Stream It Or Skip It: ‘Fatal Seduction’ On Netflix, Where A Weekend Tryst Leaves A Woman Questioning Everyone In Her Life

We don’t ask much of erotic thrillers; we just want the leads to have actual physical chemistry and the situations that throw them together to be at least semi-plausible. A new thriller from South Africa is certainly sexy. But is the thriller part of the series any good?

FATAL SEDUCTION: STREAM IT OR SKIP IT?

Opening Shot: Hands caressing a woman’s feet. Then we see scenes of two people writhing in passion, and a woman’s voice says. “Sex. Fornication. Fucking. It’s a compulsion. A primary urge.”

The Gist: All of those scenes of two people having sex transition to one where a woman is being led away by police while someone is being wheeled on a stretcher by paramedics.

“Four weeks earlier.” In a modern home overlooking the shoreline, Leonard (Thapelo Mokoena), a judge, is packing for a weekend business trip. His wife, Nandi (Kgomotso Christopher), a law professor, is going to immerse herself in work. She recently suffered a miscarriage, but she feels that working will help her. Nandi doesn’t know that he’s actually panning a romantic rendezvous with his assistant Ameera (Rizelle Januk).

Nandi and Leonard have had their ups and downs, but things between them have been especially chilly lately, and he seems to blame her for the miscarriage. Nandi is interrupted during a late-night self-love session by a text on Leonard’s phone, which is when she finds out that he’s cheating on her.

She goes on a weekend getaway to the beach house of her friend Brenda (Lunathi Mampofu). Never one of Leonard’s biggest fans, Brenda openly wonders why the two of them are still married, and encourages Nandi to have some fun. As a case in point, Brenda waves to a hot young guy walking along the beach, who is pretty obviously attracted to Nandi.

At a cocktail party later that night, Nandi spies the man, who ends up intervening when a sleazy guy hits on her. His name is Jacob (Prince Grootboom), and the two of them hit it off. He seems to have some knowledge of the law, even though he’s not a lawyer or law student. Brenda swears he looks familiar, but he denies it.

Nandi gives in to her desires that night, following Jacob for a late night ocean dip, then having a passionate night in Brenda’s house. The next morning, though, Nandi feels guilty and even tries to blame Brenda for encouraging her to cheat. But she continues to fantasize about Jacob once she comes back home.

What Shows Will It Remind You Of? Fatal Seduction reminds us of the recent Netflix series Obsession, though not nearly as cheesy.

Our Take: It may seem like a copout to say that Fatal Seduction is one of those shows that you’re either going to like or hate, but that’s the way we felt watching the first episode. It’s not like the in medias res scene that opens the series is all that ambiguous; it not only has two people having more than one session of hot sex, but it has a scene of Nandi getting arrested and her narration saying “it’s confusing that something that feels so good can be so bad.” The first episode is even titled “Mr. Wrong.”

The show is a pulpy thriller about how Nandi’s tryst with Jacob ends in tragedy and makes her question pretty much everyone and everything in her life. Will there be surprises along the way? Sure. But the destination seems pretty obvious, so it all depends on how much you’ll like the steamy ride along the way.

It is a bit of a reverse take on the Fatal Attraction trope that has the woman torturing the man whose having the affair with her. But it’s also a bit of a sexist take; it seems at first that Leonard’s affair is drama-free, but as soon as Nandi decides to have her own affair, the first person she’s attracted to is a sociopath. It’s as if she’s paying for her indiscretion while her husband isn’t.

Of course, there could be more to the story, given what happens to Brenda by the end of the episode. There are a ton of details skipped, which leads us to believe there will be some time jumping as we go along. There are also some subplots involving Leonard’s brother Vuyo (Nathaniel Ramabulana), a former cop and current private investigator, and Leonard and Nandi’s teenage daughter Zinhle (Ngele Ramulondi). But they’re only briefly touched upon in the first episode.

Sex and Skin: A lot of sex and skin, which makes sense, given the story.

Parting Shot: As Nandi lectures to her class about women who are murdered by people they know, we see what happened to Brenda. Then Nandi looks out to the class, and sees Jacob sitting amongst the students.

Sleeper Star: We want Ngele Ramulondi to have more to do as Zinhle, because her character has the potential to be the least cliched one in the series.

Most Pilot-y Line: “You know, we should be the adults in all of this, not you,” Nandi says to Zinhle as they talk about Nandi’s miscarriage.

Our Call: STREAM IT. We don’t expect that audiences are going to need to think too hard while watching Fatal Seduction, but if you’re in the mood for a steamy thriller, this one will keep you interested.

Joel Keller (@joelkeller) writes about food, entertainment, parenting and tech, but he doesn’t kid himself: he’s a TV junkie. His writing has appeared in the New York Times, Slate, Salon, RollingStone.com, VanityFair.com, Fast Company and elsewhere.