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    TV Review: Tom Hardy’s New “Taboo” is Totally Binge Worthy

    Taboo, currently airing Tuesday nights on FX, is a dark, shadowy show set in 1814 London.

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    Tom Hardy and his father Chips Hardy came up with the show’s concept along with Steven Knight (Peaky Blinders). With Tom Hardy also producing and starring in the show, Taboo obviously plays to his strengths as an actor. The character of James Delaney is right in Hardy’s wheelhouse: a gruff, intimidating presence. That grunts a lot. Some reviewers have been heckling Hardy for playing a repetitive character. But I gotta tell you… I don’t hate it.

    Hardy’s gift is undeniable. Even playing a haunted, PTSD-suffering bad boy, he’s beguiling. You won’t believe you get to watch him every week. And watch him you will, as Hardy is in nearly every scene.

    As the show opens, James Delaney has returned to London for his father’s funeral. Apparently, James’s father was one of the most hated men in London, with no love lost at his death. Everyone believed James had died in a shipwreck off the coast of Africa, so his appearance is a complete shock, with gasps all around.

    After the funeral, James approaches his sister Zilpha (Oona Chaplin) and confesses that even a decade in Africa didn’t stop him from loving her. This is the first clue that James has indeed led a “taboo” lifestyle. She rebuffs his advances and returns home with her husband Thorne Geary (Jefferson Hall) who has absolutely zero redeeming qualities.

    The only person who may have missed James while he was away is the family servant, Brace (David Hayman). Brace mentions that James’s father was delusional at the end of his life, often calling for him on the Thames riverbank. James confesses that he heard him calling. We later see James telepathically communicate (wink, wink) with his sister. So far, we’ve only seen hints of this gift with his family, but it’s an interesting twist.

    After James had his father’s body secretly exhumed and autopsied, we discover that his father wasn’t crazy, he suffered from arsenic poisoning. But who did it? We still don’t know, and in fact it hasn’t been discussed much since the first episode.

    Taboo’s plot centers around a piece of land in Vancouver – Nootka Sound. James’s father bought the land from the Nootka tribe, and it is now a major point of contention between England and the United States in their negotiations over the Canadian border. The land is a trading post that serves as a gateway to trade with China. In other words, everyone wants it.

    As the sole heir named in his father’s will, James finds himself smack dab in the middle of the negotiations. But interestingly, he knows quite a bit already, especially for a guy who’s been in out of pocket for ten years. Where is he getting his information? Is he a spy?

    It becomes clear that James knows exactly what is going on, and he has one goal: a trade monopoly in Nootka Sound. To achieve this, James is almost always in motion, stalking the streets of London at night. And during the day, he’s up in everyone’s grill, close talking his way to more information.

    James is also getting his ducks in a row by readying his father’s abandoned shipping offices as the Delaney Nootka Trading Company, and he’s bought a boat.

    Then a giant wrench in the plan appears in the form of Lorna Bow (Jessie Buckley). Claiming to be the senior Delaney’s widow, she is also heir to half of Nootka Sound. It seems like James may be keeping his enemies close, by inviting her to move into his home. But as his situation becomes more dangerous, James offers Lorna a diamond and a trip to Paris in order to get her out of dodge. But this girl is not basic. She sticks around.

    James continues to expertly play the East India Company, the Crown and America against each other, with all sides first attempting to kill him, and then later trying to keep him alive.

    But James’s main focus is his revenge against the East India Company. As we’ve recently learned, the company has been accused of orchestrating an illegal slave trade and purposely sinking the ship Influence to cover up the scheme. James was on that boat, and possibly it’s only survivor, so there will be more on that to come in the remaining episodes.

    To complete his monopoly, James needs gunpowder to trade, but the Crown currently controls the market. James turns to his chemist friend, Cholmondeley (Tom Hollander) to help him cook up his own at a remote farmhouse. Targeting the East India Company again, James has his group of bandits steal the company’s saltpeter supply, a key ingredient in gunpowder. Boom! Problem solved. Except that making gunpowder is very dangerous business and James had a premonition about an explosion, so there’s a sense of impending doom surrounding the farmhouse.

    Living at the farmhouse and assisting the chemist is a young boy named Robert (Louis Ashbourne Serkis). James has paid a family to watch over the boy, but is he his father’s illegitimate child? Or James’s?

    Each episode of Taboo is better than the last. In episode five (there are eight episodes total), the relationship between Zilpha and Thorne Geary has become increasingly more tense and abusive. After his embarrassing outburst at Countess Musgrove’s party, and the failed duel with James, Thorne is taking his frustrations out on his wife. His days are numbered, and I doubt he’ll last the rest of the season.

    Meanwhile, the relationship between James and Lorna is becoming more complicated. They seem to be growing closer, trusting each other more.

    Finally armed with the original copy of the Nootka Treaty, I’m curious what James’s next move will be. He seems to be closing in on a deal with the Americans, but his terms of a monopoly remain elusive and his sister has given him no indication that she’d want to leave with him.

    There are only three episodes left in the first season, but a second season has already been confirmed, so lucky for us, there’s plenty more Hardy in store.

    Grade: A-

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    Martha Trydahl
    Martha Trydahlhttps://columbusunderground.com
    Martha is a freelance TV critic for Columbus Underground. You can find her on her couch, preferably drinking wine, watching TV with her husband and two children.
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