Blood Legacy Review: Thrilling, Dramatic But Without True Impact

In this Netflix African thriller series, Khanyi Adesina comes back to KwaZulu-Natal to fight for her family’s business following years of estrangement after the CEO of Spear Industries is found dead under mysterious circumstances. Fighting off corruption that threatens to destroy the business, will Khanyi be able to take what is rightfully hers from the hands of her greedy relatives?

With 20 episodes, each with a runtime of around 30 minutes, the series is inspired by the Mexican series Monarca created by Diego Gutierrez.

Blood Legacy Review

Netflix’s newest African series is a ride and a half full of family secrets and backstabbing. “With a family like this, who needs enemies” is a question I constantly asked myself. Although the topic of toxic families is not new for Netflix shows, this one is quite dramatic in its approach with the right amount of thrill and anticipation and a whole host of actors who do a fantastic job of nailing their roles.

The series starts with Khanyi, who is called back home by her father, the owner of Spear Industries, with the mission to hand the company over to her instead of her greedy and corrupt brothers. There’s tension between the brothers, particularly Mandla, and their father and Khanyi’s surprise arrival causes a rift, especially when the news of her accession reaches the others. The tension among the siblings and the cold wars add an intense foreboding to the runtime of the series that makes you question who could’ve been the one to brutally attack the patriarch of the family in their own fields. Everyone is a suspect and we have 20 episodes to figure out who could’ve orchestrated this violent ambush on an unsuspecting old man.

This is a story about the “rich trying to eat the poor” and about one family prospering on the backs of the poor. The series tries to make Khanyi the good guy who rises up from the ashes to save her father’s legacy in a good way. However, the odd thing about the show is that Khanyi’s character lacks the determination and cunning to keep her greedy brothers away and take the reigns of the empire. She makes one bad decision after another, letting Mandle influence her decisions knowing fully well that he is up to no good.

I couldn’t help but ask myself why this seemingly smart journalist, after years of knowing her family’s misdeeds, let them railroad her when she could’ve made some truly ground-breaking decisions and changed the course of her fate. You want to root for Khanyi because she is the character who is supposed to have the morals but somehow her silly and frankly naive decisions will annoy you to no end. In comparison, her brother Mandla, the quintessential villain of the lot, seems to have more of a hold on himself and even though he is evil, he does whatever he does with conviction, making him an unignorable presence.

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Despite the backstabbing family and complicated relationships, the series somehow feels a bit too long sometimes, with a ton of extra stuff happening that could’ve been done away with. Every scene is extended and expanded, padding the runtime in the process and taking away from the thrill of the chase. Although you constantly wait for the other shoe to drop, at 10 hours of runtime, the series is too long. However, as mentioned previously it’s the fantastic performances that truly keep you glued to the screen as you try to figure out whether or not Khanyi will be able to get the throne or whether she will also see a similar fate as her father.

In spite of these meandering moments, Blood Legacy is thrilling and thoroughly enjoyable to watch. It’s so dramatic and over-the-top that you go to the next episode just to see who is trying to take the power of Spear Industries this time. The series knows its strong points and works around them, weaving an enjoyable storyline that, although a bit lost sometimes, is entertaining as heck.

Final Thoughts

Blood Legacy is the perfectly delicious and thrilling entertainer for the weekend. Although the series seriously meanders all over the place in its 20-episode runtime, it’s hard to stop watching the insanity on-screen, even though the series would’ve seriously benefited from a shorter and tighter storyline.

In spite of the stretched-out plot, it’s the performances that make a difference and create the necessary impact in a story such as this. It brings forth some important topics of discussion but the series never truly breaks them down and these are only used in the scope of their impact on Spear, not as a whole. Although that’s unfortunate, I would say that the series makes for a great guilty pleasure watch and it has the performances to back the claim up.

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