Gratingly edgy soundtrack, stomach-churning gore, torture, witchcraft, sadism and an indigestible title. The Bastard Son & The Devil Himself sounds exactly the sort of series most of us would wish to avoid.
It’s aimed at young adults (based on a trilogy by Sally Green called Half Bad) and the only reason I was keen to give it a try was that it has been freely adapted by Joe Barton. For my money, Barton is – along with Jesse Succession Armstrong – the most exciting and original screenwriter currently working in TV. His scripts (Giri/Haji; The Lazarus Project) are so engaging, pacy, witty, charming and weirdly unannoying that I bet whatever book he adapted – Klaus Schwab’s Covid-19: The Great Reset; Matt Hancock’s diaries – would instantly be transformed into something riveting.
This one concerns two warring tribes of witches, the goodie-two-shoes Fairborns (whose magic powers tend to involve nice things like making plants grow well and manipulating water) and the more menacing but undoubtedly cooler Bloods who hang out in bars drinking vodka shots.
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