role of a troubled, enigmatic woman. Or is that women? On the one hand, she’s Jean Holloway, who is happily married to Michael (Billy Crudup) and is the mother of a young girl who has gender dysmorphia (Maren Heary). Jean earns a crust working as a therapist in New York. And on the other, she develops her persona Diane Hart, a “single” journalist who she uses to explore her sexuality.
2. The opening credits see Stevie Nicks performing a new version of her famous Fleetwood Mac song that shares the series’ name. Nicks performs the track on the piano and in doing so, captures the spirit and environment that was around when the song was initially written.
3. Jean tells us in the opening scenes that our unconscious is more powerful than our freewill. She admits that often we are ruled by raw, dark and surreal desires. This is a shape of things to come and signposts certain events, in much the same way as the name of the café she enters is called “Rabbithole” because this is where we will first see “Diane” unleashed.
4. Jean takes her therapy sessions seriously on the surface. She describes them to a patient as a “serious” commitment before noting down that this lady has some serious issues with boundaries. Jean is obvious to the fact that she too also oversteps boundaries.
5. The biggest conflict which Diane/Jean gets entangled in sees her befriending Sidney (Sophie Cookson), the former girlfriend of her patient, Sam (Karl Glusman). The pair had had a messy break-up but this doesn’t stop Diane/Jean developing a crush and forging a disturbing attachment with this younger woman.
This show asks the question, “Who are you when no one is watching?” Just like Pandora’s Box, things are slowly revealed as taboos are tackled and secrets and lies are commited by different characters left, right and centre.
To find out more, you can watch the series on Netflix on June 30th.
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