Anya Taylor-Joy is no stranger to essaying the role of an underdog on TV—after all, she brought chess prodigy Beth Harmon to life with a quiet but fierce (and Emmy-nominated) determination in 2020’s The Queen’s Gambit. Six years later, the actor draws from a similar well of emotions for her latest limited series, Lucky. Their circumstances might be wildly different, but there’s a certain kinship between Beth and Luciana “Lucky” Armstrong: They’re both savants who have to keep proving themselves against all odds. It makes Taylor-Joy a natural fit for Lucky. But she can only do so much to overcome the series’ tiresome repetitiveness.
In Lucky, loosely based on Marissa Stapley’s 2021 novel of the same name, Taylor-Joy plays a skilled scamster caught in the crosshairs of career criminals, a dogged FBI agent who is always two steps behind, an untrustworthy father, and a suspicious husband. As Lucky tries to outrun a cavalcade of bad choices (some made by her; some by her loved ones), she’s forced to go through a cat-and-mouse chase that quickly goes from thrilling to get-this-over-with. Here’s an incomplete list of places Lucky has to plot her escape from, lest she be shot to death by one of the aforementioned pursuers: A Las Vegas casino, a barn, a convenience store, a bus station, a stranger’s home, and a beach house. Give the girl a break!
Despite a cool Fiona Apple theme song, an exciting pace, and thrilling action sequences—especially in the premiere directed by Shōgun’s Jonathan van Tulleken—Lucky struggles overall because it doesn’t adhere to the “show, don’t tell” formula. So much of its story is tied to relationships whose surface is barely scratched, like Lucky’s marriage to Cary Masterson (Drew Starkey); Cary’s connection with his mob boss mom, Priscilla (Annette Bening); or why Priscilla became the white whale of Agent Billie Rand (Aunjanue Taylor-Ellis). The shallow narrative dulls the impact of the show’s several shockers—and also of Taylor-Joy’s performance, which feels infrequently forced. Burdened with communicating all the missing context solely through Lucky’s duplicitous work, the star can’t help but overact at times.
The same problem plagues other members of the ensemble, including the always-welcome Taylor-Ellis and Bening. At least the latter gets to have fun as a seemingly dangerous, unpredictable mafia queen; Taylor-Ellis is stuck in an irksome, one-dimensional role that hardly gives her space to show off her dramatic chops. Both of their characters have the same, mistaken motivation for tracking down Lucky: They think she’s fled with $10 million stolen from Priscilla’s notorious boss (played by William Fichtner). What they don’t realize initially is that Lucky has no idea where the cash is, because her beloved spouse has absconded with it, leaving her all alone to deal with this mess.
Well, not entirely alone. The only person guiding Lucky (through the phone and as a voice in her head) as she flits between various hiding spots is her imprisoned father, John (Timothy Olyphant). The nitty-gritty of this father-daughter dynamic is where Lucky shines; the miniseries has plenty to say about nature-versus-nurture, and if it’s possible for kids to correct their parents’ mistakes. Lucky and John have a tight-knit bond because he raised her on his own and taught her his scheming ways from a young age. However, as Lucky attempts to leave that life behind and dares to dream of normalcy, the show successfully pores over the challenges of evading your own past and sins—a subject leading to loud tête-à-têtes between Taylor-Joy and Olyphant that stand as some of the show’s most explosive, well-earned scenes.
Clearly, Lucky throws a lot at its main character and at the audience, which makes it compelling but also tedious, much like series creator Jonathan Tropper’s other Apple TV drama, Your Friends And Neighbors. For most of the show’s run, Lucky is busy trying to stay one step ahead of Priscilla and Billie, find Cary, get John out of jail, and start anew; this tasks Taylor-Joy with undergoing a number of changes in appearance and demeanor, whether it’s by tricking a truck driver who can get her character out of the police’s way or lying to a helpful woman whose home provides a temporary safe haven. Lucky digs herself out of one hole only to be caught in another deeper one, and on and on it goes.
Perhaps the premise was better suited for a two-hour movie, instead of seven 45-minute episodes of meandering TV. In a lot of ways, Lucky is emblematic of how a lot of recent streaming adaptations of literary thrillers (Disclaimer, His & Hers, and Imperfect Women come to mind) have had to pad out their source material to reach miniseries length, diluting their own potential in the process. Lucky does that, too, but at least it comes with a propulsive start, a charming antihero in Olyphant, and that killer Fiona Apple track.
Saloni Gajjar is The A.V. Club‘s TV critic.
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