Lizzie Caplan and Joshua Jackson are taking on the iconic roles played by Glenn Close and Michael Douglas in the original Fatal Attraction. The series turns director James Deardon’s 1987 erotic thriller into somewhat of a murder mystery series as two timelines slowly reveal more and more about what happens.
Unfortunately, as has been the case with a lot of streaming shows lately, the release schedule for Fatal Attraction is a little complicated.
Slight spoiler alert if you haven’t seen the film or watched at least the first few minutes of the first episode of Fatal Attraction, taken from BBC we know that each episode builds suspense over Alex Forrest’s death and who, if anyone, killed her.
You’re going to be left wanting more every week! Who did it? Was Dan innocent? Why is his college-aged daughter teaching me so much about 20th-century Swiss psychiatrist Carl Jung?? Lots to ponder in this limited series.
When Are New Episodes Of Fatal Attraction Released?
Sundays! You can stream them on Paramount+ and ward off the Sunday scaries. It’s good to remind yourself before the work week to avoid getting entangled in work relationships. They don’t always end this badly, but still… I do not advise.
How Many Episodes Of Fatal Attraction Are Out?
The first three episodes dropped on April 30. Sorry if that means you’re already behind! We get a little miniature binge, and then it’s one episode per Sunday for the next few weeks. There are eight episodes in total in this limited series.
When Is The Fatal Attraction Finale?
The final two episodes will be released on May 28. Think of it like an old-school two-part finale with all the twists and reveals you could ask for.
So, just to recap, we have:
- Episodes 1-3 on April 30
- Episode 4 on May 7
- Episode 5 on May 14
- Episode 6 on May 21st
- Episodes 7 and 8 on May 28
What’s The Critics Said?
The Guardian wrote that Fatal Attraction redux is an archetypal 2023 watch, in that it thinks it’s serious but is actually just a schlocky deep dive into a can of worms. It’s tonally uneven, bulked up with Jungian filler, still ultimately all about the man, not as sexy as the original, and, on its own terms, just as sexist.
Motifs from the original run through the series like a suited and stressed Michael Douglas rutting his way through the end of the last century. The bunny doesn’t get boiled but is still kicked by Alex and called the C-word.
There’s an in-joke about Dan not minding there is no bathtub in his new place because bathtubs can be a bit creepy, which is as tasteless as it sounds.
Other references work, such as the dropping of Alex’s famous line, “I am not going to be ignored, Dan,” into a voicemail like a bomb. But mostly they feel like distractions from the truth that Fatal Attraction remains as it ever was: a story about a man undone by a supposedly “mad” woman.
The series is directed and partly written by women who said they wanted to give the story back to Alex. But Caplan isn’t on-screen nearly enough, and her malign influence is even posited as the trigger for another young woman, the Gallaghers’ daughter Ellen, going bananas in the bizarre climax.
The transplanting of genres, from erotic thriller to detective-mystery-meets-legal-procedural, traduces Alex further. She becomes a mystery to be solved; a body, rather than a severely mentally ill, isolated, and dangerous woman. Don’t know if it’s possible, or even worthwhile, to remake Fatal Attraction from Alex’s point of view. But I do know that it hasn’t happened here.
