Shut Eye : season 1

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Shut Eye is a Hulu original series starring Jeffery Donovan as former Las Vegas magician Charlie Haverford currently living in Los Angeles with his former Las Vegas stripper wife Linda, and their teenage son. They make a living working for LA's gypsy underground as would-be psychics and fortunetellers, aka- con artists. When the consequences of a routine tarot reading goes awry, Charlie finds himself at the mercy of a client's significant other, and suffers severe head trauma. Not long afterward, Charlie begins to experience things he can only begin to equate with something as intense as an LSD trip, and his grasp on reality begins to loosen, and expand. He beings to experience time out of joint, as he describes it, and odd loops and premonitions disrupt his every day life.

Over the duration of Shut Eye, Charlie struggles with his newfound visions in an absolutely wonderful story swelling with a diverse character roster and immeasurable world-building opportunities of John Wick magnitude and awesomeness. A favorite character of mine, neuroscientist Nora White, is a brilliantly realized mentor to Charlie's unique experiences with psychic phenomenon and their shared screen time is some of my favorite. Also worthy of mention- the visual fx used, which bring Charlie's visions to life, are a superfluous union of subtle and overwhelming.

The Matriarch and her son, a widower and father of two young girls struggling with some serious anger management issues, own Charlie and his wife, and a good deal of their income. They don't make a dollar without paying in. Within the Gypsy ranks, however, their is a rift between two conflicting families struggling for dominance in LA, and Charlie and his wife are caught in the middle, while harboring their own secrets manifesting as undisclosed infidelity and party-to murder.

Amidst a maelstrom of bullshit and insanity, Charlie and Linda decide to pursue a long-con with a 1.77 million payoff outside the Gypsy radar, and soon find themselves tangled in a tightening noose, and an expansive plot involving a life-debt to a well-connected drug kingpin willing to do whatever they ask of him, a love-triangle with a vindictive hypnotist with a very questionable past and methodology, and yeah, that long-con against the Gypsies, and all the wonderfully horrible things that combination of crazy shit could produce.

From Philip K Dick references that made smile with nerd pride and giddiness, to a psilocybin trip scene, this series was great, and this guy most definitely enjoyed it. I'm a huge Jeff Donovan fan since Burn Notice, so it didn't take much past that to sell me on this series. The premise of a pseudo-psychic Gypsy network of con-artistry was also very compelling.

Shut Eye was great. I loved it. This first season was solid, and ended with a great finale that left me very excited for a second season, and you should definitely check it out.

I'd love to say more, but I really can't. I'll let it speak for itself

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