THE PERFORMERS | Claire Danes and Matthew Rhys
THE SHOW | Netflix’s “The Beast in Me”
THE EPISODE | “Sick Puppy” (Nov. 13, 2025)
THE PERFORMANCES |The pairing of Claire Danes and Matthew Rhys in a new Netflix series is like a match made in prestige TV heaven. With her Emmy-winning work on “Homeland” and his on “The Americans,” it’s fair to say these two know their way around a TV drama, so our expectations were sky-high when we saw they’d be sharing the screen in Netflix’s psychological thriller “The Beast in Me.” They delivered, too, with the two acting titans sparring back and forth in a delicious (and deadly) game of cat-and-mouse.
Danes played book author Aggie Wiggs, who was still reeling from the death of her young son, and that meant Danes’ patented Cry Face was in full effect, with heart-wrenching flashbacks to every parent’s worst nightmare. As a result, Aggie was highly guarded, with Danes’ protruding chin acting like a barrier keeping everyone out. But in the premiere, she met her match in new neighbor Nile Jarvis, played by Rhys. Nile was a filthy rich real estate developer, and when he asked Aggie to sign off on a new jogging path he wanted, Rhys flashed a confident smile that told us Nile is used to getting his way. Aggie turned him down, though, and Rhys flashed a frightening temper as Nile fired back at her: “You get off on being cruel, don’t you?”
That temper is a key point, too: Nile was suspected of killing his ex-wife, and Rhys infused every line of dialogue with an ambiguous menace, as if delighting in us not knowing whether Nile did the deed or not. When Nile and Aggie sat down for lunch, though, that’s when the sparks really flew. The scene was an acting masterclass, with Rhys and Danes both jabbing at each other, searching for weak spots. Nile enjoyed needling Aggie about her new book, and Aggie didn’t hesitate to fire back, calling him “kind of an a–hole.” She got emotional, though, when Nile teased her about naming her dog Steve… and Aggie revealed her late son named him.
“The Beast in Me” threw plenty of twists at us by the end, and we’re not sure they all worked, exactly — but what definitely worked was the pairing of Danes and Rhys. This was two great actors pushing each other and making each other better… and we got to enjoy watching it.
Scroll down to see who got Honorable Mention shout-outs this week…
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