The Flack Netflix trending drama has been quietly making its way up the platform’s charts, with the London-set dark comedy now sitting at number 7 in the most-watched TV content on Netflix. Both seasons of the Anna Paquin-led series are available to stream, and viewers are clearly discovering what critics already knew.
Created by Oliver Lansley, according to Wikipedia, Flack follows Robyn (Paquin), an American PR working in London who is sharp, resourceful and almost supernaturally effective at managing the crises of her entitled celebrity clients. In her personal life, however, things are considerably messier. Robyn is struggling to process the loss of her mother, who died by suicide, while her relationship with her boyfriend Sam (Arinze Kene) deteriorates under the weight of her grief.
A cast built around complicated women
The ensemble around Paquin is a strong one. Sophie Okonedo plays Caroline, Robyn’s boss. Genevieve Angelson plays Ruth, Robyn’s sister, with Rufus Jones as Ruth’s husband Mark. Lydia Wilson takes on the role of Robyn’s best friend Eve, and Rebecca Benson portrays the office intern Melody. The late Sam Neill appears as Duncan Paulson, Caroline’s ex-husband and co-founder of the PR firm at the heart of the show.
It is a cast that critics have consistently praised for leaning into the chaos. Season 2 earned particular recognition for being a ‘remarkably entertaining and fully female-focused series’ that allowed its leads to be ‘messy and problematic on their own terms’, according to Culturess. Brioux.tv put it more bluntly of the first season: ‘As guilty pleasures go, however, the series is all in.’
From cancellation to comeback: the road to Flack Netflix trending
The series has had an unusually complicated path to the screen. The first season premiered on 21 February 2019, per Wikipedia. A second season was filmed, but as TV Series Finale reported, Pop cancelled the show before those episodes ever aired. Amazon subsequently picked up the second season, which eventually premiered in the UK on 13 April 2020, on W, according to Wikipedia.
That backstory gives the show’s current Netflix moment a certain poetic quality. A series that nearly never had a second season is now attracting a fresh wave of viewers years after those episodes were finally released.
What the critics made of both seasons
On Rotten Tomatoes, the first season is Certified Fresh with a critic score of 74% from 27 reviews. Season 2 holds a perfect 100% from 5 reviews. The numbers are modest in volume but consistent in enthusiasm.
TIME Magazine described the first season as ‘insightful’ about the entertainment industry and ‘the most fun I’ve had watching TV in months’. The Globe and Mail called it ‘delightfully cynical, but sometimes bittersweet, funny and occasionally outright brilliant’. The second season attracted similarly warm notices, with ArtsATL hailing it as a ‘guilty pleasure’, even while flagging some ‘overly snarky dialogue’ that occasionally risks undermining the show’s sharper instincts.
The throughline across both seasons is the willingness to let its characters be genuinely difficult. Robyn is not an antihero in the traditional prestige-drama mould; she is someone who is very good at one thing and quietly falling apart at everything else, and the show does not soften that tension into easy resolution.
For viewers who like their comedies to carry a little weight alongside the laughs, Flack delivers. For those who just want to watch well-dressed people in London make questionable decisions on behalf of even more questionable celebrities, it delivers that too.
Both seasons of Flack are currently streaming on TV Series Finale‘s long-tracked series, and available in full on Netflix now.
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