Kaleidoscope, Netflix limited series with a gimmick

Cafe Society
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1

I’m gonna say there are spoilers in this thread off the bat, being that this is a Netflix series and most people tend to binge those.

I’ll keep the OP spoiler free.

*Kaleidoscope *is a Netflix limited series that dropped New Year’s day. It’s a heist show, starting Giancarlo Esposito.

The gimmick with this is that the show doesn’t need to be watched in a linear timeline, so for each Netflix profile the episodes are shown in a random order.

The LINEAR order of the episodes is:
Violet - 24 years before the heist
Green - 7 years before the heist
Yellow - 6 weeks before the heist
Orange - 3 weeks before the heist
Blue - 5 days before the heist
White - the heist
Red - the morning after the heist
Pink - 6 months after the heist

Everyone sees White (the heist) last. It’s up to Netflix as to what order you see the others. You CAN choose the order yourself if you want but what’s the fun in that?

I was shown Violet (24 years before) first and IMHO that was great because with the backstory almost everything going forward was very easy to follow. I think I would be lost if I didn’t know what was the deal with Giancarlo Esposito’s character.

I don’t know how much the colors play in to the plot, if at all, but they do play prominently in the episode. Like you notice a lot of violet in Violet, red in Red, etc. I’m sure people with keener eyes will point out some cool things about the colors.

The heist aspect of it was pretty good. The general premise is that there’s a security company with an unbelievably complex secure vault in which billions of dollars in bonds (among other things) are being held. The plan involves beating this system to steal the bonds.

I enjoyed it well enough. A good way to waste 8 more hours of the rest of my vacation. Actually I wasn’t that engaged by the Pink episode that took place after the heist. Some stuff was interesting but I skipped the last 20 mins or so, opting to read the summary on Wikipedia and get to the White episode.

I don’t know if the gimmick was needed. It woulda been fine to see the episodes in any order, not sure how my enjoyment would have changed seeing it in a different order.

Anyone else see it?

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That sounds so fucking cool! I’m starting after dinner as long as I’m still conscious. (Boat drinks). Thank you. Sorry about the f bomb, easier to apologize than correct. I’m wound up.

3

Will be interested to see how well a drunk guy can follow this! :grin:

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Equal parts high and drunk. I love bingeing series!

ETA: maybe Netflix will send me a viewing diary and a dollar!

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Challenge accepted! :blush:

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I don’t remember the title of the episode we saw first (they had to stage a jewel heist to finance the big heist). It was a little too convoluted to hold our interest and we bailed.

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Here’s a link to a gift NYT article about Esposito and Kaleidoscope. I have the show on my to-be-watched list.

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Huh. Mrs. solost told me about this, and the gimmick, so we watched one. I disregarded the gimmick, not knowing about the part I bolded above, and just played the first one we were served up. Which in our case was ‘Yellow - 6 weeks before the heist’. Didn’t realize I was already nonlinear.

Didn’t even know Giancarlo Esposito would be in this. I said, “hey, that’s Gus!..right?” and Mrs. solost, who is far better with faces than I am, said “no, it’s not”. Which had me thinking I was mistaken for a couple minutes. His character in this show is more scruffy and has such a completely different attitude and bearing than his Gus Fring character that he was hard to recognize at first.

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Based on this thread (thanks, @ZipperJJ !), I started watching last night. I was served up the Green episode, so I watched it. I found it to be highly entertaining and am eagerly looking forward to the next episode, no matter what color it might be.

And, yes, the color green is very evident in this episode. In fact, Irish Spring is a prominent prop.

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I finished watching Kaleidoscope last night. Entertaining and, I thought, worth watching.

FTR, however, I did not like the random order of episodes. I was served, in order, episodes #2, 5, 3, and then 1. At that point, I decided to fill in the gaps before the ending, so I chose, in order, episodes 4, 6, 7, and 8. If you decide to watch it, I would suggest watching the episodes in chronological order.

A spoiler question for whoever else has watched the show:

Is Stan the guy who shoots Leo in the ending? And what happened to Judy?

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Answer to half of @Railer13 's question:

It was Salas’ son who shot him. We see the son wearing that tee shirt in the White/heist episode.

12

Ah, yes. Thanks!

13

Just finished watching this, it was very entertaining. The gimmick works for all but the “pink” episode (six months after the heist), that one really does not work without watching MOST of the rest before hand.

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Just finished watching them. I enjoyed them. Very entertaining.

I didn’t mind the order I had them. It got me interested and pulled me into it with each episode giving me a bit more. I could see an argument for Six Months later being last but there are spoilers in the Heist where maybe that doesn’t work as well for the story. Also, the order of my last three were Blue (5 days before), Red (Morning After), Pink (6 months after), and then Heist. That worked well for me.

I do think there were a few loose ends I would have preferred to see explained.

How much did the daughter get for doing this for the triplets? She seems set up in a house and I wasn’t sure if she was working, or the sister was, or what was happening. Plus, who is the father? If that was said, I missed it. Of course, might not be that important.

In my mind, Judy leaves Stan with the money she found. I get that she’s a grifter and a drifter and will find the next mark or partner. Probably had the best survival skills.

I’m not sure what happens with Stan after Judy leaves him. He doesn’t seem to want to do it anymore but also has no way to earn except scams. I don’t see him trying to find Judy. He just didn’t seem to care that much anymore.

I would have liked it to be more obvious who killed Leo. Even with Pink before the White episode, I didn’t remember the t-shirt. Plus, the dad seems really cautious with his son, so a bit surprised he had a gun but okay.

I think I’m annoyed that the FBI agent was killed by the triplets. It doesn’t work for me that an agent was killed, compared to the thieves. The director could be politically motivated to move Nazan to another branch or fire her much easier, imo, than killing an active agent.

Having said those nit picks, I did enjoy it.

Thanks for the discussion!