One of the strongest arguments in favor of television’s streaming-heavy landscape is the format’s accessibility. Streaming platforms allow curious audiences to discover the immense wealth of foreign series that exists, and Netflix, constructive critiques about prematurely canceled programs and overpriced subscription costs aside, remains a leader in that regard. The company’s multi-million dollar partnership with Korean studios has demonstrated consistent success and shows no signs of slowing down, but Korea isn’t the only country Netflix has invested in.
The past several years have seen a rise in German-language Netflix originals — the critically acclaimed sci-fi thriller Dark ran for three seasons, and The Empress was recently renewed for an upcoming third season. As for movies, Netflix partnered with Rat Pack Filmproduktion to produce the breakout hit Blood Red Sky, a vampire action thriller, and 2023’s underrated World War II action epic Blood & Gold. Germany’s newest Netflix limited series, Cassandra, also hails from Rat Pack as well as writer-director Benjamin Gutsche. Fusing elements of sci-fi, horror, psychological thriller, and women-focused family dramas of decades past, Cassandra is quieter than the company’s films but still a sleek, ambitious limited series with plenty of meat on its bones — and given our current time, it doubles as a primal, intentionally discordant scream of female rage.
What Is ‘Cassandra’ About?

After a tragic incident in their old city home, the Prill family — mother and sculpture artist Samira (Mina Tander), father and crime fiction author David (Michael Klammer), 17-year-old Fynn (Joshua Kantara), and pre-teen Juno (Mary Amber Oseremen Tölle) — needs a fresh start. Their new house requires significant elbow grease after sitting untouched for 50 years, but it also has an indoor pool, so really, everything balances out. Even more perplexing than the pool, however, is the basement’s antique computer system. The realtor just happened to exclude the fact that the Prills have purchased a 1970s smart home run by Cassandra (Lavinia Wilson), a household service robot who quickly awakens from her five-decade slumber. Tall, red, and topped with a television screen broadcasting a woman’s face, Cassandra cheerfully dubs herself the family’s “fairy godmother.”
Certainly, she can perform all those annoying, menial tasks — washing the laundry, mowing the lawn, brewing the morning coffee — but things feel ominous from the moment Cassandra casually runs over a mouse and leaves a trail of blood and crunched bones throughout the house. She showers effusive attention upon the children, appreciatively eyes a naked David, and resentfully critiques Samira’s every move. Even though the tense situation rapidly escalates into active threats and physical harm against Samira’s person, her family doesn’t believe Cassandra’s intentions are nefarious; the lonely Juno draws comfort from Cassandra after yearning for her working parents’ busy attention, and David just believes his wife’s already strained mental health is crumbling into hysteria. Left at the mercy of a mama bear robot with complete control over their surroundings and hell-bent on eliminating her so-called rival, Samira must unearth the truth about what happened to the house’s former residents — especially the mother and wife, who bears a remarkably unsettling resemblance to Cassandra.
‘Cassandra’ Is a Psychological Thriller With Social Bite

Image via Netflix

To say Cassandra hits the ground running is both an understatement and a compliment. Pacing can easily make or break a series’ potential, and it remains a notoriously tricky element to navigate in today’s era of truncated episode counts. At six episodes (all of which were provided for review), Cassandra runs the same risk of losing its promise or compromising important emotional beats in its corporate-mandated rush to reach the finish line. Thankfully, this series stops to breathe between plot points, imparting important character insights via quiet conversations without sacrificing the tension always simmering offscreen. As the greater mystery unspools, the series’ science fiction elements facilitate its commentary on how rigid gender roles can poison everyone’s lives, not just women — but women are still the ones whose truths, desires, and lives die upon the altar of male hubris.

Related

You’ve Never Seen an AI Movie Like This Maika Monroe Netflix Horror

It takes an evil human to create an evil AI.

Admittedly, even Cassandra’s excellent pacing doesn’t leave enough room for a truly profound or new excavation of these themes. Just because it’s been said before, however, doesn’t make the topic less relevant or timely. Approximately half the series unfolds in flashbacks explaining Cassandra’s origins and the fate of her human avatar, a 1970s woman of the same name who chooses her stay-at-home lifestyle over a professional career. She claims that motherhood and domesticity satisfy her own needs. But what remains of Cassandra the individual when she loses those defining tethers? The men in her life (one a controlling, machismo adulterer, the other a bullied and insecure teen) propel her through insult to tragedy to abandonment. Determined to survive, she seizes what seems like autonomy only to be dehumanized and forced to smile through heartbreak — and her stability snaps. Cassandra the human and Cassandra the AI both make selfish, horrendously chilling choices that dip into full-tilt horror out of an overwhelming need to dull her piercing sorrow and fill an irreparable emotional void.
Samira, meanwhile, finds herself trapped inside a domestic thriller with a husband who dismisses her fear, intuition, and lived experiences as nonsense. Unlike most domestic thrillers, the main threat against Samira comes from another woman instead of David, yet a cage closes around her all the same — and it’s a different kind of tragedy that Cassandra’s pain ultimately pits her against someone who could, in another circumstance, have been an empathetic shoulder to rest upon.
‘Cassandra’ Is a Riveting Thrill Ride Grounded in Motherhood and Love

The number one rule upon which good horror is predicated is having likable protagonists. To that end, the Prills feel like a real family, one with a complex history and able to fracture when their vulnerable bruises are pushed, but overwhelmingly loving. The easy and comfortable chemistry between the four actors underscores their camaraderie and lends their separation the gravity it requires, especially for the poor children caught in the shrapnel of the adults’ contention. Tander’s Samira is an empathetic and grounded force to Klammer’s David, who means well but misses the forest for the trees, while Kantara and Tölle are utterly delightful as Fynn and Juno. Fynn, an openly gay teen boy, is confident and unapologetic in his identity but weary of adjusting to a new school filled with bigoted classmates, and his budding, smitten-at-first-sight relationship with a closeted fellow student (Filip Schnack), is handled with deft care. Tölle’s Juno is perfectly sweet, sincere, and bubbly, which, in turn, makes her vulnerable, scarred softness all the more heartbreaking.
Appropriately enough, however, Wilson is Cassandra’s ultimate scene stealer. As the human Cassandra, she personifies lithe elegance on the surface while her tumultuous insides roil with virtually every shade of despair, fury, and pain even an affluent white woman can endure. As the unhinged, vicious, and heartbroken Cassandra projected onto the television screen, one almost expects her to unhook her jaw like a snake ready to devour her prey — or let loose a neverending scream into the unfair night. Her morally dubious choices are meant to discomfit, and ultimately, we’re meant to understand them as an empathetic tragedy. Given the series’ underlying themes, one can’t help but wonder if Cassandra intentionally references the mythological figure of the same name who prophesied the truth, raised alarms, and was silenced for it. Cassandra the series, meanwhile, is heard loud and clear.
Cassandra premieres February 6 on Netflix.

Cassandra

Netflix’s new limited series Cassandra is a sleek sci-fi-horror thriller that doubles as a primal scream of female rage.

Release Date

February 6, 2025

Network

Netflix

Pros & Cons

Cassandra’s gender commentary might not be a new revelation, but its message remains chilling and timely.
The series makes time for its characters without sacrificing its psychological tension.
The cast’s performances are riveting, with Lavinia Wilson as a powerful and tragic stand-out.