Nemesis

If you’re a fan of the movie Heat, then you might be into Netflix’s new action-packed heist series Nemesis. Co-created by Courtney A. Kemp (Power), it’s about the blurry lines between criminality and the law, and follows an LAPD detective (Matthew Law) chasing an elusive crew of robbers and its ringleader (Y’lan Noel). The show has a lot going on – stylized set pieces, double-crosses, relationship issues, daddy issues – but it all goes down smoothly enough. Subscribe to Pop Culture Happy Hour Plus at plus.npr.org/happyhour https://plus.npr.org/happy See pcm.adswizz.com https://pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for sponsorship and to manage your podcast sponsorship preferences. NPR Privacy Policy https://www.npr.org/about-npr/179878450/privacy-policy

Speaker names marked ? are inferred from speaking time and the show’s known hosts — they are not voice-verified.

• 0:00Speaker 00

  This message comes from the Carter Center, waging peace, fighting disease, and building hope since 1982. In Far Away, Up Close: Global Stories from the Carter Center, you'll hear from people on the front lines in their own words. Follow the podcast wherever you listen.

• 0:20Aisha Harris?

  If you're a fan of Michael Mann's Heat and its many, many descendants, then you might be into Netflix's Nemesis, an action-packed high series. It's co-created by Courtney A. Kemp, the mastermind behind Starz's hit franchise, Power. It's about the blurry lines between criminality and the law. Stylized set pieces, double crosses, relationship issues, daddy issues. This show has a lot going on, but it all goes down smoothly enough. I'm Aisha Harris, and today we're talking about Nemesis on Pop Culture Happy Hour from NPR.

• 0:54Speaker 00

  Stay tuned for the following announcements and messages from our sponsors. This message comes from iXL. The iXL LevelUp diagnostic gives you clear, just-in-time insight into student learning with benchmark results and real-time updates throughout the year. Even better, LevelUp creates a personalized action plan for every student that guides them to what they should practice on iXL to improve. Learn more at ixl.com/npr.

• 1:21Speaker 02

  This message comes from Dell. Shop now during the Dell Top Tech Event and find award-winning tech like the Dell XPS 13 laptop with a long-lasting battery life and impressive performance powered by Intel Core processors. Visit dell.com/deals.

• 1:39Speaker 00

  This message comes from AT&T. Right now at AT&T, you can get the new iPhone 18 Pro for $0.00 with eligible trade-in. It has the ultimate pro camera system and a big leap in battery life, so you can turn this deal into a long-lasting connection. Connecting changes everything. Requires trade-in of $230 or more and eligible plan. Terms and restrictions apply. Subject to change. Visit an AT&T store for details.

• 2:03Aisha Harris?

  Joining me today is Vulture TV critic Roxana Hadadi. Hey Roxana.

• 2:07Speaker 03

  Hey, thank you for having me on for this.

• 2:09Aisha Harris?

  Great to have you. Also with us is journalist and host of the movie review podcast Seated, Trey Bell Anderson. Hello Trey Bell.

• 2:16Speaker 04

  Hello, hello.

• 2:18Aisha Harris?

  Yay, I'm so excited to talk about this with both of you. So Nemesis stars Matthew Law as Isaiah Stiles, an LAPD detective chasing his white whale. An elusive crew of skilled robbers who killed his partner in a shootout during a heist. He's convinced the same crew has been responsible for a string of recent big time robberies, but is having trouble ginning up support for this theory amongst his colleagues. Of course, he'll stop at nothing to prove the pattern and nail these guys.

• 2:44Speaker 05

  The Beverly Hills robbery, it fits the pattern.

• 2:47Speaker 06

  We've been through this before, Isaiah. There's no pattern.

• 2:50Speaker 05

  No pattern is the pattern, Jimmy. Four perps, at least two of them black. They hit high end, high level targets, changing their MO every time so that we don't connect them.

• 2:58Aisha Harris?

  On the other side of this equation is Coltrane Wilder, played by Alan Noel. Coltrane is an upstanding businessman and pillar of the community by day, while secretly serving as the ringleader of that band of thieves at all other times. Isaiah and Coltrane turn out to be connected in more ways than one. And as soon as they connect those dots for themselves, they enter into a propulsive game of cat and mouse. Nemesis is streaming on Netflix now. And Roxana, I'm going to start with you. I know that we both kind of talked about this a little bit offline before we got into this taping. I know how you feel about it, but please, share with everyone else. How do you feel about this show?

• 3:37Speaker 03

  My smile right now as you went through this intro was so big because I'm sorry to Courtney Kemp. I did not recognize her game before. Heat is my North Star, as you know, if you've spent like five minutes with me.

• 3:53Aisha Harris?

  Yes.

• 3:54Speaker 03

  And I do think a lot of Heat's mimicries either just hit sort of the same beats without the soulfulness of the original, or they stay like so outside of it that it doesn't actually feel like Heat. It becomes this other thing. Right? All of this is to say, this is the best heat evocation I have seen in a very long time. And that's because it does so many things that are different. We're gonna see some criminal masks that are a little similar to the heat masks. And we're gonna get a line that sounds like the action is the juice.

• 4:36Speaker 03

  We're gonna get the tension of these two men essentially living for each other, right? They each need the tension and the pressure that the other provides. So all of the heat stuff is there. Bless it, it's done perfectly. But there's also this incredible nighttime soap energy in this show.

• 4:58Aisha Harris?

  Yes.

• 4:58Speaker 03

  Which is really propulsive, very fun. The characters, especially the female characters, are some of the best that I've seen in this genre on television in a long time. We didn't talk about the character of Charlie yet, but she is played by Safina Brown. She's a fence. She is incredibly ruthless. So there's just all of these like new textures to the show and these new places that it goes in this kind of genre that I found highly entertaining.

• 5:38Speaker 03

  Frankly incredible. Sorry to Ayesha, I kept like sending her messages, being like, oh my God, have you gotten to this part yet?

• 5:44Aisha Harris?

  No, I love that. I love it for you. It really does bring me joy whenever we are able to talk about something that people are very excited about. And I agree with you about all of the sort of heat comparisons. And I, I really can't wait to hear, Travell, how you feel about this show. So please let us know.

• 6:02Speaker 04

  Yeah, I think I really enjoyed it as well. You know, I like that you mentioned that it kind of has this nighttime soapy vibe. Because it absolutely does. And I think that's one of the interesting parts of the show. I think for me, once I got over the fact that it was basically copaganda in urban crime drama. Sure.

• 6:23Aisha Harris?

  Yeah.

• 6:24Speaker 04

  Once I got over that, I was like, oh, this is actually really enjoyable. And it actually does kind of meet that high bar that I have for my copaganda in a post 2020 world. Right? It's got that strong core cast that you've already mentioned. It's got some shoot them up bang bang. It's got some, you know, Robin Hood steal from the rich people and give to community. Right? It's got some staring at a corkboard and trying to piece a crime together. Some daddy issues like you already mentioned, which is another way of saying character development.

• 6:58Aisha Harris?

  Yes.

• 6:59Speaker 04

  I really enjoyed it. There was a lot here that kept me coming back episode after episode.

• 7:06Aisha Harris?

  Yeah. So Roxanna knows that I was a little less high on this initially. And when we first started talking, I had only seen, I think, three or four episodes at that point. The copaganda thing is definitely something that I have kind of bristled at over the last, you know, several years. And I say this as someone who, you know, one of my first like shows that I became obsessed with as a, I was too young to be watching this, but as a child who was at home and was not out doing things on a Friday night, around 13 years old, it's like, hey, Law & Order SVU, what's this? And then I proceeded to watch Law & Order SVU for decades.

• 7:45Aisha Harris?

  And am I, am I keeping up with it now? No, but I understand the appeal of these things. And so I think my bar was a little bit higher. I was just like, I don't know about this show, especially with black people, especially with all these things happening.

• 7:59Speaker 04

  Right.

• 7:59Aisha Harris?

  As it went on and after I got over also just how kind of very hamfisted and wrote, the writing and dialogue seemed to be, I was able to give over to that. Because the soapiness is the draw for me.

• 8:13Speaker 04

  Oh, yes.

• 8:14Aisha Harris?

  It's Tyler Perry meets being Mary Jane meets like, it's like bringing in.

• 8:20Aisha Harris?

  The best of those elements in a way that feels fresh somehow. I don't know. Matthew Law, AKA Techie Boyfriend, Ava's Techie Boyfriend, O'Shawn.

• 8:31Speaker 04

  O'Shawn.

• 8:32Aisha Harris?

  On Abbott Elementary.

• 8:33Speaker 04

  Yes.

• 8:34Aisha Harris?

  I mean, he's a beautiful man and his way of speaking is just very, I don't know, there's something very sexy about it. So I was just like, okay, I will buy you being a troubled cop who like has daddy issues both on both sides of the things as a father, but also with his father, who plays a really big role in this as well. His name is Amos Nightmare Styles, played by Mo Irvin. He is the other side of the fence, as we might say. Right. I gave way to it and it consumed me and I have to say that. Now, I am curious. Now, Roxana, you said that this is your introduction to Courtney Akem as a creator. But Trevel, have you dabbled in the world of Power? Because I have a little bit, but it's been years. So I'm curious your perspective.

• 9:17Speaker 04

  Yeah, I'm like loosely familiar. You know, I was there in the early years and then I said, I've got to tap out, you know, after a point. But I do think that special kind of storytelling that is a power, that is Tyler Perry's Beauty and Black, there's a slickness there that I think Courtney has perfected. And in the very first scenes of the series, you feel that, right? I feel like you feel a very similar kind of energy and world that we felt on Power or any of those other, you know, shows, right? BMF and the other.

• 10:00Aisha Harris?

  Snowfall.

• 10:00Speaker 04

  Yeah, Snowfall, all of them. And so it felt familiar in that way. And there's a lot of familiarity, right, that you will recognize in terms of maybe storylines or certain kind of story beats. But it also did so many different twists on it that I felt like, like you said, Roxana, made it feel a little fresh, you know, made it feel a little different and made me go like, oh, okay, I see how you're taking. Kind of like pre-existing tropes, right? And trying to flip them on their head in a lot of ways.

• 10:37Speaker 03

  Mm hmm. And I think something that really worked for me is, and we talk about this a lot. Streaming shows can struggle with pacing.

• 10:46Aisha Harris?

  Yeah.

• 10:47Speaker 03

  An entire first season of a streaming show can feel like, uh, at the end, we're going to get to the idea and the show is going to be the thing in season two. This show from the opening minutes, from that first heist.

• 10:59Aisha Harris?

  Yeah.

• 10:59Speaker 03

  Tells you exactly what kind of show it's gonna be. It's gonna be very action forward. It's gonna be very sexy. People are gonna tell lies to each other, but also stare directly into each other's eyes and tell the truth in a really ominous way.

• 11:14Aisha Harris?

  Yeah.

• 11:14Speaker 03

  But the point of the show is right there.

• 11:18Aisha Harris?

  Yeah.

• 11:18Speaker 03

  And we don't do like flashbacks. We don't do like an episode that's about a tertiary character. We don't do all of these things that I think we've gotten used to. You really see how Courtney Kemp like built a weekly episodic release franchise.

• 11:36Aisha Harris?

  Yeah.

• 11:36Speaker 03

  And my understanding is before she did Power, she was like a producer on The Good Wife. So she also understands that sort of like.

• 11:43Aisha Harris?

  Right.

• 11:43Speaker 03

  Glossy, week to week storytelling. So it's just really refreshing to have eight episodes. And each episode is a distinct chapter of the story with a demarcated beginning and end. That in and of itself, I'm like, what a treat. What a delight.

• 12:01Aisha Harris?

  I know.

• 12:02Speaker 03

  To watch television.

• 12:03Aisha Harris?

  Yeah, cuz I did worry that we were going to get that. The only time we really get a flashback, and it's so short, is we see when Isaiah's partner was shot. Like, it comes back, back and forth. But like, we don't see everything leading up to it. It's just literally him, like, in the immediate aftermath of him trying to rescue his partner right after he's been shot.

• 12:22Speaker 03

  Who is played by Tristan Wildes, one of the many Wire alumni in the cast.

• 12:27Aisha Harris?

  Yeah, well, that was another thing that was so funny to me. And I commented this on social media, but like, it's as soon as one popped up, it was like, oh, there's three more. It's like, here's Herc. Dominic Lombardozzi. Here's Chris Bower, who played Frank Sabaka on The Wire. Brother Mizon, Michael Potts. Michael Hyatt has one scene, who was Brianna Bargstow as the therapist. So I was just like, oh, The Wire, I love it. Like, this little mini reunion, sometimes these characters are in the same scene together. And I'm like.

• 12:57Aisha Harris?

  How Herc and Brother Muzon are having a conversation? What's going on?

• 13:00Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 13:00Aisha Harris?

  The show is deep with so much talent and so many people who are able to elevate this sometimes very like you know exactly what they're going to say like give me your badge. Like that literally happens. There's a scene where he has to turn in his badge. It's like, of course.

• 13:14Speaker 03

  Of course.

• 13:15Aisha Harris?

  If you've seen any from Beverly Hills Cop to Lethal Weapon, like you've seen some version of one of these scenes in here. And yet so often we talk about originality and whatnot. And I do feel like this show is is kind of like a Bruno Mars where it's like, is it doing anything truly new? No, but does the song sound good? Yeah, I'm into it. Like, I'm enjoying it. And I think you both have put it well at like what Courtney A. Kemp is very good at doing and her ability to remix and put her own spin on things, even when it feels very kind of like, we know what's going to happen here.

• 13:52Speaker 03

  Right.

• 13:52Aisha Harris?

  And I think also it's just like occasionally kind of funny, like and intentionally funny, not like you're laughing at this, but like there's a scene later on where Coltrane and Isaiah meet in a cemetery. And it's like, all of a sudden, Matthew Law as Isaiah, like he's gone from being like determined to like very braggy, braggadocious, like as if he was Kendrick Lamar circa 2024. And he's just like dancing all over this guy's grave. Literally, they're in a cemetery. That was when I was like, oh, okay. It took me several episodes, was like, oh, okay, I see, I see, I'm in now. And maybe that's just me. I know you all were in sooner than I was, but that was when I was like locked in.

• 14:31Speaker 03

  Isn't that the scene where Isaiah calls Coltrane black history?

• 14:36Aisha Harris?

  Yes, yes.

• 14:37Speaker 03

  It's incredible.

• 14:38Aisha Harris?

  It's a great scene. It's a great written scene where he's explaining like everything you're doing, black history.

• 14:43Speaker 05

  Your pristine Jet magazine cover lifestyle? Yeah, black history. Your hood TED Talks you be giving to kids in the community? Black history. Your little secret Crown Clubhouse. Black [bleep] history.

• 14:59Aisha Harris?

  That is chef's kiss.

• 15:01Speaker 03

  There are those moments where there are just these great one-liners. And the other thing I want to say, which again was like very fun and shows the awareness everybody has of what they're doing, is that the first two episodes are directed by Mario Van Peebles.

• 15:17Aisha Harris?

  Yes.

• 15:17Speaker 03

  Coltrane is dressed like Wesley Snipes's character from New Jack City for Halloween in that opening scene. So again, I also just think it's like, it's such a treat to watch a show from people who love the genre they're playing with. And that's also just very entertaining and fulfilling as well.

• 15:37Speaker 04

  I also think, you know, to go back to a point that you made, Roxana, earlier, the female performances in this show are really what locked me in, in particular Gabrielle Dennis, as I believe Candace is her character. I mostly know Gabrielle as a comedic girl.

• 15:54Aisha Harris?

  Black Lady Sketch Show.

• 15:55Speaker 04

  Black Lady Sketch Show is a prime fabulous example. And then she's also popped up in like, you know, recurring roles in different like black sitcoms over the years. But there's so much gravitas and so much like, I think, expertise and skill on display in terms of her range in this show and the range of Matthew Law, of Alain Noel, of the two sisters who you mentioned earlier as well.

• 16:21Aisha Harris?

  Charlie and...

• 16:22Speaker 04

  Yeah, that actually really, collectively, it elevates this into something that isn't, you know, a straight to DVD kind of production as it could have been, right? And it gives you something that makes you, you know, want to beg for a second season. And I think that that's difficult these days.

• 16:43Aisha Harris?

  Yeah, if I'm being honest, and I don't mean this necessarily as shade.

• 16:48Speaker 04

  This your second time throwing shade this episode, okay? Bruno Mars got the stray bullet earlier, okay?

• 16:55Aisha Harris?

  Look, I enjoy Bruno Mars, come on now. But no, there were moments where I was like, this feels like a direct-to-video... Movie circa two thousand. And, and again, this is the soapy sort of Tyler Perry-esque, or even on occasion, there were moments where I was like, oh, did Master P direct this? I don't know, like, what's going on here? But there was something also nostalgic about that that I appreciated.

• 17:20Speaker 03

  Absolutely.

• 17:21Aisha Harris?

  And I did really enjoy sort of the, the way that the women characters are folded into this, including, you know, we've already mentioned Cleopatra Coleman as Ebony, Coltrane's wife, and then Gabrielle Dennis is Candace, Isaiah's wife. And the way that interacts, and then of course, as you've already mentioned Roxanna, Charlie is Ebony's sister. And Charlie's like the big, big bad. Like, it's, you know, it's Coltrane, but really she's the big, big bad. And I think there's something very interesting about that. And to the extent where there's a moment later in the season, I won't spoil it, but I think she does something truly horrific. And then like, it seems like the, the show doesn't really interrogate that in a way

• 18:05Aisha Harris?

  that I was just like, what is going on? Like, so it does seem though, based off of the way season one ends, that they are anticipating, hoping for a season two.

• 18:16Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 18:16Aisha Harris?

  And so maybe they'll pick up on that thread again later on. But I was just like, I had to rewind and go back and I was very confused. And then when I figured out that it was what I thought it was, I was like, you're not gonna follow these breadcrumbs?

• 18:31Speaker 04

  They're sowing a seed, Ayesha. They'll come back to it in season two.

• 18:34Aisha Harris?

  Okay.

• 18:36Speaker 03

  And I think there are a lot of those.

• 18:38Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 18:38Speaker 03

  There's this detail between the sisters, which we're alluding to a little bit. You find out that some members of Coltrane's crew had military experience. I feel like that's gonna come into play again, who they met in prison.

• 18:51Aisha Harris?

  Right.

• 18:51Speaker 03

  Again, like, the dialogue is very layered in terms of just being like, oh, here's a thing that you should remember for the future. It'll come up again. And I do think that is great. The other thing I would say is I recently rewatched Forever.

• 19:05Aisha Harris?

  Oh, yes.

• 19:06Speaker 03

  And I appreciated that this show felt like, I don't know if they filmed in Los Angeles. I hope they did, but regardless. It felt like they were making extra care to get certain things right.

• 19:18Speaker 04

  Absolutely.

• 19:18Speaker 03

  And all of this is a long way for me to say, there are Iranian gangsters in this show who actually speak Farsi. And that is so LA. That is so LA. And I was so happy to see my people represented as criminals. So that was also a great time. But all these details, I think they build a full world and a full world that we're not always used to seeing in this kind of television show.

• 19:45Aisha Harris?

  Yeah.

• 19:46Speaker 04

  It absolutely captures the vastness of LA in a beautiful way, and particularly Black LA, I think.

• 19:54Aisha Harris?

  Yeah.

• 19:54Speaker 04

  And also filming's always happening in LA. You'll always see certain kinds of shots in different shows that are set in LA, you know, the Watts Towers, the Hollywood sign, et cetera.

• 20:04Aisha Harris?

  Yeah.

• 20:05Speaker 04

  This show has those and also so many others that I haven't seen in a host of productions that are set in LA. And so I thought that they were also really interesting. And this goes back a little bit to the point you were making, Ayesha, in terms of the kind of early 2000s nostalgia. Like, it's very waist-deep. It's very paid in full energy, you know? Like, it is absolutely has that vibe, for sure.

• 20:37Aisha Harris?

  Yeah, yeah. But elevated production, like, very clearly Netflix production.

• 20:41Speaker 04

  Very clearly.

• 20:42Aisha Harris?

  We love that. We love that. As I said, I was very kind of mid on the show at first. And you know what? Having finished it, it won me over. And not just because Matthew Law is ridiculously good-looking.

• 20:57Aisha Harris?

  Well, that brings us to the end of our show. Roxana Hadadi, Trevel Anderson, thanks so much for being here and for tolerating my casual shade at this show.

• 21:07Speaker 03

  Thank you, Ayesha. Thank you.

• 21:10Aisha Harris?

  This episode was produced by Hafsa Fatima and Mike Katz, and edited by our showrunner Jessica Reedy. Hello, Kamin provides our theme music. And if you're not following us, do that right now. Just a reminder that signing up for Pop Culture Happy Hour Plus is a great way to support our show and public radio because you get to listen to all of our episodes sponsor-free. Go find out more at plus.npr.org/happyhour or visit the link in our show notes. Thanks so much for listening to Pop Culture Happy Hour from NPR. I'm Ayesha Harris, and we'll see you all next time.

• 21:45Speaker 02

  Stay tuned for the following announcements and messages from our sponsors. This message comes from Google Workspace with Gemini. One subscription that does it all. Personalized AI and premium business versions of Gmail, Google Docs, Drive and more. Try it free for 14 days at g o o dot g l e slash Workspace with Gemini.

• 22:07Speaker 00

  This message comes from Abrams Books. Don't scramble for a knockout gift this holiday season. Give them the brand new Diary of a Wimpy Kid book, Fight or Flight. An explosion of fun and laughter. Available wherever books are sold.