If you are like me you are always looking for something interesting to watch on TV. Netflix is promoting it’s new limited series with the following summary: “A filmmaker heads to Hollywood in the early ’90s to make her movie but tumbles down a hallucinatory rabbit hole of sex, magic, revenge, and kittens.” You have my attention.

I’m going to be discussing the series pretty thoroughly, so if you haven’t watched it A) I encourage you to stop reading and go watch it, then come back. We’ll have cake and punch when you return. B) Mind the spoilers and enjoy the discussion. (Don’t tell the A folks I lied about the cake and punch.)

In the 1990’s, Lisa Nova has directed a short film called “Lucy’s Eye”. Her goal (intention) is to not only get the film made as a major movie, but to set herself up as a proper Hollywood director. Her set intention seems to be working when a producer takes a chance on her and buys the rights to the film. However, he has his own goals, and after rebuffing his advances, suddenly she’s out as the director.

What follows is a fever dream of allegory and a cautionary tale for setting your intentions clearly. Lisa meets the mysterious “Boro” (Played by the excellent Catherine Keener, whom I also loved in “Being John Malkovich”. ) A mystic with a penchant for cats and surrounding herself with the undead. Boro offers Lisa what she wants most, namely gaining her film back, and getting revenge on the person who wronged her.

She does this by inducing a price to the magick, in this case, Lisa throws up live kittens, which are promptly recovered by Boro’s minions, who seem to know where Lisa is at any given time. It’s a powerful image, the manifestation of magick’s cost and the receiver’s willingness to pay the cost. What’s interesting is at one point, seeing what the curse is doing to Lou and his family, Lisa asks to call off the curse, to which Boro refuses and gives her a shrug and says “You break it. You bought it.” It’s a powerful reminder, and echoes to me of the advice in magick I learned long ago “Do not call up what you cannot put down.” At one point, rightfully so, Lisa tires of throwing up kittens, so Boro makes an adjustment for her payment. Suddenly Lisa is giving birth to kittens from her side. Another reminder of “Be careful what you wish for”. (She goes back to puking kittens, it’s all about choosing the lessor I suppose.)

I enjoyed the principles of magick that can be applied to the series, when Lisa learns of a spell that can show you the location of your enemies, she takes it upon herself to initiate the ritual…going in blindly without knowing all the steps required. Which sets up a race against time as the poison she ingested begins to kill her. We have an introduction to both sex magick and blood magick to complete the ritual, which is not something you see openly talked about in a series or movie.

The overall theme I got from the show was that Lisa had the power inside her the entire time to enact change. Indeed, had she trusted her own power, she would have saved herself a lot of heartache. It’s a powerful lesson. In the end, Lisa gives up on what she thinks was important, power, revenge, notoriety, fame…and walks away from all of it, to go back to what she dreams of at night. I really enjoyed the show, and while it won’t be for everyone…it’s worth a look, especially if you liked the anthology “Channel Zero.”