Break-Out Crime Drama Queen Sono Season One Review
The world may still not have a female James Bond, but Netflix’s Queen Sono is not only filling the demand for a high-stakes female special agent, but exceeding it. With a no-nonsense, never-surrender attitude, the crime drama pushes boundaries and takes espionage thrillers to the next level in the age of female-led action dramas.
As international productions become a rising interest in the United States, Queen Sono, a Netflix original series, should be no exception. Trotting the globe in the race for a diverse collection, Queen Sono is the first South African based show commissioned by Netflix. Under the direction of Kagiso Lediga, the cast and crew is also largely South African, with filming that stretches to several different countries within Africa. The show holds tight to its authenticity by featuring many different African customs as well as several languages that rarely grace American screens.
Opening in the middle of a mission, we are introduced to Queen Sono (Pearl Thusi), our faithful protagonist and skilled spy as she attempts to intercept intel from the technology in the possession of two men, one of which is an executive at the company in question, Superior Solutions. When the original plan is compromised, she makes the rash decision to blow her cover in order to complete the mission. Her risky diversion is followed by a daring escape by means of a decoy while several armed men are in hot pursuit for her and mere seconds away from her capture.
The journey by plane back to base brings them to Johannesburg, a city in South Africa that seems to be the epicenter of a bitter power struggle over the continent amidst a deep and ongoing history of political corruption, neo-colonization and the exploitation of vulnerable citizens. It is also home to Special Operations Group or SOG, an intelligence organization where Queen is not only a top-secret spy but the agency’s vital secret weapon, working under the direction of only a few top operatives. Their current mission: find out what Superior Solutions is planning and take them down.
Superior Solutions, a special interest militant group posing as a security company, has been smuggling in high-powered weapons and engaging in illicit activity for years with little detection. Their maniacal leader is Ekaterina Gromova (Kate Liquorish), a Russian national who obtained her position and seemingly limitless power in a less than ethical way. Careful at first to keep her hands as clean as possible, Ekaterina forges a deal with a revolutionary terrorist group and is able to distract the focus away from her own malicious plans. In return, the company arms them with unlimited military supplies and verbally promises to contribute to their cause of freeing oppressed African people- a promise I suspect she has no intention of keeping as soon as she serves her own cause.
Queen Sono is the daughter of the late Safiya Sono, a rising Freedom Fighters revolutionary group leader dedicated to freeing the people of Africa. She was gunned down in a secluded park while innocently blowing bubbles for Queen, who at the tender age of 5, witnessed her mother take her last breath in a pool of her own blood. Queen finds herself not only struggling with the unresolved trauma from that day but also trembling under the shadow of her mother’s firesome legacy.
As a difficult child who terrorized authority from a young age, there seemed to be little hope from her family that she would ever make anything of herself. She fell into her prominent position after relentlessly begging to be reassigned from the desk where she was stationed. Granted a single opportunity to prove herself, she was put in the field where she almost single-handedly salvaged a simple mission that went terribly awry. Hiding behind the identity of a simple art dealer, Queen’s restless personality and unusual antics make it almost impossible for her to keep up that ruse, especially when it comes to crucial moments in her personal relationships.
The news of her mother’s convicted killer’s scheduled early release from prison coupled with recurring flashbacks of her mother’s gruesome death, pushes Queen to become obsessed with the true circumstances of that fateful day. Unable to contain herself, she launches her own rogue investigation, without the approval or knowledge of SOG. As Queen’s covert mission progresses throughout the season, we see her tough exterior crack and eventually crumble as she begins untangling the complicated political web of finding out who is behind really the assassination of her mother.
Taking a new direction in female-led dramas, Queen differs greatly from other heroines we've seen in the past.
Moving away from acrobatic and glamorous Charlie’s Angels style fight scenes, Sono’s violent encounters are much more brutal and slightly more realistic. You will not hear a cute high-pitched squeak escape her mouth as her throaty grunts make it sound like she’s actually in a struggle that is pushing her body to its limits. It is also evident that the crew is not cutting after every strike to touch up hair and makeup. With sweat dripping instead of glistening and bright red stripes of blood smeared across her face, she actually looks as if she’s taken a beating.
However, what the show succeeds in progressiveness, it lacks in production quality. Some scenes leave more to be desired when the acting in some of the key scenes tends to just miss the mark with performances that are somewhat underwhelming and unconvincing. Budget constraints and the limitations of a single camera setup costs them a degree of intensity in the action scenes, which is an area where they cannot afford to fall flat in this genre.
The short six-episode first season leaves off in a key moment of escalation with themes of increasing conflict, personal vendettas, national security at an even greater risk, and questioned allegiances. The show has a lot of room to grow in the second season but has set the bar to be bigger and better in its seasons to come.
