The Bastard Son and The Devil Himself is a fantasy TV series based on Sally Green’s young-adult trilogy Half Bad and created by Joe Barton. The series stars Jay Lycurgo, Nadia Parkes and Emilien Vekemans, alongside other cast members. The series has 8 episodes, each with a runtime of around 45 – 50 minutes.
The Netflix description of the series reads:
Caught between two warring clans, the son of a notorious witch responsible for a deadly massacre tries to find his place in the world — and his powers.
– The Bastard Son and The Devil Himself Review Does Not Contain Spoilers –
The Bastard Son and The Devil Himself starts off in a rather innocuous fashion – with Nathan being found under odd circumstances as a baby and then going through the highs and lows of his life as a young adult.
When the series starts, you wouldn’t be able to figure out that the series would take the turn that it eventually does. You sympathise with Nathan’s difficulties from the very first minute, and, if anything, you want him to succeed in anything that he wants to do. It’s not like his living with the trauma of his past was enough; he has to relive that trauma over and over again for years to come, and man, it’s rough.
The blood and violence start a bit later, and boy, oh boy, that, too, is rough. It keeps the morbid and macabre ones among us interested and titillated while also adding horror elements to the young adult storyline. You feel thrilled quite early on in the show as you see our protagonist going through the changes that, well, can’t be good for him. Or so we think.
The mix of training, fight sequences and the usual young adult stuff are quite intense. The way the series meshes these different things together makes you sit there holding your breath as one thing leads to another. It doesn’t help that the background score goes so well with what happens on the show. It’s gripping and extremely watchable – the long runtime gets over within minutes.
The constant back and forth between the different characters is infectious, and all of them are so interesting that you feel sucked into their stories. Plus, there’s also the different take on magic which, well, doesn’t include invisibility cloaks or anything. I do, however, miss the owls. I mean, there are Blood Witches, so you get how that would turn out for everyone – quite bloody and disgustingly gory.
And we love it here.
Ok, it’s not all bloody and gory here, although it mostly is. When it’s not about murder and mayhem, The Bastard Son and The Devil Himself is quite frothy and cute. The scenery, when not bathed in buckets of blood, is beautiful and exhilarating. The cinematography is excellent and adds to the beauty and sometimes gravity of Nathan’s life.
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Also, the series is extremely funny when it needs to be, and the humorous quips and sarcasm provide a good respite from the horrible things that happen in the show. When it comes to Nathan, the sarcasm and humour are clearly defence mechanisms, and you honestly feel so bad whenever he needs to defend himself from the horrible atrocities around done to him, but then he says something extremely funny, and you laugh through the terribleness of it all.
Jay Lycurgo and Nadia Parkes are great as our protagonists. Lycurgo, especially, has a boyish charm to him that will make you like him instantly, and he brings Nathan’s desperation out so well. Parkes, meanwhile, is great as Annalise, and she’s the headstrong and ‘crazy if pushed’ type who will stop at nothing to help her friend and find out more about herself. Their camaraderie is sweet and perfectly balanced until they both lose their minds a bit at times!
Summing Up: The Bastard Son and the Devil Himself
The Bastard Son and the Devil Himself is an engrossing, relatable and gruesome watch that is fun and entertaining all around. At no point would you feel bored or annoyed with the show at any point and that’s usually not something that people mention when it comes to young adult content!
The Bastard Son and the Devil Himself is streaming on Netflix.
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