Tom Holland stars as Danny Sullivan (a fictionalized version of Billy Milligan), a man living with Dissociative Identity Disorder (DID) who was arrested for his involvement in a New York City shooting in 1979. Danny is then interrogated by Rya Goodwin (Amanda Seyfried) and slowly gives details about his troubled past that led him to the fateful incident.
Jason Isaacs, Sasha Lane, Lior Raz, Levon Hawke, and Sam Vartholomeos also star as his alters, who Danny initially sees as his friends.
Tropes:
- The '70s: The series is set in 1979 New York city, showcased by the characters hairstyles and clothing which are distinct from the period, along with music.
- '70s Hair: Many characters on the show, since it is set c. 1979. Danny has a shaggy mop, black characters sport dreadlocks, afros and other distinctive hairstyles common then etc.
- Absurdly Youthful Mother: Emmy Rossum played Candy Sullivan, Danny's mother, when he's both a little boy and young adult. Tom Holland plays Danny, who's nine years younger than her. It's somewhat justified as it turns out she had Danny while just seventeen.
- Abusive Parents:
- Danny's stepfather, Marlin Reid, is the one responsible for the poor kid's DID, due to molesting him.
- Danny's birth father was also abusive, his mother later reveals.
- Affectionate Nickname: Ariana is often called Ari by her friends.
- Badass Israeli: Yitzahk is Israeli, and highly skilled in martial arts, easily taking multiple young men down to rescue Danny from them. It's later shown he's proficient using guns too, and probably has a military background (this is the 70s, when Israel just recently fought two wars). He turns out to be one of Danny's alternate personalities.
- Bar Brawl: Danny relates to Rya how he witnessed one as a boy when white racists attacked some black patrons in a bar where his mother worked. He thinks that it marked him afterward, possibly leading to his own violence later.
- Bitch in Sheep's Clothing: Marlin at first seems like a normal man who at worst has a bad relationship with his stepson Danny, while he seems like a caring counselor for juvenile offenders. Soon we learn he's really a serial child molester who abused Danny for years, and it's easy to imagine he abuses juvenile offenders as well, given how much power his position with them must have.
- Blaming the Victim: Candy is afraid she'll be blamed if Marlin molested Danny. Rya assures her she was also a victim, and that predators find vulnerable people through no fault of their own, with this being a tragic occurrence she would never blame her for. This spurs Candy to testify for Danny about Marlin at his trial. Marlin tries to stop her testifying by saying that people will blame her if she says it though. This gets her to deny the abuse on the stand.
- Bungled Suicide: Danny attempts suicide in jail by slitting his wrists after it seems his case has imploded, but survives.
- Butch Lesbian: Downplayed with Ariana, who is actually bisexual but is too afraid to get close to anyone in general. She is seen kissing Annabelle, has sex offscreen with her, and has sex with Jerome, an ex (kind of) boyfriend. Ariana wears her hair in dreadlocks, has a slightly punk style of dress and puts on a tough attitude, but at heart is very vulnerable.
- Casting Gag: Danny is quite out of place in London, being an American who's gone abroad for his very first time. He's played by Tom Holland, who's a native Englishman from London.
- Contrived Coincidence: Lampshaded. It turns out that Ariana's rapist was Danny's stepdad Marlin. Rya points out that a pretty big coincidence to accept, and he agrees. Rya then suggests this was a setup, and Yitzahk manipulated him with Ariana's help. This is because Ariana's an alternative personality of Danny's, and Marlin had molested him.
- Disappeared Dad: Danny lives with his mom and stepdad at first, with no mention of his father. Later he goes off to find him with Yizhak's help. It turns out he wasn't around too much in Danny's childhood, then vanished. Danny goes to track him down in London, his last known address. It turns out that his mother had left as he was abusive. He never appears in the series.
- Dreadlock Rasta: Deconstructed with Ariana. Though her dreadlocks help to signify that she's a bold, carefree, independent party girl, it's soon shown that she's troubled and quite unstable too. She is an alternate personality of Danny's, embodying the aspect which dealt (or tried to) with his fear, pain and loneliness.
- Enlightened Self-Interest: Rya admits her aid to Danny also helps herself, as she could prove DID is a real disorder, getting grant money for research doing so, even using the term.
- Evil Brit: Jack is an Anti-Heroic version of this but ends up spending almost all the last episode taking over for Danny (even
faking Danny's accent to top it off), feeling that he and the rest of the alters are better off in jail. Until Danny manages to find Adam and the other alters turn against Jack. - "Eureka!" Moment: Rya realizes while watching a show with a character who has multiple personalities on TV that Danny might have the same condition.
- Flashback: Several are shown while Danny's relating to Rya prior events in his life (or sometimes also other people's-as she points out, they aren't as certain since he was only told about them).
- Girl on Girl Is Hot: Inverted twice by men interested in Ariana seeing her with women. First, she's with Danny and then starts to kiss Annabelle, a girl he was somewhat into. Annabelle and Ariana later have sex offscreen. Danny appears subdued while it starts and claims he's fine with this later, but definitely not turned on. Later, she kisses a woman in front of Jerome, who's furious about it, hitting them. This was right after she went into the bathroom and had sex with him there. Ariana is really an alternate personality of Danny's though, so it's him (physically anyway) with them, and possibly acting on a fantasy of his.
- Gory Discretion Shot: Danny is not shown slitting his wrists, and there's minimal blood seen afterward too.
- Helpful Hallucination: It turns out Danny has many alternate personalities, with them all trying to help him in some way, though he isn't aware of their true natures at first.
- How We Got Here: The series opens with Danny and Ariana shooting at a man in broad daylight, injuring him along with two bystanders. Afterward, a psychiatrist talks with him in jail, hearing along with viewers what led them there.
- Insane Equals Violent: Danny it turns out has split personalities, and had attempted to kill his stepfather Marlin, with the help of Ariana (who's revealed to be his alter), using the Insanity Defense at his trial as a result. It's successful.
- Insanity Defense: Rya prepares one with Danny's lawyer after determining he has multiple personalities. It's an uphill battle though, as at the time the disorder wasn't widely recognized to be real. The state's expert rejects it flatly ahead of the trial, plus Danny's alters won't come out with people except Rya, which causes the judge to dismiss it as ludicrous. No one has ever won with the insanity defense citing how a split personality committed the crime, it's noted, but they try anyway. It works once the jury hears from Danny.
- Love Triangle: Danny is clearly attracted to both Annabelle and Ariana. The two have sex together first, with Danny unaware Ariana was inviting him to join until later. It turns out to be something partly imaginary, as Ariana's an alternate personality of Danny's.
- Making Love in All the Wrong Places: Ariana has sex with Jerome in a restroom stall of the club where they meet. Later it's revealed this was actually Danny, as Ariana's an alternate personality of his, we find out.
- No Celebrities Were Harmed: Just as Danny Sullivan is based on Billy Milligan...
- Jack Lamb is based on Arthur, down to stuffy British accent.
- Yitzhak Safdie is Ragen Vadascovinich almost down to the T.
- Ariana is a nicer version of Adalana, without all the raping and is first seen as Danny's best friend.
- Danny himself may be taking after one of Billy's alters with the same name, as he is often seen drawing and painting.
- Danny's brother Adam is revealed to be nothing more than his own child personality, mainly taking after David.
- Marlin Reid is Chalmer.
- Once More, with Clarity: The segments shown from Rya's point of view reveal so many things Danny told her before weren't what actually happened. For instance, multiple people he spoke of were really just alternate personalities of his.
- Papa Wolf: Just like the alter he was based on, Yitzhak doesn't take too kindly to those who would dare threaten the people under his protection in any way, whom he takes a fatherly attitude with.
- Parent with New Paramour: Danny wasn't too pleased when his mom had started dating Marlin years after his dad left. After they married, he and Marlin got only quite poorly. It turns out to be because Marlin was molesting Adam, his twin brother (or rather, Danny himself).
- Playing Sick: The state's psychiatric expert witness claims Danny is faking his DID, as he says this isn't a real disorder, hoping to get off on the charges against him with the Insanity Defense.
- Plea Bargain: Stan, Danny's lawyer, tries to make a plea bargain with the prosecutor where he would plead guilty to a misdemeanor then get treatment in a hospital, but she rejects the idea immediately.
- Promiscuity After Rape: Ariana has intimacy issues as a result of being raped. Whenever she's into anyone enough to have sex with them, this makes her withdraw. She has gone from one person to the next quite frequently because of this. It's revealed she's one of Danny's alternate personalities, representing how he deals with emotions (in this case, having his twin brother sacrifice himself, being molested instead of him by their stepfather).
- Queer Establishing Moment: Ariana shows she's bisexual through making out with Annabelle in front of Danny before the two have sex offscreen. Then she also flirts in a club with another woman, goes off to screw Jerome in a restroom stall and kisses her in front of him afterward. Annabelle's difficult to read, since she possibly was just going along with Ariana when she's high, or is bisexual as well, since she's into men otherwise. Ariana turns out to be one of Danny's alternate personalities, though it still counts perhaps, as this would indicate he's got bisexual and genderfluid personal aspects. It appears Jerome thought Ariana was a trans woman, and he'd entered a relationship with her that way. Also, it's revealed another alter, Jonny, was a man also attracted to men, having sex with Angelo frequently.
- Rape and Revenge: Ariana decides to scare her rapist off with a gun, so he'd never come for her. Danny helps, then it turns into her trying to shoot him dead. It turns out she's an alternate personality of Danny's, and he was targeting Marlin, his stepfather, for molesting Adam, his twin brother.
- Rape as Backstory: Ariana was raped by a friend of her dad's. It's all we learn of her past, and key to her issues in the present. It turns out she's an alternate personality of Danny's, and part of how he deals with his emotions over his twin brother Adam being molested. Then it's revealed Adam was just another of his alters, and Danny is the one who'd suffered this.
- The Reveal: Ariana, Yitzhak, Jack, Adam and others are Danny's alternate personalities. Of course, this won't be surprised to anyone familiar with the real story that it's based on.
- Sexual Extortion: Danny gets a gun from a drug dealer, Angelo, although he's nearly coerced into a blowjob at gunpoint as payment by the guy (he won't accept just money), before Jonny stops it.
- Sexy Discretion Shot: Ariana starts kissing Annabelle before the scene cuts, then it's confirmed on the next day that they had sex. We later learn she's an alternate personality of Danny's, and thus he (physically anyway) is the one who'd been with Annabelle.
- Sibling Murder: Rya begins to suspect Danny murdered his brother Adam, among other people. It turns out Adam is one of his alters.
- Split Personality: Danny has Disassociative Identity Disorder (DID), then (1979) labeled Multiple Personality Disorder (MPD), with at least seven other personalities (alters).
- Split-Personality Merge: By the end of the series, Danny's undergone fusion therapy to merge his split personalities with him.
- Stern Old Judge: The judge in Danny's case is an older black man who is gray-haired, gruff and will brook no nonsense from anyone, scoffing when Rya can't back her assertion of Danny having split personalities up at first.
- Survivor Guilt: It turns out Stan was in Vietnam as an officer, losing many of the men he commanded, and blamed himself. Rya counsels him not to after hearing this, telling him that bad things happen no matter what (especially in wars and other situations) which an individual can't be blamed for.
- Teen Pregnancy: Candy gave birth to Danny at seventeen, we eventually learn.
- Through the Eyes of Madness: Much of the events in the series it turns out really didn't happen as we're first shown, as several characters are Danny's alternate personalities, with this only shown to be the case after going over them again.
- Twofer Token Minority:
- Ariana is a bisexual black woman. It turns out she's an alternate personality of Danny's however, though he could be considered also as having bisexual and genderfluid aspects due to this, along with being mentally ill.
- Jerome is a gay black man whom Danny (as Ariana) was involved with, and he discusses how navigating his identifies has been very difficult at times.
- Very Loosely Based on a True Story: The show is inspired by Billy Milligan, a convicted rapist and thief whom psychiatrists diagnosed with disassociative identity disorder after he was charged with further rapes. He was acquitted by using this in an Insanity Defense, the first acquittal of the kind. It's also suspected that he had murdered two people at least in his life. Danny's crimes are pretty different, but shares Milligan's DID (though his alternates are distinct). The location's also changed, moving from Ohio to New York.
- Where Everybody Knows Your Flame: Ariana visits a night club that's queer friendly, with women there openly seen flirting or dancing together. She and another woman there flirt before kissing. It turns out she's an alternate personality of Danny's, who was having sex with Jerome in there.
- Your Makeup Is Running: Ariana is shown wearing heavy eye makeup which runs when she cries multiple times.
