Stream It Or Skip It: ‘The Serpent’ On Netflix, A Drama About Real-Life Murderer Charles Sobhraj And How He Was Caught

Charles Sobhraj was a real-life murderer who spent time charming and grooming his victims, then drugging them, killing them and taking their money. In the mid-’70s he was an expert at identifying young Western backpackers traveling through Asia who had some cash on them and charmed them into trusting him. His killing spree, and how he was caught, has been fictionalized in the new BBC/Netflix limited series The Serpent.

THE SERPENT: STREAM IT OR SKIP IT?

Opening Shot: A 1997 interview with Charles Sobhraj (Tahar Rahim, currently earning raves for his work in The Mauritanian), living in Paris as a free man. When the interviewer asks “Are you a dangerous man,” he responds, “The question first is whether I committed murder.” When the interviewer asks, “Did you?” his response is that the courts did not find him guilty.

The Gist: November, 1975, Bangkok, Thailand. We’re at the home that Sobhraj shares with his girlfriend Marie-Andrée Leclerc (Jenna Coleman). There are lots of people there for a party, especially Westerners who are following the “Hippie Trail” in Asia. Also there is Ajay Chowdury (Amesh Edireweera), who is a bit of a protégé of Sobhraj’s. During the party, we see Charles and Marie crush some pills and tend to a visitor who seems to be close to death.

Flash back a couple of months to when the couple, in Hong Kong to make a gem deal, meet Dutch backpacker Willem Bloem (Armand Rosbak), who is travelling with his girlfriend Helena Dekker (Ellie de Lange). Posing as a gem expert, the couple target Willem and start their charm offensive. They eventually invite the couple to stay at their place in Bangkok.

Flashing forward a couple of months, Herman Knippenberg (Billy Howle), working at the Dutch embassy in Bangkok, gets reports of two missing Dutch backpackers; his boss, Ambassador van Dongen (William Brand), tells Herman that this isn’t his concern, that he should go to the Bangkok police. Consulting Paul Siemons (Tim McInnerny), a Belgian diplomat he’s worked with before, he decides to pursue the case anyway. With the help of his wife Angela (Ellie Bamber), Herman starts investigating the movements of the couple in the country after they arrived. And they find out that their path went cold at the hostel they listed on their entry card.

Four months back, we encounter an American traveler named Teresa Knowlton (Alice Englert), in Bangkok on her last stop to a monastery in Nepal. She makes fast friends with Celia Austin (Ruby Ashbourne Serkis), but the two of them get separated when Teresa meets Ajay at a bar and goes back with him to Charles’ house. Things go downhill from there. Same goes for the Knippenbergs four months later; Herman finds out from an Australian diplomat who to talk to at the Bangkok police. When he gets a file, he doesn’t like what he sees.

What Shows Will It Remind You Of? The ’70s setting of The Serpent evokes shows like The Deuce or Hunters, but the character of Charles Sobhraj gives us some heavy Dexter vibes.

Our Take: It takes a little bit of time to get into the first episode of The Serpent. The shifts back and forth in time, a device that can be highly annoying, had us a bit lost during the first third of the episode. When do they meet the Dutch couple, and is that when the American soon-to-be-nun came into their lives? When did the Knippenbergs get involved?

But it’s a testament to the writers, Richard Warlow and Toby Finlay, that things get smoothed out and the audience can logically follow the fractured timeline based on who is in the scene and what they’re doing. And, when you realize that, despite the sprawling cast of sycophants and marks for Charles and Marie, the show really boils down to Charles, Marie, Herman and Angela, the people committing the crimes and the ones pursuing them.

Rahim exudes both the charm and creepiness of Charles Sobhraj, a guy who knows how to lure Westerners into his orbit, kill them slowly, and take their cash to fund more of his murderous ways. And the pace of the first episode reflects how he plays the long game, almost grooming his marks first before starting to drug them. It can be in one day, like with Teresa, or take some set up and time, like with the Dutch couple. But either way, part of the reason why he targets Westerners is his disdain for them, part of it is to take their money.

Coleman might be even creepier as the beautiful Marie-Andrée Leclerc. We know the second episode will show how the two of them met, and how she was sucked into joining his murderous enterprise. But while Charles is as dead-eyed as any killer we’ve seen on-screen since Javier Bardem in No Country For Old Men, Marie-Andrée might be scarier because she seems utterly normal, at least a French-Canadian version of normal.

It’ll be fun to see the Knippenbergs stumble into Charles and Marie-Andrée’s orbit, and bring international law enforcement into play. We already know, though that the murders couldn’t be pinned on Charles, but how we get there will really determine how successful this series is.

Sex and Skin: We see the Dutch couple have sex in the reflection of an alarm clock (the clock comes into play in a later scene), and there’s some nudity at the sex show that Charles and Ajay take Teresa to.

Parting Shot: We go back and forth between the Knippenbergs finding out that two burned bodies were wearing “Made In Holland” clothing and Charles and Marie-Andrée comforting the Dutch couple as Helene’s breathing slows down from an overdose of Quaaludes.

Sleeper Star: Ellie Bamber has the thankless task of being the second banana to Herman as he pursues the case of the missing backpackers. With only a little screen time, she projects a strength that will serve her and Herman well down the line.

Most Pilot-y Line: The soundtrack is aggressively “early ’70s hippie,” which is too much on the nose for what’s being portrayed. Also, the makeup that ages Charles up 20 years in 1997 isn’t all that convincing.

Our Call: STREAM IT. The Serpent is certainly a slow burn, and it’s jumpy timeline will take some getting used to. But the lead performance by Rahim, and fine supporting performances by Coleman, Howle and Bamber help us stay engaged with the story.

Joel Keller (@joelkeller) writes about food, entertainment, parenting and tech, but he doesn’t kid himself: he’s a TV junkie. His writing has appeared in the New York Times, Slate, Salon, RollingStone.com, VanityFair.com, Fast Company and elsewhere.

Stream The Serpent On Netflix