The Madness may have followed the template of Netflix thriller series, but you cannot deny that it’s quite impeccably made. In case you’re wondering what the formula is, it is basically one middle-aged guy against the world. He is usually played by someone like Richard Armitage; his marriage is on the rocks most of the time (or he is cheating), and more importantly, the man is accused of a big, earth-shattering crime like murder. However, The Madness never lets you doubt Colman Domingo’s Muncie. You know from the very beginning that this guy isn’t guilty and by episode four or five, you have a pretty clear idea about the real villain of the story. Instead of relying too much on the suspense, the show hinges on both social and political commentary about America in the final act, which is what makes it better than most shows of this kind. That said, the one-hour-long epilogue-esque finale is a bit too much. In this article, we’re mainly going to look into that.
Spoilers Ahead
What happens in the show?
Media pundit Muncie Daniels is on the verge of landing his own show on CNN, where he works. He also plans to write a book, for which he needs a little peace and quiet. What’s better than renting a quaint little cabin in the Poconos for that? Probably nothing, but unfortunately for Muncie, his life turns upside down due to something unimaginable. Upon reaching the cabin, he meets a random man outside. The man, Mark Simon, has also rented a cabin right beside Muncie’s, which makes them temporary neighbors. Appearing to be nice and helpful, Mark asks Muncie to come to him for any needs. Quite naturally, when Muncie finds his cabin is out of generator fuel, he heads to Mark’s. But it turns out Mark is not home. So Muncie looks into the shed outside, where he finds a human body chopped into pieces—and it happens to be none other than Mark. Suddenly he spots two masked (and also armed) men looking around. He immediately takes off, with the men chasing him. When one of these men catches up to him in the woods, Muncie has a scuffle with him where he stabs the man with his pen. That throws the man off his back, but Muncie is also knocked out. When he wakes up, he doesn’t find anyone around. Tired and confused, Muncie walks up to a nearby diner where he is fortunate enough to find two police officers. He tells them everything and brings them to Mark’s cabin, but surprisingly, they find no chopped-up dead body there. Quite naturally, the police call him delusional and question if he’s doing drugs or something.
Not that it matters, as the news of Mark Simon’s death soon gets out in the open. It turns out that the dead man is no regular person. He is a white supremacist leader, who’s popularly known as Brother 14. Muncie receives this piece of information from a pair of FBI agents, Franco Quinones and Khalil Osman, who show interest in him. Apparently, agent Franco is looking into something that has to do with Mark Simon, aka Brother 14, who’s part of this cult (they call it a group, though, but come on!) called ‘The Forge.’ Muncie, on the other hand, is an opinionated Black man. His father, George Daniels, used to be an activist who ended up killing a white man—Brian Kellogg. The racism angle of the story is pretty clear here. And considering white supremacists are majorly brainless idiots, it doesn’t take long for them to turn against Muncie. His wife Elena and son Demetrius, aka D, start receiving death threats pretty soon. Elena and Muncie are separated, but their relationship seems amicable, and he’s clearly still in love with her. Muncie also has this older daughter, Kallie, who he had long before meeting Elena. His first priority is understandably ensuring the safety of Elena, D, and Kallie, so he asks Elena to move to her sister’s place with D. He also alerts Kallie, with whom he has an understandably strained relationship, but they do care for each other.
In the middle of all this, this journalist, Laura Jennings, tries to approach Muncie and tells him that she knows that he has zero involvement in Brother 14’s death. Unfortunately for him, Laura soon suffers a heart attack and dies at the hospital. Clearly this is someone’s doing, and Muncie is doomed if he can’t find them.
Things get worse for Muncie
Muncie proves to be quite the tough cookie as he chooses to fight tooth and nail instead of caving to the threats. This is also what makes the character likeable and makes you root for him. Giving Mark’s wife Lucie a visit seems quite logical, especially given Lucie is separated and also no longer part of the Forge. That, however, doesn’t work out too well, as Lucie doesn’t seem to have much interest in communicating with Muncie, a man who may have killed her husband. Not that Lucie herself was too fond of her husband during his final days, but for the time being she refuses to hear Muncie out. She makes it pretty clear by wielding a gun in his face as well.
Muncie finds himself in a deep ditch when the law firm that represents him drops him because of what’s going on. His lawyer cum best friend, Qwesi, cannot do anything about it. If that’s not all, the man with whom he had that scuffle also turned up dead, that too from being stabbed by a pen. Clearly there’s a conspiracy at large, and Muncie is being set up by someone here. He catches his first break in the case when he finds out about this anarchist group called Profane Discord (thanks to a tattoo the dead man had). It doesn’t take long for him to break into their compound and have a heart-to-heart. They deny any involvement in the murder, but Muncie does manage to find out about the other masked assassin—a man named Donald Sloss, who’s not part of the group. Muncie also finds out about a swinger bar that Donald frequently visits. Naturally, his next destination is that place only, with Elena accompanying him. Thanks to the narrative moving at breakneck pace, we soon reach this penthouse that’s supposed to be Donald’s residence. Muncie does find Donald Sloss there, but no way this old man is the masked assassin that chased him. He has come to the right place, though, as soon he realizes that Donald Sloss has a black sheep son with the same name. Donald Jr. is a military-disposed drifter who keeps finding himself in problematic situations that frustrate his father so much.
But this also means Donald Sloss and the other man who died are just the muscle, and there’s someone bigger behind them. That person is revealed to be hedge fund manager Stu Magnusson, and Muncie needs to thank agent Franco for getting that tip-off. It turns out Franco has been looking into many shady activities of Magnusson and the company he is a part of—Revitalized. This is that kind of power-hungry company that doesn’t hesitate to kill people and cover up the murders whenever someone stands against them in any possible way. Of course, they work in the shadows, and they need people like Mark to enforce their agenda. But Mark is a true jingoist who, upon finding out that Revitalized is killing his fellow (white) Americans, refused to help them. That led to the company bringing in Profane Discord, who would happily off someone like Mark. Muncie had nothing to do with all that, but he is just the person who was at the very wrong place at the very wrong time. But if there’s one thing he believes in, then that would be prompt action taking. Quite naturally, he finds a way to Stu and clearly asks him to unframe him, or else he will reveal to the world that the hedge fund manager was in cahoots with the now dead white supremacist. Sure, Muncie does need to have proof of that, but there’s a chance he’ll be able to get his hands on some, given he has managed to bring Lucie into the fold, more or less. Just when it looks like Muncie might get out of all the trouble, residue of Mark’s remains is found in Muncie’s Philadelphia apartment, which practically makes him a wanted criminal.
To flee or not to flee
With the law now convinced that he has indeed murdered Mark Simon and chopped the body into pieces, Muncie Daniels either has to run or prove his innocence as quickly as possible. Even though he initially plans to make a run for it, Muncie drops out of it at the very last moment (with a private plane about to take him far away) upon realizing fleeing is never the solution. Instead, he surrenders and gets arrested by the Philadelphia police, who seem to be in no mood to give him a chance to explain. However, Muncie finds a lifeline when Franco comes to his rescue. The agent frees Muncie (on bail), buys him forty-eight hours, and asks him to set up a meeting with Stu Magnusson. The idea is Muncie going in all mic’d up to record Stu, which will incriminate Franco’s white whale and also prove Muncie’s innocence. The plan is quite solid, except Stu’s people figure out that the FBI is involved, which automatically makes him decline. Desperate to prove his innocence, Muncie drops the wire, ditches his phone, and goes on to see Stu. He’s not alone, though, as Muncie finds this woman, Julia Jayne, present at the scene. Julia happens to be Stu’s security consultant, who’s here to assess the situation. Realizing he doesn’t have much control here, Muncie straightaway gets to the point. But Stu vehemently declines the allegation that he is behind the killing of Mark Simon. He admits that Mark and he were friends and they had a disagreement but also says he is a businessman who doesn’t kill people. Not to mention he doesn’t know Donald Sloss or any group called the Forge. By the time you (and Muncie too) realize that Stu is in fact telling the truth, Julia has brought Donald Sloss Jr. inside the room, who in no time shoots Stu and one of his men who was present in the room to death. Muncie survives the bullet and also manages to overpower Don Jr. and kill him. He then jumps out of the window and, thankfully, falls into the lake outside, surviving. Upon waking up, he finds himself lying on the bed. He soon meets the man who rescued him. This guy is an anti-white fanatic who genuinely believes that Muncie has killed Mark Simon, and that’s the reason he worships him. Muncie doesn’t take much time to get away as far as possible from this guy, who doesn’t make another appearance (thankfully).
After ending up at the hospital, Muncie is expectedly arrested again by the Philly PD. Kallie is also here to see her dad, and Elena is on the way to see her estranged husband as well. With Julia on his trail like a bloodhound, Muncie immediately asks Kaliee to tell Elena not to come. His fear is very much justified, as Julia soon turns up at the hospital with the intention of shooting Muncie. Had Franco not intervened, that probably would have happened, but thankfully the FBI agent saves the day again. He also takes Muncie to a safe house where they build their case together. Lucie, meanwhile, has managed to recover a tape that is filled with conversation between Mark and Stu. It’s another matter that for this she had to go back to the Forge and then abide by a strangely kinky request of member Barry Wood, who now owns Mark’s shop and possessions (as per the dead man’s wish). With Stu dead, the best option for Lucie has to be contacting the FBI and handing over the tape. In exchange she gets to be in witness protection and earns freedom for Muncie as well. Sadly, though, Franco fails to cut a deal with his bosses at the FBI. They praise him for all the good work that he has done but also ask him to not pursue the case anymore. This only means that whoever is pulling the strings must be powerful enough to have some of the FBI in their pocket. Franco cannot take it anymore, after coming to the conclusion that the system is rigged and also failing to free Muncie and give Lucie what she deserves. Dejected by the outcome of everything, the genuinely good agent kills himself.
Who really killed Mark Simon?
The straightforward answer is Donald Jr. and his buddy, who were hired by Julia Jayne. But Julia was also hired by someone who should be held responsible for all the murders. And that someone happens to be the main investor behind Revitalized—data analytics guru Rodney Kraintz. I really liked that the narrative doesn’t try to trick us here once the name Rodney Kraintz is dropped. Muncie gets this information from Noah Park, whose brother Jerry mysteriously died in a car accident after he stopped supporting the election campaign of Ross Wright. Providing Muncie this information proves to be quite costly for Noah as he ends up being the next victim of Julia. She is only doing her job, though, but it helps that she is a fanatic who believes in Kraintz’s vision he’s purifying the world. The interesting thing about the show is we have fanatics and cults at both ends, and the result is someone like Muncie having to deal with all kinds of trouble. With a completely unhinged Julia after him, a confrontation was inevitable. That does happen at Muncie’s friend Isaiah’s (who has been helping him from the very beginning by providing suggestions, shelter, extraction plans, and whatnot) residence, but Muncie is not there to face Julia. Instead, we get Julia versus Elena, where the former is bludgeoned to death by the latter. Elena also gets shot, and so does Isaiah, but thankfully both of them survive. Also with this, Muncie is acquitted from all charges, and he becomes a free man once again.
Why does Muncie go after Rodney Kraintz in the end?
I have already said that I am not too fond of The Madness’ ending, as I found the final episode quite dragged out and even unnecessary. But I also understand what the creators tried to do here. While this story could have just ended with Muncie having his freedom back, he still goes after Rodney Kraintz, who’s the big bad of the show. This clearly makes him the true hero. Although he just drops Kraintz’s name on TV and leaves it to the public, his son Demetrius one-ups him by going to Kraintz’s secret hideout with a gun. D is hellbent on taking revenge on the man who is responsible for hurting his mother. Muncie obviously can’t allow his son to go down that road. While he manages to talk D out of it, he himself is also tempted. When he sneaks inside and stands in front of Kraintz with a gun in hand, the guru appears to be quite nonchalant and not at all afraid. He boils it down to Muncie—there are many like him, and this is the way of this world, where the powerful stomp over everyone. Muncie is no killer after all, so he lets it go. Does that mean Kraintz got away? Hell no, because he is still the killer of Mark Simon, and the Forge can’t allow him to exist, so Bobby Woods takes the matter into his own hands and does the deed. He gets the tip from Lucie, though, who also makes sure that the white supremacist group goes down. This is a fitting ending to a show that is very relevant in the world where we live. All we can do is remain aware and always careful.
