Flack (TV series)

Flack is a British comedy drama television series, comprising two seasons of six episodes each, in 2019 and 2020.

Premise

Robyn (Paquin), an American PR executive living in London, must figure out how to make the best of bad situations and somehow manage to get out unscathed, clearing up the monumental messes caused by her hapless and selfish clients. Although she is utterly in command of her job, her personal life is spinning out of control.

Cast

Main

Anna Paquin as Robyn, an American publicist living and working in London.
Sophie Okonedo as Caroline, Head of Mills Paulson
Genevieve Angelson as Ruth, Robyn's sister.
Lydia Wilson as Eve, Robyn's best friend and colleague at Mills Paulson.
Rebecca Benson as Melody, an intern at Mills Paulson.
Arinze Kene as Sam, a nurse and Robyn's boyfriend.
Marc Warren as Tom, a ballet dancer.
Rufus Jones as Mark, Ruth's husband.
Andrew Leung as Craig, an IT worker at Mills Paulson

Guest

Bradley Whitford as Calvin Cooper, a veteran director who Robyn reports for child pornography possession
Max Beesley as Anthony Henderson, a celebrity chef embroiled in several cheating scandals
Alan Davies as Dan Proctor, a stand-up comedian filmed making a transphobic outburst after being heckled during his routine
Rebecca Root as Allie Gregs, a transgender stand-up comedian who became the focus of a transphobic outburst from Dan Proctor
Amanda Abbington as Alexa, an actress who baselessly MeTooed a renowned nature presenter and environmentalist to advance her own career
Katherine Kelly as Brooke Love-Wells, a model fronting an anti-ageist advertising campaign photographed with scarring from cosmetic surgery
Sam Neill as Duncan Paulson, Caroline's ex-husband and the co-founder of Mills Paulson
Daniel Dae Kim as Gabriel Cole, an electric aircraft innovator whom Eve briefly dates.
Rebecca Scroggs as Abigail Reese, an entertainment reporter and one of Robyn's former flames
Dinita Gohil as Narinda
Toby-Alexander Smith as Terry
Aude des Pallieres as Sofi Adjani, a temperamental fashion model who assaulted a club patron unprovoked
John Askew as Darren Barron, a Formula 1 driver forced to lie about being infertile after his wife cheated on him with basketball player Kadell James
Sophia La Porter as Roxy Barron, the wife of Darren Barron whose affair with Kadell James resulted in her becoming pregnant

Episodes

Series 1 (2019)

Series 2 (2020)

Release

The first season, starring Anna Paquin, premiered on 21 February 2019.

On 2 August 2019, the series was renewed for a second season. In the UK, the show's website listed the second season as scheduled to run on W that March, before being changed to "Coming Soon". The second season premiered in the UK on 13 April 2020, on W.

The second season was scheduled to premiere on Pop in the U.S. on 13 March 2020, but was removed from the schedule after cutbacks by parent company ViacomCBS. In late March 2020, the first season was made available through the video on demand platforms of Pop's sister network Showtime in the United States, though a confirmation of the network airing the second season has not been made. In June 2020, it was announced that the series would move to Amazon Prime Video for its second season. Series 2 became available for streaming on Prime Video on 10 June 2021.

Reception

On the review aggregator website Rotten Tomatoes, the series holds an approval rating of 73% with an average rating of 6.1/10, based on 26 reviews. The website's critical consensus reads, "Audiences looking for an arsenic cookie of a series may cut Flack some slack, but its cynical take on publicity is exacerbated by hyperbolically unpleasant, underdeveloped characters." Metacritic, which uses a weighted average, assigned the series a score of 58 out of 100, based on 13 critics, indicating "mixed or average reviews".