Black Bird’s premise is so neat, it sounds like something dreamed up by scriptwriters; but in fact, it’s rooted in a true story, said Anita Singh in The Daily Telegraph. Jimmy Keene (Taron Egerton) lived the high life as a drug dealer, until he was caught, and given a ten-year jail term. Then the FBI offered him a deal: if he elicited a confession from a suspected serial killer, he could walk free. Keene agreed to the challenge, and over six episodes, we find out if he pulled it off.
The show weaves together two timelines: Keene’s dealings with the killer, Larry Hall (Paul Walter Hauser); and the investigation into Hall. The structure doesn’t quite work – you often want Keene’s story to barrel ahead – but the writing keeps us interested, more or less.
The pace is “sluggish” at times, said Barbara Ellen in The Observer, and there is an element of serial-killer fatigue: how many more “smug, gloating psychopaths” can the TV schedules really absorb? But Black Bird is a “cut above”, thanks in part to Hauser, whose “semolina pallor, vacant eyes” and mutton chops make him look straight out of central casting, but are actually true to reality.
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The series “doesn’t delve as deeply into psychological abysses” as, say, Mindhunter, said Dan Einav in the Financial Times, but it has a “queasy tension” and features some strong performances. The most moving of these comes from Ray Liotta in his final TV role: his turn as Jimmy’s “regret-filled father” is a powerful testament to his range as an actor.
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