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As far as adaptations are concerned, John Jennings and Damian Duffy’s graphic novel (published 2017) of Octavia Butler’s Kindred (published 1991) far better exceeds this new Hulu series. Just a few sparse choices make these eight episodes bearable. Created by Branden Jacobs-Jenkins, the Obie winning playwright behind Octoroon, his modern day take has a millennial Dana battling severe depression and hooking up with Kevin, a mediocre waiter who may also be suffering from an undisclosed mental illness.
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| During Dana’s first trip to the plantation past, she encounters a shocking surprise. FX/Hulu. |
The series begins with Dana having dinner with her Aunt Sarah and Uncle Alan. They are not pleased that she sold the New York City brownstone (inherited from her grandmother) to buy an unfurnished house in Los Angeles. In this economy, how believable is it to make that reckless choice to sell a hard-to-come-by brownstone and move across the country alone anyway?
Insert Kevin— an awkward white waiter— smiling at Dana throughout her tense family meal. Kevin makes a completely douche-y move: announcing to everyone in vicinity that he’s giving Dana a ride home (wow, Sarah and Alan left Dana stranded in an unfamiliar place knowing she had no transportation?). Although Kevin’s coworkers laugh it off, the gesture does little to soften the discomfort. If he had succeeded in harming a young Black woman— who would have cared about her well-being?
Dana returns back to the past. FX/Hulu.
In Butler’s novel, Dana and Kevin are married. This helps establish a stronger foundation than two strangers who begin a “with benefits” situation in the series. Thus, Dana transports back into the past after her preemptive encounter with Kevin, returning in an alarming state. The writers are trying to make Kevin appear genuinely kind for staying with Dana, but it comes across false and rushed. Dana and Kevin need more time as a couple, ample growth to truly know each other way before startling events arise. Kevin seems so desperate for a woman and Dana seems so needy— this pairing has the required ingredients of unhealthy co-dependency.
Meanwhile, Dana’s fractured relationship with Sarah and Alan warrants concern. Retired police officer Alan definitely acts as though he could care less what happens to Dana, often checking in on Dana via Sarah’s orders. He is not her blood uncle, but damn. Also, Alan makes it clear that something may have been wrong in the family— he had purposefully moved Sarah across the country for a reason. Still, does that mean he’s emotionally manipulative or worse? The busy nurse Sarah rightfully worries over her niece’s mental state, but Dana becomes irrational, cold, and standoffish. Neither woman apologizes for the bitter words exchanged at Dana’s empty house. Obviously, this is not the idyllic Black family structure. There is residual pain, mainly for isolated Dana. She has no other family. No girlfriends. When Dana finds her mother alive in the 19th century, the reunion is short lived. Sadly, Dana clings to Kevin, the only person trying to stay with her.
Kindred’s focus should stick to Dana and her ability to time travel. It should be deciphering why Dana must always rescue Rufus Weylin, red-haired white child of rapist cretin Thomas and villainous poison Margaret. Why is the time longer in the past versus a few minutes back in the present? Is it the Los Angeles house conducting this fantastical thread? Why then during Olivia’s own mysterious disappearance was she able to time travel during a New York City car crash that killed her husband? Carlo and Hermione, the unnecessary couple next door to Dana’s house and Penny, Kevin’s worried sister provide no additional strength and draw in no clues for the mystery at hand. These weakly rendered characters are storyline fodder that shift from the main task at hand: Dana.
Ronda Racha Penrice— one of few Black women reviewing the series, wrote in The Wrap:
This is not to say that Kindred should have indulged in “trauma porn.” Instead, Jacobs-Jenkins and his collaborators should have dug deeper. Although Johnson and the rest of the cast do a good job in what they have been asked to do, the writing and overall plot and circumstances fail to do the same. As “Kindred” flows from episode to episode, it never fully taps into Dana’s innermost feelings of shock, horror, and perhaps even desperation as an enslaved woman.
Like so many other movies and series set in this era, “Kindred” doesn’t deliver the emotional connection needed to elicit the true outrage we should have for this dastardly institution. And, with the resources available to us today, that is just unacceptable.
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| Mother/daughter Olivia (Sheria Irving) and Dana (Mallori Johnson) are trapped in the past. FX/Hulu. |
Sacrificial Black women characters is another trope that’s been under the radar— a diversionary plot device that needs to be explored further. Think of Jacqui choosing to blow up in the first season of The Walking Dead or Irene staying behind to die in Tales From the Crypt: Demon Knight; certainly other examples exist. Olivia is in the same defeated place. When Dana tries to give her the option of returning back home in the present, Olivia chooses to remain in the past, helping the enslaved, especially parentless Alice. Beyond that, however, Olivia stays a homebody in her cabin.
While intimacy coordinators work on many television and film sets, hopefully racial trauma personnel has been created too. Slave centered big and small screen pictures have been gradually growing for years and often an upcoming Black actor’s first major gig and the key to awards contention— certain juries love this genre. The actors undergo an overwhelming amount of recreated Black ancestral humiliations including being whipped. In a dark uncomfortable scene, Dana’s clothes are maliciously ripped by Thomas— not for rape— but another cruel violation altogether.
With several Butler adaptations (helmed by Issa Rae, Ava DuVernay, Wanuri Kahiu, and Viola Davis) set for the future, perhaps now was not appropriate for this specific story. The series features too many questionable moments: Dana and Kevin’s constant coupling at the plantation, slaves forced to act animalistic in front of drunken white men, Kevin foolishly running his mouth, Kevin opening runaway Winnie’s hiding place in Olivia’s cabin, Kevin arriving back indecently to where only little Alice is present, and Dana transported in present Los Angeles without Olivia (who may have arrived in New York). It took tremendous patience to finish these unwavering episodes.
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| Olivia would rather stay on the plantation to raise an orphan girl than build a relationship with Dana, her own daughter who still needs her. FX/Hulu. |
If FX/Hulu greenlights a second season of Kindred, let’s hope that the writers try to salvage the spirit of Octavia Butler’s legacy and not continue destroying it for the sake of appearing deceptively woke and modern.
Until then, Butler fans should reread the actual source material or enjoy the pages of the hardcover comic book.
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