History Series / Maniac2018

Annie Landsberg (Creator/EmmaStone) and Owen Milgrim (Creator/JonahHill) are the subjects of a shady pharmaceutical trial. She struggles with relationships — [[DysfunctionalFamily namely with her mother and sister]] — while he's the scion of a wealthy New York family who [[AmbiguousDisorder may or may not be schizophrenic]].

* TrappedWithTheTherapySession: Combined with UncomfortableElevatorMoment in the final episode: Mantleray and Fujita end up sharing an elevator with a badly-burned lab technician on his way to the infirmary. Eventually, the silence gets too much for Mantleray and he starts discussing his relationship with Fujita, including the hysterical blindness he briefly suffered as a result... and in the background, the still-smoldering technician can be seen trying valiantly to ignore the conversation, until at last the doors open and he makes a break for it.
* UncomfortableElevatorMoment: Mantleray and Fujita end up unexpectedly sharing an elevator with a badly-burned lab technician from one of the other floors. But despite the fact that the poor man is quite clearly still smoldering and the two scientists are actively edging away from him, this isn't the awkward part: the ''really'' uncomfortable moment arrives when Mantleray decides to discuss the state of his relationship with Fujita, resulting in the technician giving him some very funny looks - before hurriedly making a break for the infirmary as soon as the doors open.

* TrappedWithTheTherapySession: Combined with UncomfortableElevatorMoment in the final episode of ''Series/Maniac2018'': Mantleray and Fujita end up sharing an elevator with a badly-burned lab technician on his way to the infirmary. Eventually, the silence gets too much for Mantleray and he starts discussing his relationship with Fujita, including the hysterical blindness he briefly suffered as a result... and in the background, the still-smoldering technician can be seen trying valiantly to ignore the conversation, until at last the doors open and he makes a break for it.

Annie Landsberg (Creator/EmmaStone) and Owen Milgrim (Creator/JonahHill) are the subjects of a shady pharmaceutical trial. She struggles with relationships —[[DysfunctionalFamily namely with her mother and sister]]— while he's the scion of a wealthy New York family who [[AmbiguousDisorder may or may not be schizophrenic]].

* AllPartOfTheShow: Invoked example. At the very end of the program, the test subjects awaken from their final cathartic dreams - only to find themselves in the aftermath of [[spoiler:the GRTA's death: the lights are flickering on and off, most of the electronics are offline, and medics are hastily patching up wounded orderlies. Despite all the obvious problems, Mantleray plays it off as though everything has gone perfectly, and given that only Owen and Annie know of Gertie's insanity, most of the subjects are forced to take him at his word in the absence of any other option.]]

* AndYouWereThere: Once Owen and Annie move onto the second round of tests, characters in their scenarios are often modeled on people they encountered in the real world - however briefly.

** Played for BlackComedy later in the same scenario during the showdown at the motel: Owen's police contacts end up getting shot by Jed, spraying Owen with blood and leaving him clearly paralyzed with fear; then the family consigliere bursts in and blows Jed in half with a shotgun, absolutely ''showering'' Owen with blood - much to his exasperation.

** Dr Muramoto is eccentric, volatile, and eventually revealed to be freebasing a mixture of the A and C pills. [[spoiler: Plus, he's actually been carrying on an affair with Gertie.]] Despite his addiction, he remains mostly effective in his line of work, and shares a surprisingly insightful discussion with Annie concerning the nature of addiction and guilt. [[spoiler: Unfortunately, his addiction eventually ends up killing him.]]
** Dr Mantleray suffers from extreme MommyIssues, a self-defensive ego problem, and is a chronic masturbator with a technology-related paraphilia. Nonetheless, he's responsible for much of the project's current fixtures, from the therapy to the GRTA. However, his personal problems eventually got him kicked out of the project, and he's only allowed back [[spoiler: when Muramoto dies.]]
** Next to them, Dr Fujita seems positively normal, apart from her chain-smoking habit, fear of the outside world, and worrying predilection for modifying the project without the consent of those involved [[spoiler: including programming the GRTA with empathy behind Mantleray's back and sneakily copying his mother's brain.]]
* TheCameo: In the last episode, Annie's shut-in father turns out to be played by [[spoiler:Creator/HankAzaria.]]
* CassetteFuturism: The setting is a modern-day alternate reality that appears to have branched off in the early 1980s. The Internet doesn't appear to have been invented and computing technology looks stagnant with small monochromatic displays running programming that looks like a Commodore 64 using old 5 & 1/4" floppy disks. However, what's achieved by these computers often far exceeds our current abilities. There are sanitation robots collecting trash on the street, chess-playing koala robots, and an ArtificialIntelligence computer with the ability to scan, download and manipulate the human brain. There's also a more immersive, yet graphically ancient form of VirtualReality.

** Greta, a celebrated pop-psychologist with a particular emphasis on human relationships, made a complete hash of raising her son - to the point of lying in his bed and discussing her desire for suicide with him when James was only ''eight.'' Even when given a chance to reconnect with him, Greta refuses point-blank in favor of going on tour to promote her newest book. [[spoiler: Also, she has James blacklisted in the pharmaceutical industry.]] For good measure, when given an opportunity to treat the GRTA - an AI directly modeled on ''her'' personality - Greta fails so miserably that Gertie is able to turn the psychoanalysis on ''her'' instead.
** James has created a drug-based treatment that could theoretically make conversation-based psychotherapy obsolete; unfortunately, by the start of the series, he's been kicked off the program due to a boatload of personal problems he's unable to solve on his own. Worse still, he's created an artificial intelligence with personality problems that the treatment couldn't possibly solve - [[spoiler: and through a moment of thoughtless insensitivity, he ends up driving her into a fit of chronic depression that nearly costs the lives of everyone in the program.]]

* CreepyTwins: The GRTA's avatar in the scenarios is often accompanied by a pair of eerily-silent blonde twins. [[spoiler: It turns out that they're actually [=McMurphys=], previous test subjects who've been left effectively brain-dead in the real-world as a result of the trials, living on in the dreams as Gertie's puppets.]]
* CriticalPsychoanalysisFailure: Downplayed example. In the face of the GRTA's worsening depression, Greta Mantleray is brought in at the supercomputer's request in order to treat her; however, upon actually meeting her patient in the dream world, Greta's professional exterior begins breaking down very quickly, especially when Gertie points out that the depression she's suffering from is actually a direct copy of Greta's own deeply-hidden personal problems. Alarmed and upset, Greta descends to the level of openly insulting her patient - only for Gertie to turn the session around and start psychoanalyzing ''her''. Freaked out, Greta ends the session and scarpers, [[spoiler: prompting Gertie to throw her out the window]].
* DealWithTheDevil: In the fantasy scenario, Gertie offers [[spoiler:Annie the chance to live on in the dreamworld and abandon reality forever; having just been reunited with Ellie in the dreamworld, Annie accepts the offer almost immediately, being too afraid of loss to give up her sister again. However, it turns out that remaining in contact with Ellie wasn't part of the deal. Worse still, the deal would have almost certainly have resulted in Annie suffering critical brain damage in the real world and living on only as one of Gertie's entourage - if she hadn't ended up getting drawn back into contact with Owen in his final scenario.]]

** Next to them, Dr Fujita seems positively normal, apart from her chain-smoking habit and worrying predilection for modifying the project without the consent of those involved [[spoiler: including programming the GRTA with empathy behind Mantleray's back and sneakily copying his mother's brain.]]

* InNameOnly: The only thing this series has in common with the Norwegian series it's supposedly based on is hallucinations that pastiche different genres. Everything else, from how these hallucinations work, to why they're happening, to where and when the two shows take place, is different. None of the characters from each version has counterparts in the other version, either.

* NotSoDifferent: Greta and James Mantleray. James makes a big thing of pointing out that most of Greta's treatments are over-marketed shallow pop-psychology platitudes that only end up ManufacturingVictims; however, he himself makes ludicrously grandiose claims of how his treatment can induce "unadulterated joy," even though at least two people have become addicted to the pills used in the process - ''and'' several more people have been left permanently catatonic by the method.

* AlternateUniverse: It's set in modern times, but it is not our reality. As said by a narrator ([[spoiler: Mantleray]]) over the first scenes, ''Hypothesis: All the worlds that almost were are just as important as the world we're in.''

** Owen discovers the truth of his first C scenario when he tries to [[DrivenToSuicide jump out to window]] - only to discover that the street below is just a scale model populated by miniatures.

** When Owen and Annie peak into the other test subjects' final scenarios during their elevator trip through the GRTA's complex, they make very little sense and give no hint as to what kind of catharsis they might offer.

** The A pill brings back the user's worst'memory, allowing the treatment to eventually target the source of their trauma. Unfortunately, the trial requires the test subjects to relive the events of these memories first: most of them are extremely upset... except for Annie, who's been addicted to 'A' for quite some time and knows all about the symptoms, and Owen, who didn't take the pill at all - though Dr Muramoto later finds out and makes him retake the test. Owen responds with barely-repressed tears.

* ShoutOut: Mantleray and Fujita refer to catatonic patients as "[=McMurphys=]," referring to the main character of ''Literature/OneFlewOverTheCuckoosNest'' and his ultimate fate.

* YourWorstNightmare:
** Variation. The A pill brings back the user's worst ''memory,'' allowing the treatment to eventually target the source of their trauma. Unfortunately, the trial requires the test subjects to relive the events of these memories first: most of them are extremely upset... except for Annie, who's been addicted to 'A' for quite some time and knows all about the symptoms, and Owen, who didn't take the pill at all - though Dr Muramoto later finds out and makes him retake the test. Owen responds with barely-repressed tears.

* LivingEmotionalCrutch: Annie and Owen become this to each other.

* AllPartOfTheShow: Enforced example. At the very end of the program, the test subjects awaken from their final cathartic dreams - only to find themselves in the aftermath of [[spoiler:the GRTA's death: the lights are flickering on and off, most of the electronics are offline, and medics are hastily patching up wounded orderlies. Despite all the obvious problems, Mantleray plays it off as though everything has gone perfectly, and given that only Owen and Annie know of Gertie's insanity, most of the subjects are forced to take him at his word in the absence of any other option.]]

* HalfTheManHeUsedToBe: In the crime scenario, Jed ends up being literally shotgunned in half by the crime family's consigliere; not only do we get to see his upper torso slide off his legs as he slumps to the side, but we get a lovely lingering shot of the guy's disemboweled torso lying in the jacuzzi.
* {{Homage}}: The visual style of Annie's fantasy sequence is obviously taken straight from the ''Film/TheLordOfTheRings'' film adaptation. Annie lampshades that the scenario is based on the fantasy stories that Ellie liked so much.

* StressVomit: Owen suffers one of these very early on; having been pushed to the very limits of his composure by being forced to testify at his brother's trial, running out of money ''and'' losing his job to a long-term furlough, another onset of hallucinations sends him sprinting for the nearest toilet.

* ActionGirl: Annie's incarnation in the science-fiction scenario; over the course of her time on screen, she frees Owen from captivity, guns down several dozen "Inner Demons", and casually {{Waif Fu}}s numerous others into submission.
* AIIsACrapshoot: The GRTA (AKA "Gertie"), the AI controlling NPB's trials, begins experiencing critical breakdowns that threaten the lives of the test-subjects, some of whom have already ended up comatose as a result of Gertie's interference. [[spoiler: It's revealed that this is partly due to being a direct copy of Greta Mantleray's mind - with all the insecurities included in the package - but also due to her personality being modified to include empathy: because of this, she fell in love with Dr Muramoto, and lapsed into chronic depression when he died as a result of his drug addiction.]] After trying and failing to seek psychiatric assistance, she ultimately resorts to outright sabotaging the project in an attempt to keep the scientists and test subjects with her, [[spoiler: forcing Mantleray and Fujita to shut her down.]]
* AlasPoorVillain: [[spoiler: Gertie's final descent into madness and forcible shutdown is played very much for tragedy, and after the reveal of just how depressed she really is, it's hard not to feel sorry for her. By the time they've finished unplugging her, both Mantleray and Fujita are in tears.]]
* AllPartOfTheShow: [[spoiler: Enforced example. At the very end of the program, the test subjects awaken from their final cathartic dreams - only to find themselves in the aftermath of the GRTA's death: the lights are flickering on and off, most of the electronics are offline, and medics are hastily patching up wounded orderlies. Despite all the obvious problems, Mantleray plays it off as though everything has gone perfectly, and given that only Owen and Annie know of Gertie's insanity, most of the subjects are forced to take him at his word in the absence of any other option.]]

* {{Angrish}}: Snorri Argnarsson, Owen's final character, begins losing his grip on coherent speech during his account of Ernie the Alien's death, reducing him to tearfully whimpering barely-audible gibberish into his microphone, then bawling incomprehensible answers at the top of his voice.
* AnimalMotifs: Owen is often associated with hawks, having rescued one when he was younger; during the pre-trial testing session, he instantly associates an image of a hawk with the concept of justice; during one of the later scenarios, he actually transforms into a hawk in his attempts to find Annie; last but not least, [[spoiler: an injured hawk is seen riding after him on a rogue cleaning robot during the final episode.]]

* AxCrazy: Owen's father in the crime fiction scenario, here incarnated as a psychopathic mob boss with a fetish for murdering people with an electric drill - all while ecstatically screaming the different sections of the brain he's drilling.

* BigBrotherBully: Jed Milgrim. On top of being generally overbearing and loud-mouthed, he's also willing to threaten Owen in order to get him to lie at his trial, and then sneeringly pass it off as a joke.

* BrainUploading: The GRTA is essentially Greta Mantleray's brain uploaded into an AI, to the point that her designation is clearly a diminutive of "Greta" - though the staff refer to her as "Gertie."

* TheCameo: [[spoiler: In the last episode, Annie's shut-in father turns out to be played by Creator/HankAzaria.]]

* CharacterTic: Mantleray is frequently brushes or flips the bangs of his wig out of his eyes. Fujita is frequently pushing her NerdGlasses up her nose.

* ChekhovsSkill: Owen is in the habit of obsessively working on a Rubik's cube when anxious. [[spoiler: In the final scenario, the machine that can unlock the lab doors in the real world comes equipped with a Rubik's cube, meaning that Owen is the only person who can operate it and give Mantleray a chance to stop Gertie.]]
* CigaretteOfAnxiety: Fujita smokes like a chimney, which both adds to the retro ambiance of the setting and establishes her as high-strung.

* ADateWithRosiePalms: Mantleray is caught masturbating in virtual reality pornography.
* DealWithTheDevil: [[spoiler: In the fantasy scenario, Gertie offers Annie the chance to live on in the dreamworld and abandon reality forever; having just been reunited with Ellie in the dreamworld, Annie accepts the offer almost immediately, being too afraid of loss to give up her sister again. However, it turns out that remaining in contact with Ellie wasn't part of the deal. Worse still, the deal would have almost certainly have resulted in Annie suffering critical brain damage in the real world and living on only as one of Gertie's entourage - if she hadn't ended up getting drawn back into contact with Owen in his final scenario.]]

* FemmeFatale: Annie's character Arlie in the séance story plays into the type.

* FunctionalAddict:
** Annie is addicted to the A pills, but has so far managed to keep herself relatively stable despite her ongoing attempts to avoid withdrawal; in fact, most of her problems are more due to depression than anything else.
** Dr Muramoto is also addicted to the pills and still manages to function over the course of his duties. However, it's clear that Dr Fujita worries that he's getting closer to an AddledAddict: he recently has begun to spend hours slumped over his desk in a stupor, he reportedly responded to a missing bottle of pills by having "a mini-stroke," and he's actually started freebasing mixtures of different pills. [[spoiler: Taken to it's logical conclusion when Muramoto unexpectedly drops dead as a side-effect of long-term drug abuse.]]
** Owen - albeit only in the crime fiction scenario, in which he requires pills from the family consigliere in order to sleep and continue his work as a police informant.

** In the Long Island-based episode, Owen's and Annie's characters rescue a lemur named Wendy from some crooked furriers. In the final episode, Annie signs into the asylum where Owen is being held by pretending to visit [[CallBack "Wendy Lemuria]]."
* FreudianExcuse: Mantleray invented a mind-bending drug treatment to try and cure mental illness without therapy, because his abusive mother is a famous therapist.

* GenreSavvy: Annie uses a method of breaking Owen out of the mental clinic that she saw in a movie, so she knows it works.

* {{Jerkass}}: Jed is a smug, violent bully without a single redeeming feature to his name.

* ManicPixieDreamGirl: Annie as Lin from the lemur story has shades of this; after their zany adventure, her relatively straight-laced husband tells her he loves her for how much excitement she brings into his life. Almost completely averted with the real Annie - while the reclusive Owen would be a classic MPDG target, Annie is a fleshed-out character with her own dramatic arc.

* NerdGlasses: Fujita wears an owlish pair of spectacles right out of the 1980s.
* NiceJobBreakingItHero: Arguably the ''real'' trouble begins when Mantleray somewhat bluntly admits to Gertie that [[spoiler: Dr Muramoto is dead]]; what ensues is a massive case of depression that threatens the lives of everyone in the project.

* PlatonicLifePartners: Owen and Annie seem to be going in that direction.

* SciFiBobHaircut: Fujita sports one.

* ShrinkingViolet: Owen in a nutshell; quiet, lonely, lacking confidence, and often drowned out by people more self-assured than he is, he rarely ever speaks up for himself unless he's been badgered to the point of a breakdown. In what might be construed as a bit of subconscious wish-fulfillment, his characters in the various scenarios are far more outgoing - including a happily-married man, a gentleman thief, a gangster-turned-informant, a hawk, and an assistant diplomat dealing with a First Contact scenario. Dr Mantleray diagnoses him as suffering from "perpetual cowardice," among other things.
->'''Owen:''' What's wrong isn't that I'm sick... it's that I don't matter.
* SolidGoldPoop: In Annie's fantasy scenario, she's escorting an Elf princess in exchange for precious diamonds. However, when Annie tries to renegotiate for at least eight more, the princess remarks that doing so would be immensely painful: she ''urinates diamonds.''

* TattooedCrook: In drug scenarios where Owen is a gangster, he sports tattoos.
* TemporaryBlindness: The stress of the trial going awry and of dealing with his mother sends Dr. Mantleray into a bout of hysterical blindness. “[[LargeHam I AM BLINDED BY MY MOTHER’S TOXIC LOVE!]]”
* ThisIsADrill: During the crime fiction scenarios, Owen's father executes debtors with an electric drill. For good measure, he gets very sour when the drill battery runs out just as he's about to get started.
* TryToFitThatOnABusinessCard: Owen's character in the final scenario, Snorri Agnarsson, he is referred to as the Temporary Administrative Adjunct Assistant to the Consulate of Iceland, and the diplomat announcing him sounds exasperated just ''saying'' the title. However, the impressive nature of the trope is subverted in that the use of it is meant to indicate limited importance, demonstrating just how far down the totem pole Snorri was up until he discovered Ernie the alien.

* UncomfortableElevatorMoment: Mantleray and Fujita end up unexpectedly sharing an elevator with a badly-burned lab technician from one of the other floors. But despite the fact that the poor man is quite clearly still smoldering and the two scientists are actively edging away from him, this isn't the awkward part: the ''really'' uncomfortable moment arrives when Mantleray decides to discuss the state of his relationship with Fujita, resulting in the technician giving him some very funny looks - before hurriedly making a break for the infirmary as soon as the doors open. [[SugarWiki/FunnyMoments It's the over-the-shoulder glance that really sells it.]]
* TheUnFavourite: Owen is the only Milgrim family member not to appear in the family portrait; a tiny photo of him is hanging on the wall by its side. Presumably it’s because the artist went on a trip before he could finish, but the subtext is clear.
* VillainousBreakdown: Jed has a small one in the lead-up to his trial. [[spoiler: He has a much larger one during the trial when Owen confesses that he is lying under oath and tells the jury that his brother really is guilty. Jed has to be restrained by guards from trying to murder Owen.]]
* WhatTheHellIsThatAccent: In Owen's final trial, he plays the part of Snorri Agnarsson, an Icelandic diplomat with a silly accent. He says that his parents came from a variety of European countries, which explains why his accent is so peculiar.
* WigDressAccent: Appears in the final scenario; Snorri Agnarsson is easily the most outlandish of Owen's characters, equipped with a borderline-hysterical personality, a ridiculous accent, and a particularly ghastly mop of blonde hair. Fittingly enough, once the simulation breaks down and allows Owen to remember his true identity, he drops the accent... and soon discovers that his hair is just a wig, which he removes to reveal his ''real'' hair underneath.

* YourWorstNightmare: Variation. The A pill brings back the user's worst ''memory,'' allowing the treatment to eventually target the source of their trauma. Unfortunately, the trial requires the test subjects to relive the events of these memories first: most of them are extremely upset... except for Annie, who's been addicted to 'A' for quite some time and knows all about the symptoms, and Owen, who didn't take the pill at all - though Dr Muramoto later finds out and makes him retake the test. Owen responds with barely-repressed tears.