One of the things that distinguished the South African Netflix thriller Fatal Seduction from other steamy erotic thrillers is that it leans more heavily on the sex than most, while throwing in as many twists and turns as it can in its 30-40-minute episodes. The show is back for a third season, taking place three years after the events of the second season.
FATAL SEDUCTION SEASON 3: STREAM IT OR SKIP IT?
Opening Shot: Highlights of the first two seasons, where Nandi Mahlati (Kgomotso Christopher) meets and has lots of sex with Jacob Tau (Prince Grootboom), and the tragic circumstances it led to.
The Gist: We then see someone falling into a pool from a great height, and Jacob trying to go in after the woman. A pendant sinks to the floor of the pool, looking a lot like the one Jacob gave Nandi.
A few days earlier, Nandi is talking to her therapist Sandra (Lorcia Cooper), three years after her entanglement with Jacob and what she calls “the Vilakazi mess.” She feels she’s in a great place, and that the men in her life, including Jacob, her ex-husband Leonard (Thapelo Mokoena) and Leonard’s brother Vuyo (Nathaniel Ramabulana), “don’t hold any weight” for her anymore.
In the meantime, Vuyo finds himself in prison, preaching the gospel to his inmates. When he sees Diamond Mabaso (Andrian Mazive), a thug he busted when he was a cop, transferred to his ward, he fears for his life. Phone calls to his contacts on the outside, and even an appeal to the warden don’t help. So he attacks the warden in order to get solitary confinement. He ends up being attacked in his cell, but all of this may be part of a bigger plan.
In the meantime, Nandi and Leonard’s daughter Zinhle (Ngelekanyo Ramulondi) is at her first crime scene as a police forensic analyst. She ends up subduing a suspect she hears at the scene, and her mentor, Detective Captain Thuso Dube (Thando Thabethe), tells her to carry a gun. Little does Zinhle know that Thuso is sleeping with Leonard, and Leonard has asked Thuso to look out for his daughter.
Nandi has a flirtation with Lunga (Stevel Marc), a fellow law professor. When she mentions to Sandra that she doesn’t want another “scandal,” Sandra points out that she’s still wearing the pendant Jacob gave her, so perhaps Jacob is still on her mind. Nandi denies it, but when she sees Jacob jogging as she drives home, she follows him.
What Shows Will It Remind You Of? As we mentioned during its first season, Fatal Seduction reminds us of the Netflix series Obsession.
Our Take: Despite two seasons of overly complex situations where Nandi more or less barely escaped with her life and freedom intact, there is every indication that she’s going to let Jacob back in her life, and things again won’t go well.
Will the machinations of this season be as complex as the scenarios presented in the first two? Maybe. If you don’t recall the last two seasons, it’s probably because their conclusions were so convoluted.
But let’s be real: We’re not even sure if the story has to make any sense. The episodes are short and they move quickly, with plenty of opportunities for steaminess. Those may come in scenes where Nandi is fantasizing about Jacob, or flashbacks where she recalls how she felt when she and Jacob had sex. Or there could be sex between other characters. Nothing is implied, because the purpose of this show is as much about being steamy as it is about anything else.
We’ve been critical of shows that have traded character for steaminess before, and we don’t think that’s the case here. We know who the main characters are: Nandi thinks she’s more virtuous than she is, Leonard is thoroughly corrupt, Zinhle is trying to overcome the tragedies in her life, Jacob is more cunning than he lets on and Zuyo is mostly a hero, though he also has some deceitful moments here and there. But the entanglements they get into between sexual encounters tend to be more confusing than entertaining. While it would be nice if the story was more cohesive, it’s certainly not the reason why this show exists.
Performance Worth Watching: Kgomotso Christopher infuses Nandi with an integrity that the character doesn’t really have on paper. And she can act out an orgasm like nobody’s business.
Sex And Skin: Lots and lots and lots.
Parting Shot: After spying Jacob having sex with someone else, Nandi gets in her car and cries, knowing that it’s impossible for her to forget about him.
Sleeper Star: Ngelekanyo Ramulondi’s character Zinhle isn’t a vulnerable teen anymore, and how she was able to subdue the suspect at the crime scene she was examining indicates she won’t be messed with this season.
Most Pilot-y Line: It feels like for every bad memory Nandi has about Jacob, where she calls him a psychopath, she has about ten sweaty, orgasmic memories of her time with him, so it’s pretty obvious where things are going to go.
Our Call: SKIP IT. At this stage of Fatal Seduction‘s existence, it feels like creator Steven Pillemer and his writing staff are creating scenarios to build around steamy sex scenes. And while the sex scenes are fun, the story doesn’t really hold out interest anymore.
Joel Keller (@joelkeller) writes about food, entertainment, parenting and tech, but he doesn’t kid himself: he’s a TV junkie. His writing has appeared in the New York Times, Slate, Salon, RollingStone.com, VanityFair.com, Fast Company and elsewhere.
