No one is alone in being lonely. According to a 2018 study, 46% of adults report sometimes or always feeling lonely, and only half of Americans have meaningful interactions on a daily basis.[1] Another study reported that loneliness is as detrimental to one’s health than smoking 15 cigarettes a day.[2] By releasing entire series’ in an instant, subscription services seemingly exacerbate this epidemic. But the Netflix original show Maniac also weaves these statistics into narrative form, assuming a prophetic role in its timely assessment of America’s ideals. The genre-bending mini-series follows two young adults as they participate in a state-of-the-art pharmaceutical trial, backed by a team of scientists and doctors that believe they have found the panacea for humans’ various neuroses and traumas, all in the form of three pills. Although protagonists Owen and Annie show two very different shades of mental health issues as well as motivations for participating in the trial, they both have an undeniable urge for contact that is stunted by both society and the self. By the end of the ten-part single season, it seems that only in their pursuit of genuine connection do the characters find the courage and grace to open a path towards wellness.

Having distinguished the corporation, series, and season, we will now zoom in further along television’s inherent spectrum of narrative flow to the individual episode and its discrete units.[3] Where most shows (i.e. those produced for Network TV) begin with opening credits, perhaps followed by a teaser or recap in each successive episode, Maniac has nothing of the sort. Likewise, its narrative isn’t fragmented into various parts to allow for commercial breaks, as it would be if operating under the traditional televisual model. Because Maniac was made for a subscription service, these restrictions are superfluous. Its producers can instead cater to the viewing habits of its target audience: viz., binge-watchers. Prior to the release date of Maniac, Netflix hired cultural anthropologist Grant McCracken to study the habits of today’s TV viewers, paying special attention to the reasons they binge watch. According to McCrackin, many stereotypes of this demographic don’t hold water:

TV viewers are no longer zoning out as a way to forget about their day, they are tuning in, on their own schedule, to a different world. Getting immersed in multiple episodes or even multiple seasons of a show over a few weeks is a new kind of escapism that is especially welcomed today.[4]

McCrackin’s findings also suggest that “our digital lifestyle, where storytelling is often reduced to bite-sized, 140 character conversations, leaves us craving the kind of long narrative of storytelling in today's great TV shows.”[5]

Netflix knows Maniac’s viewers are paying attention, which justifies jumping right in. Voiced by a yet-unknown character—one of the doctors behind the Neberdine study—the intro starts out with a pitch black screen: ex nihilo. The narrator utters: “It begins,” and just as he says the words “like this,” a blurred bright entity appears. He continues:

Two billion years ago, an amoeba. Wait, let's let's back up…of nothing, in an instant everything. An infinite cosmic orgy of matter and energy, rubbing, bumping, and grinding together. There would be no galaxies, no suns, no planets, no life without collisions of heavenly bodies. Back to our amoeba. It engulfs a bacterium with unique powers, and voilà. Earth's first photosynthesis-enabled organism. Maybe it was chance. Maybe it was inevitable. This one changed amoeba becomes the ancestor of every living plant on Earth, which in turn floods the planet with oxygen paving the way for every other form of life we know leading to more souls, more connections, and therefore more new worlds branching outward from the first. These forces of nature, when they converge, be they astronomical collisions, biological unions, demonstrate the infinite potential of our connections.

During this minute-and-a-half, the TV becomes a microscope as visuals of moving neon cells fill a square in the screen, broken up by flashes of creatures and outer space; all the while a light-hearted melody by bells plays in the background, providing an affective musical code. This all changes with the narrator’s final line: “This truth also extends to the human heart.” With that, the music halts, the color palate becomes muted, and we are not only brought into the show’s setting, but face to face with one of its two protagonists as she drearily asks a cashier for a pack of cigarettes.

This shift between segments—from the cosmos to a single cashier—effectively frames the narrative to come. Every serialized and episodic story moves in one of two directions: centripetally (inward), or centrifugally (outward).[6] This introduction keys viewers into the centripetal narrative world of Maniac, which eventually delves deeper and deeper into the psyches of Annie and Owen. In another—albeit far more antiquated—creation account, the same direction is taken, and this one, too, begins with darkness. Whereas Genesis one is cosmological and spacious, the second chapter has a limited scope and localized setting (the Garden of Eden). Both traces adhere to the main function of creation myths: to describe what it means to be human—to be you. As the camera follows Annie out of the convenience story and into various city scenes, the narrator’s voice intermittently interjects with his own hypotheses, such as: “all souls are on a quest to connect,” “we’re lost without connection,” and “its quite terrible to be alone.” The writers of Genesis agree with this assessment/propensity of the human condition, and they further claim that God offered us a salve. According to the story, after God breathed life into the first human, something was still missing:

But a helper perfect for him was nowhere to be found. So the Lord God put the human into a deep and heavy sleep, and took one of his ribs and closed up the flesh over it. With the rib taken from the human, the Lord God fashioned a woman and brought her to the human being. The human said:

“This one finally is bone from my bones

and flesh from my flesh.

She will be called a woman

because from a man she was taken.”[7]

Before the title of the show even appears onscreen, the theme of loneliness is made apparent through the point of view of one lone woman. But when the scene proceeds to cut to one lone man, relationship—like that in Eden—becomes the anticipation.

Thus, relationship is a theme shared between these two traces. Although it seems to be the primary way in which humans were made in God’s image, and that which constitutes a human life, Genesis offers a swath of qualifiers. For instance: made up of the dust of the ground (2:7), a living organism (2:7), an aesthetic sense (2:8-9), curiosity (2:10-14), morality (2:16-17, 19), rule over animals (2:19-20), and involvement in arts and industry (4:21-22). Many on this list depend upon being conscious. Early Christian interpreters thought that having God’s image gave humans a spiritual soul. Later, Augustine differentiated between a rational soul and a human body, the former being unique to humans.[8] In the modern and now post-modern era, this distinction has only become more elusive. The advancement of artificial intelligence is one wrench thrown in the argument, and it is an issue that Maniac brilliantly tackles.

Where in Scripture’s narrative, humans are made in God’s image, in Maniac’s narrative world, the super computer named GRTA is made in human’s image—so much so that she develops a conscience of her own (an egotistical one at that). With AI technologies such as Amazon’s digital assistant Alexa and Tesla’s self-driving cars, the (to one person:) possibilities (to another: threats) are vast. According to physicist and cosmologist Max Tegmark, “Success in the quest for artificial intelligence has the potential to bring unprecedented benefits to humanity, and it therefore worthwhile to research how to maximize these benefits while avoiding potential pitfalls.” He also states that, “in creating AI were birthing a new form of life with unlimited potential for good or for ill.”[9] In the show, GRTA partners with the study’s team to work towards a transhumanist end: “to eradicate all unnecessary and inefficient forms of human pain. Forever.” Obviously, the ancient understanding of consciousness doesn’t account for today’s nuances. Thankfully, we have the genre of scientific fiction to rise to the occasion.

One way television historian Gary Edgerton defines television is as a “convergent technology, a global industry, a viable art form, a social catalyst, and a complex and dynamic reflection of the American mind and character” that “contains many clues about who we are, what we value, and where we might be headed in the future.”[10] This is especially true of sci-fi, in which the story takes place in some fictionalized version of reality. Although Maniac is set in New York City, the time period is ambiguous; there are futuristic elements (AI) mixed with markedly retro technology (massive pixels rendered on chunky desktop computers) and trends (wire-rimmed glasses and incessant chain-smoking). In his New Yorker article on Maniac, Troy Patterson writes that:

The baseline reality of the story—the launchpad for Owen’s journey to the bottom of his self—is New York City, reconstructed in a dysphoric future. The apocalypse it’s talking about is the one still going on. Using obsolete tech and tactile tokens of the late nineteen-hundreds to build its world, “Maniac,” which was created by Patrick Somerville and directed by Cary Joji Fukunaga, gives fantastical form to contemporary anxieties. It plays as if set-dressed in rem sleep—assembled in an instinctual rummage through a messy archive of cultural memory. Its design offers an uncanny imitation of life.[11]

Patterson touches on how this story is a dystopian one. Often, dystopian stories contextualize Western culture’s anxieties, usually by depicting division, isolation, individualization, and fragmentation. In Maniac, these anxieties take on concrete form—one example being the FriendProxy service. In this quasi-fictional America, people can pay for a surrogate friend who reads through their files and feigns intimacy. Another service is called adBuddy, in which companies rummage through your data in order to have an agent sit next to you and spew personalized advertisements—all in place of cash.

And then there is Neberdine Pharmaceutical Biotech, the million-dollar giant wrought with financial and personal conflicts of interest.

These capitalist functions of Maniac’s society—all too familiar to today’s America—are painted with dark undertones. Assuming a similar role as the Old Testament prophets, Maniac thus reveals the direction society is heading: its systematic sins. By the end of the study, the baptismal promises of: “You will be born again, but not as a baby,” and “Welcome to your new life. You will never be the same again” are proven empty. In the show’s finale, after the subjects have finally completed the tri-pill sequence, the head doctor looks at Annie and says “congratulations. You are healed.” Then the camera juts back to Annie’s face, composing a mise-en-scène in which her expression is front and center, framed by geometric elements and a black background. Because of this composition, Annie’s anguish is made palpable.

Maniac would not be good TV if it ended there, though. Many of the narrative threads are sewn together in the 35 minutes that follow—the last segments. After Annie and Owen respectively part ways after the (come to find out: failed) study concludes, there are a series of scenes that mimic their life as it was as at the series’ genesis; the characters seemingly return to their old problems, unchanged. That is, until the episode’s halfway point. When the tension is at its thickest, Owen makes a surprising move that symbolizes his newfound sense of identity and courage. Annie, on the other hand, finally puts words to the grief she never processed. Both take further steps in their journeys when Owen is committed into a mental institution and Annie finally plans a long-awaited trip. At this point, it is clear to viewers who have been along for the ride throughout the entire show that this perceived change of heart in both protagonists is not—at least not fully—due to the pills. Rather, it is the fruit of a vulnerable friendship that fought against the odds. Closure finally comes when Annie abandons her FriendProxy version of Owen to go chase after Owen in the flesh, eventually helping him escape his facility. Right before the credits role, the pair rides off into the sunset to the tune of that same blissful affective musical code, smiling and laughing for what feels like the first time in the entire series.

Granted, this ending is problematic in its own right regarding the message it sends about mental health—that healing cannot be found in medical and therapeutic help. However, although mental health is a thematic highlight of the show—alongside artificial intelligence, family dynamics, addiction, and advertising—the undisputed pinnacle is relationship, which turns out to be the ultimate cure for loneliness. Annie’s search for Owen mirrors the proclamation of the Lord in Ezekiel:

“I myself will search for my flock and seek them out. As a shepherd seeks out the flock when some in the flock have been scattered, so will I seek out my flock. I will rescue them from all the places where they were scattered during the time of clouds and thick darkness.”[12]

In their book Watching TV Religiously, Kutter Callaway and Dean Batali claim that TV programs that “explore the human condition with sincerity and authenticity, acknowledging both its beauty and its messiness,” open up viewers to something “more”: “a kind of fullness or sense of flourishing that has its source ‘beyond’ the confines of our immanent frame;” they encounter a mode of meaning-making that “is somehow deeper than their lived experience.”[13]Netflix knows its viewers are likely binging their shows in isolation. But when this demographic watches Maniac, they may be impelled to go out and pursue authentic community. And as such, it might just have the power to help scratch the statistics.

Notes

[1] Aric Jenkins, “Half of Americans Feel Lonely, Study Finds,” Fortune. Fortune, May 1, 2018, [2] “The" class="redactor-autoparser-object">https://fortune.com/2018/05/01... Facts on Loneliness,” Campaign to End Loneliness, [3] Callaway" class="redactor-autoparser-object">https://www.campaigntoendlonel... 41

[4] “Netflix Declares Binge Watching Is the New Normal,” PR Newswire: press release distribution, targeting, monitoring and marketing, June 30, 2018, https://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/netflix-declares-binge-watching-is-the-new-normal-235713431.html.

[5] Ibid.

[6] Kutter Callaway and Dean Batali, Watching TV Religiously: Television and Theology in Dialogue (Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Academic, 2016), 44.

[7] Genesis 2:20b-23, CEB.

[8] Joel B. Green, ed., “In God’s Image,” The CEB Study Bible (Nashville, TN: 2013), 5 OT.

[9] John Lennox,“Should We Fear Artificial Intelligence?” Lecture, #TrendingQuestions from Ravi Zacharias International Ministries, Alpharetta, GA, September 2, 2019.

[10] Gary Edgerton, The Columbia History of American Television (New York: Columbia University Press, 2007), xvii-xviii.

[11] Troy Patterson, “The Design of ‘Maniac’ Offers an Uncanny Imitation of Life,” The New Yorker, September 21, 2018, [12] Ezekiel" class="redactor-autoparser-object">https://www.newyorker.com/cult... 34:11-12, CEB

[13] Kutter Callaway and Dean Batali, Watching TV Religiously, 132.

Bibliography

Callaway, Kutter, and Dean Batali. Watching TV Religiously: Television and Theology in Dialogue. Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Academic, 2016

Green, Joel B., ed. The CEB study Bible. Nashville, TN: Common English Bible, 2013.

Edgerton, Gary. The Columbia History of American Television. New York: Columbia University Press, 2007.

Jenkins, Aric. “Half of Americans Feel Lonely, Study Finds.” Fortune. Fortune, May 1, 2018. https://fortune.com/2018/05/01/americans-lonely-cigna-study/.

Lennox John. “Should We Fear Artificial Intelligence?” Lecture, #TrendingQuestions from Ravi Zacharias International Ministries, Alpharetta, GA, September 2, 2019.

“Maniac,” September 21, 2018. https://www.netflix.com/watch/80191647?trackId=13752289&tctx=0,0,e21375a0d780c5f1ce67c7e440fc24a5bcfb62a2:6d6ccf218b4fc2141d7a51ece7a159c983f17948,,.

Netflix, Inc. “Netflix Declares Binge Watching Is the New Normal.” PR Newswire: press release distribution, targeting, monitoring and marketing, June 30, 2018. https://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/netflix-declares-binge-watching-is-the-new-normal-235713431.html.

Patterson, Troy. “The Design of ‘Maniac’ Offers an Uncanny Imitation of Life.” The New Yorker, September 21, 2018. https://www.newyorker.com/culture/on-television/the-design-of-maniac-offers-an-uncanny-imitation-of-life.

“The Facts on Loneliness.” Campaign to End Loneliness, n.d. https://www.campaigntoendloneliness.org/the-facts-on-loneliness/.