Success of shows like Ragnarok and American Gods paved the way for reimagination of established world myths in a modern setting, but the air of seriousness in the tone and usual action-adventure structure of such narratives greatly hindered the possibilities of exploration of new ideas. In that context, Charlie Covell’s dark comedy series, Kaos, a satirical, topical retelling of the Greek mythological lore set against a contemporary backdrop, shows the potential of innovation in storytelling by showcasing the similarity between real-world complications of class, social structure, segregation, and governance and the stuff of myths and epics in a quirky, unique way. Without depending on spectacle, solely driven by a taut plotline and well-written characters, Kaos is surely going to be a strong contender among top original media released on Netflix.
Spoilers Ahead
Prometheus and the Fates Plan to Dethrone Zeus
Prometheus, the champion of humankind who defied the diktats of Olympian gods and brought fire to humans (resulting in Zeus punishing him with eternal suffering by chaining him to Caucasus mountains and having an eagle eat bits of his life every day), acts as a wisecracking narrator of Kaos, who occasionally addresses viewers directly, adding a metanarrative element to the series. A meticulously structured, near foolproof plan has been set in motion to dethrone the narcissistic, tyrannical, callous King of gods, Zeus, and Prometheus, along with the three Fate sisters, Clotho, Lechesis, and Atropos, are the chief collaborators. Prometheus guides viewers through the complicated, longstanding procedure of setting the plan in motion, which is based on the fulfillment of a prophecy. As the prophecy the Fate sisters had sent to Zeus foretells, “A line appears/The order wanes/The family falls/And Kaos reigns,” Zeus’ fall is hinted at the very beginning, but to ensure its success, a number of events and people have to be set across the proverbial board of chess first—we will get to that later.Â
In this reality, as the story goes, Zeus and his siblings, Hera, Poseidon, and Hades, were tortured by their oppressive, murderous father, Kronos, until Zeus stood up against him and killed him in fury and absorbed his soul, releasing the rest of the gods and the world from Kronos’ reign of terror. The consumption of Kronos’ soul made Zeus powerful and revitalized him, and as a result, Zeus went on a killing spree to ensure a prolonged consumption of souls. Later on, Zeus and the rest of the gods had concocted a plan, according to which Hades created a Frame in the Underworld, which acted as a soul-siphoning machine—drawing the souls of millions of deceased and recycling it as the water in the fountain of Meander. While the humans were under the impression that Frame allowed them a chance of renewal, to be incarnated with a new life, they were actually being used as the fodder of the gods, and the soulless husks were kept in a secret bunker in the Underworld, known as Nothing. A heinous soul-syndicate, in a sense. Not everyone in the Underworld is a willing collaborator of this horrific exploitation, as it is revealed that Charon and Medusa are among the rebels who want gods to get exposed in front of the world.
Caeneus and Riddy in the Underworld
Three mortals unknowingly play an integral role in the success of the mission, as their activities result in a series of events that leads to Zeus’ downfall—but not exactly in a direct way, that is. Much like her mythical counterpart, Eurydice, aka Riddy, is the wife and muse of Orpheus, the renowned singer, and is going through a personal crisis at the moment as she finds herself on the verge of breaking up with her husband. Riddy also hates gods, as her mother had been taken as a member of Hera’s Tacita, a group of women who serve her as a conveyer of secrets and confessions of people across the world, as this boosts Hera’s powers. In the first episode, Riddy receives an ominous prophecy from a homeless, deranged-looking woman, and later that night, dies in the accident. Her mourning husband, Orpheus, denies her the chance of renewal by taking away the coin of the ritual of Charon’s Obol, and as a result, in the Underworld, Riddy is assigned to do menial jobs for two centuries. In the Underworld, Riddy meets Caeneus, an Amazonian lad who was killed after getting betrayed by his mother, and like Riddy, is stuck in the Underworld after failing to pass through the Frame. The duo eventually falls for each other and surprisingly discover that both their prophecies match—which is exactly the same as Zeus’ one.
The duo finds out the heinous scam in the form of Frame, as they manage to enter Nothing and get out of it in one piece. Caeneus is of the opinion that they should inform people to stop this vicious cycle, and soon enough, they get the opportunity to do so as well.
Ariadne and Trojan Conspiracy
Ariadne is the daughter of President Minos of Krete and is the third and final key character in the masterplan concocted by the Fates—and shares the same prophecy as Riddy, Caeneus, and Zeus. Since her childhood, Ariadne has blamed herself for the death of her twin brother, Glaucus, and has been at the receiving end of the ire of her mother, who has gone senile in the agony of losing her son. Although Ariadne had nothing to do with the fateful incident, she has become accustomed to this reality. On the first day of the yearly Olympia festival, Ariadne and Minos attend the unveiling of a relic dedicated to the gods, which turns out to be desecrated—which sends Zeus in a fit of rage. This apparently harmless act of insulting the gods can gradually build up to a total denouncement like revolution, which can result in people denouncing the gods altogether, because presently, they don’t need the oppressive ruler to begin with. As a result, Zeus decides to teach the perpetrators a lesson and pressures his brother, Poseidon, to force Minos to find and apprehend the culprits. Minos agrees to throw the perpetrators to the Minotaur once they get caught.
A bunch of refugees from Troy are revealed to be ones responsible for this harmless prank, and they decided to make a public show of their defiance of gods in response to the treatment of the dwindling number of refugees from Troy in Heraklion’s governance. Son of Andromache, Nax, is the leader of the Trojan group responsible for the desecration, and Ariadne’s bodyguard, Theseus, brings her to Nax to ask for forgiveness from her father, Minos, on behalf of the Trojans. Initially, Minos promises his daughter about releasing the perps and keeps his word as well—but as Poseidon forces him to comply, he has the Trojan perpetrators killed by the Minotaur, much to Ariadne’s dismay. All the while, Ariadne continues getting followed by Furies, who she believes are following her due to her sin of accidentally killing her brother.
However, as the Furies catch up to her, they reveal the sordid truth—it was Minos who had his son, Glaucus, killed, as a prophecy had ordained his death at the hands of his firstborn. Ariadne finds it hard to believe the words of the Furies, but as she questions her father’s accomplice, Daedelus, about the incident, she realizes that the Furies had revealed the truth to her. However, Daedelus further reveals that Glaucus is not dead, and in fact, has been forcibly kept inside a prison and turned into Minotaur through the machinations of his father, Minos.
Dionysius’ Search for Purpose and Zeus’ Family Drama
Meanwhile, Zeus’ neglected son, Dionysus, god of pleasure, feels an emptiness in his life due to a lack of higher responsibility or purpose and tries his best to impress his cold, irritable father. But as he receives nothing but contempt and disappointed glares from Zeus, Dionysus decides to steal Zeus’ watch—his lucky charm given to him by Hercules. Later on, Dionysus gets intrigued by Orpheus and his love for his deceased wife, Riddy, and makes it his life’s mission to send Orpheus to the Underworld to give him a chance to bring his wife back to Earth. Dionysus ends up trading Zeus’ watch with the Fates in exchange for sending Orpheus to the Underworld through a secret route. Charon, Prometheus’ lover and a collaborator in his grand plan, allows Orpheus a safe passage—and after completing a trial, Orpheus finally reaches the working area of the Underworld and reunites with Riddy.
On the other hand, Zeus is getting increasingly paranoid and restless after considering a random wrinkle on his face to be the sign of the prophecy finally coming true. He occasionally seeks counsel from Prometheus, who tries to lull him into a sense of security, just like Zeus’ own family, who are not willing to draw the ire of the vengeful king of gods. Fearing repercussions for losing the watch, Dionysus decides to gift a random fake watch to Zeus, who doesn’t really notice the change and decides to promote his son by revealing the different phases of torturing humankind, which bestows strength to the gods. Dionysus isn’t really interested in all these, as he considers spreading love to be much more of a fulfilling role in his life. As Zeus shares his concern about the prophecy of the Fates with Prometheus, the latter trickily puts the story of Minos and his prophecy in Zeus’ mind.
Meanwhile, Poseidon and Hera are having an affair behind Zeus’ back, which almost gets discovered as Zeus listens to Hera’s secrets, but the Queen of gods manages to gaslight her husband somehow. In the Underworld, as Nax goes through the Frame and escapes the Nothing, Hades extracts his soul, and taking his wife, Persephone, along with him, he goes to meet Zeus to make him aware of the problem. Hades argues that they need to restructure the Frame system and return souls back to Earth for sustenance of all the realms, and if Zeus and other gods aren’t willing to do so, he himself will. As an answer to Hades’ act of insubordination, Zeus grievously injures his brother by electrocuting him using his thunder, and an aggrieved Persephone secretly makes a vow to take revenge against Zeus. Going back to the Underworld, Hades learns about Orpheus, the first mortal ever who has managed to traverse to the Underworld, but denies him the chance to take his wife back to the earth. Unbeknownst to Hades, his wife Persephone allows the duo to leave as an act of defiance towards Zeus. Medusa and Persephone ask Riddy to share the truth with the world of mortals, to save as many souls as she can. Caeneus meets with his mother in the Underworld, who had carefully planned for her son to get stranded in the Underworld ten years ago, and now that the time is right, she has taken her own life to help him fulfill the prophecy.
Zeus decides to make an example of defying the fates by asking Poseidon to force Minos to overturn his prophecy by killing his own son, Minotaur. If a mere mortal manages to shrug off the prophecy of the fates, it will comfort Zeus mentally. However, as Minos goes to Minotaur’s prison to perform his god-ordained duty, he finds Ariadne to be present there as well. It’s a bitter family reunion as Ariadne confronts her father about his past action, and Minos ends up killing his son, seemingly overturning the prophecy. However, Ariadne reveals that it was she who was the firstborn child, and by unleashing her pent-up rage against her father, she kills him by stabbing him to death. The fulfillment of prophecy once again triggers Zeus’ maddening paranoia, and this time he goes directly to the Fates to kill them.
Is Prometheus Free From His Shackles?
The Fates were actually expecting Zeus’ arrival, and they readily accepted their death. On the other hand, while trying to stop his mother from passing through the frame, Caeneus gets taken inside, and both of them turn into soulless husks, stacked inside the Nothing. Prometheus is at a loss, as he feels the plan has been foiled with the passing of the Fates, and Zeus takes a strong stand by gathering his family in Olympia and showing them their place under his supreme rule. In their final moments, the Atropos had given Zeus’ watch back to him, which exposed Dionysus’ lie, and to make him learn his lesson, Zeus straight up kills Dennis, Orpheus’ cat whom he was taking care of in his absence. To add to his misery, Zeus burns Hera’s beehouse as well, where she had kept all the women Zeus had cheated on her with, among whom Dionysus’ mother was present as well. Perhaps due to his fear acting up, Poseidon suddenly gains enough courage to reveal his relation with Hera to Zeus, who decides to spare him on this occasion with a warning. Despite fuming with anger at the display of Zeus’ cruel and reckless behavior, none of his family members are bold enough to stand up to him. The family is truly broken apart.
While returning to Earth, Riddy reveals to Orpheus about losing her feelings for him, and despite having difficulty acknowledging the truth, Orpheus accepts her decision. Ariadne brings the corpse of her brother, Glaucus, to their mother, who is hit with bittersweet feelings and is finally able to reconcile with her daughter. On her way home, Riddy meets the same homeless woman she had met during the day of her death, who reveals her identity as the prophet, Cassandra, and states that Riddy herself is a prophet as well, whose purpose in life is to expose the gods for what they truly are—cunning, greedy, oppressors. While Hades tries to find a way on his own to replenish the souls, he is amazed to see Caeneus getting back to his former state and restoring the soul of his mother with his mere touch. It is not explained as to how Caeneus is able to do so, but it seems his empathy for the trapped souls and his benevolent nature might have played a part in such a cosmic design. All the events that led to this moment, all the tragedies and sacrifices, flash in an instant—as Prometheus suddenly finds himself in the heavenly abode of Zeus, Olympia, and disembodied voices of Fates reveal that the grand plan was active all along—and the fact that death can never come for the Fates, who are tied with cosmic destiny forever.
Perplexed to see Prometheus inside Olympus all of a sudden, Zeus tries to use his powers to send him back to his place—only to realize he has lost his powers. Not only that, Zeus gets frightened to see himself bleed; he is a mere mortal now, as the roles have reversed—Prometheus is seemingly the new ruler of the Olympia. None of the gods are present in Olympus, as Hera is seen calling one of her children while being escorted by Tacita, probably making plans for waging a war against Zeus—not knowing that her husband is no longer the King of gods. A dejected Dionysus is seen standing in front of a building with a half-filled bottle of Meander with him, although his plans remain unknown. Ariadne meets with Andromache, the daughter-in-law of the former queen of Troy, Hecuba, as the duo plans to rebuild Troy and bring down Olympus. The power balance has shifted on its head, and if a second season gets greenlit, it will be interesting to see how things eventually shape up from this point.
