Allegedly based on Marguerite Bennett and Arash Amel’s 2015 graphic novel of the same name, Butterfly stars Daniel Dae Kim and Reina Hardesty as David and Rebecca, an unlikely duo trained in a particular set of skills. As described by Prime Video, “Butterfly is a character-driven spy thriller that explores complex family dynamics within the treacherous world of global espionage.”
Forced to contend with Juno (Piper Perabo), David’s ex-business partner and Rebecca’s employer and stand-in mother figure, her entire organization, and her contracted hitman, Gun (Kim Ji-hoon), David and Rebecca spend the six-episode first season on the run when they can and fighting when they have to. Complications abound.
Disclaimer: The following review contains spoilers for Butterfly Season 1.
Butterfly Season 1 – Image Credit: Courtesy of Prime VideoPrime Video’s Butterfly
Butterfly borrows the bones of its narrative from the Bennett and Amel four-issue comic series, but beyond a similarity between the opening operation and the David-Rebecca connection, the plot, setting, and characters are pretty much original to the series. Even the title’s meaning is lost to the adaptation process. In the graphic novel, it’s Rebecca’s codename, just as David is known as Nightingale. In the series, the term “Butterfly” refers to a game they played together when she was little.
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Yeah, when she was a child. The key element retained from the source material is that David is Rebecca’s father, presumed dead nine years previously, because he let everyone think he’d been killed. Everyone. Including Rebecca, whose mother died when she was even younger. So she’s understandably confused and upset to discover that he’s alive. And married. And has a new daughter.
Butterfly Season 1 – Image Credit: Courtesy of Prime Video
The other key understanding is that before he “died,” David ran a covert ops company, Caddis, with Juno (Piper Perabo). His skills are legendary. In his absence, Juno raised Rebecca alongside her own son, Oliver (Louis Landau). By the time David comes for Rebecca, she’s Caddis’s top asset. Oliver, not so much. And now that Caddis’s role in selling American military secrets to the highest bidder is coming to light, there are many bridges to burn.
Sting Like a Bee
Butterfly Season 1 does the action-thriller thing really well. Its fight and pursuit scenes are paced and shot to maximum effect. There’s breakneck intensity and a high baseline anxiety level throughout. Rebecca, David, and Gun leave an impressive body count in their wake. There are several satisfying explosions, timed to perfection.
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It’s the “character-driven” piece that never sits quite right. There are many relationship threads intersecting throughout the plot. David and Juno’s history twists Rebecca up between them. Oliver and Rebecca have a deep-rooted animosity borne of rivalry for Juno’s respect. David and Rebecca’s reunion is confounded by his wife, Eunju (Kim Tae-Hee), and child, Minhee (Nayoon Kim). Juno and Oliver can’t figure out what they need from each other as mother and son who also work together.
Butterfly Season 1 – Image Credit: Courtesy of Prime Video
The central tension of the series lies in Rebecca’s potential mental instability, borne of the trauma of losing her parents and nurtured by Juno’s training. In less than subtle hints planted throughout the first two episodes, her unparalleled proficiency is tied to probable psychopathy. Prime Video’s series synopsis describes her as a “deadly, sociopathic young agent.” Her instinct to kill first, find a reason to later, is significantly disturbing. Enough so that anytime she spends time with her new little sister, Minhee, the apprehension for the child’s safety is palpable.
Family Feels
While we’re talking about her, Minhee is a blatant emotional ploy. Rebecca isn’t the only danger David brings into his eight-year-old child’s life. This begs the question of why he’d try to bring Eunju and Minhee along with him and Rebecca as they flee Juno, Gun, and Caddis. As we learn in Episode 4, “Pohang,” Eunju’s family is more than capable of keeping her and Minhee safe until he and Rebecca have settled things. Keeping Minhee literally and constantly in the line of fire is a deliberate plot choice that I personally came to resent by the series finale.
Butterfly Season 1 – Image Credit: Courtesy of Prime Video
There are clever moments threaded through Butterfly Season 1. Rebecca and David bond a bit over their “cooking” lesson. Hitman Gun’s weapon of choice is a blade. There’s a brilliant running visual joke involving Juno and what appears to be a self-imposed diet. The punchline moment is quite glorious.
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However, the series fails to stick the landing in its final moments. Rather than respecting the groundwork laid over six episodes, it chooses to pull an ambiguous and horrifying plot twist out of thin air. David’s faith in the good in people and the world — a flaw Juno specifically refers to — is paid back with tragedy. One can only assume a second season would show what David “living in reality” looks like.
Butterfly Season 1 is now streaming on Prime Video.
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Diana lives in Vancouver, BC, Canada, where she invests her time and energy in teaching, writing, parenting, and indulging her love of all Trek and a myriad of other fandoms. She is a lifelong fan of smart sci-fi and fantasy media, an upstanding citizen of the United Federation of Planets, and a supporter of AFC Richmond ’til she dies. Her guilty pleasures include female-led procedurals, old-school sitcoms, and Bluey. She teaches, knits, and dreams big. You can also find her writing at The Televixen, Women at Warp, TV Fanatic, and TV Goodness.
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