'The Beast in Me' Review: Matthew Rhys Delivers a Bone-Chilling Performance in Netflix's Gripping New Thriller

Trust your gut instinct—that’s the critical lesson screaming through every nerve-wracking moment of The Beast in Me. This Netflix psychological thriller pairs Claire Danes and Matthew Rhys in a deadly dance of deception that will have you questioning everything you think you know about truth, guilt, and the corrupting influence of wealth.

Claire Danes stars as Aggie Wiggs, a celebrated author drowning in grief after losing her son in a tragic accident. Paralyzed by writer’s block and financial pressure, she finds unexpected inspiration when Matthew Rhys’s Nile Jarvis—a billionaire real estate developer with a suspicious past—becomes her new neighbor. Nile is essentially Kendall Roy with even darker secrets: he’s the prime suspect in his first wife Madison’s disappearance, though he’s never been formally charged.

Separated from her ex-wife Shelley (Natalie Morales) and desperate to revive her career, Aggie sees Nile as her ticket back to literary success. But as she digs into his story, the boundaries between journalist and subject dangerously blur. Creator Gabe Rotter has crafted a serpentine narrative that examines how power shields the guilty and how obsession can consume even the most clear-eyed investigators.

Matthew Rhys Is Absolutely Terrifying as Nile Jarvis

Let’s be brutally honest: Matthew Rhys transforms into something genuinely nightmarish in The Beast in Me. His portrayal of Nile Jarvis is a masterclass in controlled menace. Cold, entitled, and radiating barely-contained violence, Rhys makes Nile simultaneously repulsive and magnetically watchable.

From scenes where he locks eyes with Aggie in unblinking power plays to a visceral sequence involving him tearing into a rotisserie chicken with his bare hands (think Denethor’s infamous tomato scene from The Two Towers, but infinitely more disturbing), Rhys embodies predatory wealth incarnate. This isn’t just a rich villain—this is a sociopath wrapped in bespoke suits and billion-dollar real estate deals. Even without concrete proof of murder, everything about Nile screams danger.

Claire Danes Matches Rhys’s Intensity Beat for Beat

Claire Danes brings the same dogged determination to The Beast in Me that Kate Winslet brought to Mare of Easttown. Her Aggie is sharp-tongued, relentlessly direct, and completely unfazed by Nile’s intimidation tactics or obscene wealth. Still carrying the crushing weight of her son’s death and unable to forgive the teenager responsible for the fatal crash, Aggie channels her pain into pursuing the truth.

What makes Danes’s performance exceptional is how she shows Aggie as simultaneously broken and unbreakable. She’s financially struggling, emotionally devastated, and professionally stalled—but when she’s interviewing Nile, she transforms into an unstoppable force. She knows exactly which questions will crack his armor and refuses to back down from his psychological warfare.

The Beast in Me doesn’t settle for being another formulaic true-crime adaptation. Instead, it fully embraces gothic horror aesthetics, creating an atmosphere of suffocating dread that permeates every frame. Silent, ominous figures lurk in shadows. Dark storms rage during crucial confrontations. The physical spaces—Aggie’s home and Nile’s mansion—become characters themselves, embodying the psychological torment at the story’s core.

This commitment to gothic storytelling gives The Beast in Me its distinctive edge. The series maintains constant tension, where every answer Aggie uncovers spawns three more disturbing questions. You know something is fundamentally wrong with Nile from the first moment he appears on screen, but the show brilliantly keeps you uncertain about the exact nature of his crimes.

When Nile’s father Martin (Jonathan Banks) enters the picture, The Beast in Me gains another dimension entirely. Martin is a ruthless business titan who treats his son with the same calculating cruelty he uses to crush competitors. Their relationship echoes Succession‘s toxic father-son dynamics, with Martin’s obsession with legacy driving him to remarry late in life and start a second family, complete with two young sons.

The pressure Martin applies to Nile is the only force that cracks his son’s icy composure. These scenes reveal vulnerability beneath Nile’s monster exterior—not enough to excuse his actions, but enough to complicate our understanding of how this predator was created. The Jarvis family’s stranglehold on the city’s power structures adds another layer to an already richly textured mystery.

Enter David Lyons as Brian Abbott, an FBI agent who initially appears as a disheveled drunk warning Aggie away from Nile in a midnight encounter. Despite this unpromising introduction, Brian proves himself as a trustworthy ally with his own haunted past driving his investigation.

The dual investigation structure—Brian working the official FBI angle while Aggie embeds herself deeper into Nile’s world—creates escalating tension that makes The Beast in Me absolutely compulsive viewing. Brian’s shocking third-act discovery fundamentally reshapes everything we thought we understood about Madison’s disappearance and the Jarvis family’s secrets.

While the solution to Madison Jarvis’s disappearance might not shock seasoned mystery fans, the journey to that revelation is what makes The Beast in Me so gripping. As Aggie investigates Madison’s life and death, she uncovers uncomfortable truths about who Madison really was to those closest to her, blurring the line between victim and villain.

The series saves its most powerful moments for the final episodes, including a devastating flashback revealing Madison’s actual fate and a heart-stopping conclusion that connects Aggie’s son’s death to the larger conspiracy. These revelations land with genuine emotional weight because the show has invested so deeply in character development.

Why ‘The Beast in Me’ Is Essential Viewing for Mystery Lovers

From its opening frame to its final shocking moments, The Beast in Me demands your complete attention. This is binge-worthy television at its finest—a perfect storm of exceptional performances from Claire Danes and Matthew Rhys, a twisty narrative that constantly subverts expectations, and an oppressive gothic atmosphere that makes every scene crackle with menace.

Whether you’re drawn to psychological thrillers, character-driven mysteries, or just want to watch Matthew Rhys deliver one of the most frightening performances in recent television history, The Beast in Me delivers on every level. This is the kind of addictive storytelling that will have you watching “just one more episode” until suddenly it’s 3 AM and you’ve devoured the entire series.

The Beast in Me is now streaming exclusively on Netflix.

Rating: ★★★★½ (4.5/5)