This is a message for anyone who opens the Netflix app today and is greeted by an image and trailer for Who is Erin Carter, the newly released 7-episode crime thriller that most of you probably don’t know anything about outside of maybe seeing it prominently displayed on your homepage carousel. My message is that I urge you to either click play immediately or at the very least add this show to your watchlist for later — especially if, like me, you were a fan of Kurdish-Swedish actress Evin Ahmad in her previous Netflix project, Snabba Cash.
Like Who is Erin Carter, Snabba Cash was another under-the-radar Netflix crime series, and it featured Ahmad playing a hungry entrepreneur who gets too close to Sweden’s criminal underworld. She brings some of that same energy to her new Netflix project, a limited series from the producers of The Crown starring Ahmad as a British substitute teacher living in Barcelona and which is currently the #1 English-language Netflix series in the world.
Erin Carter has what looks like a picture-perfect life, complete with a loving husband and a young daughter. Until one day, that is, when she gets caught up in a violent robbery at a local supermarket. One of the robbers recognizes her, and everything quickly unravels from there. She can clearly fight and defend herself, for example, a lot better than you’d expect from a schoolteacher. This is a woman with a past, something Ahmad is so great at conveying — always hiding a world of mystery behind her dark and penetrating eyes.
“When I first came on board for this project I myself was wondering that,” Ahmad said in a Netflix promotional interview. “Who is Erin? How should we develop her, and how shall I play her?
“I have never actually seen a woman like this in a show before. When you see female action characters, it’s mostly in a sci-fi context, but Erin is a seemingly normal woman who knows how to fight really well. She obviously has a past which she tries to hide, but I think she’s ultimately a person who wants to do right … There are multiple sides to Erin, which I really enjoyed playing.”
A beautiful woman with a mysterious past, gorgeous international locales, pulse-pounding scenes — what’s not to like? Who is Erin Carter is perfect for fans of Netflix dramas, particularly crime thrillers like the TV shows You, Snabba Cash, and perhaps Wrong Side of the Tracks. I’m very much hoping the streamer’s homepage carousel works its magic here and greets as many subscribers as possible with the new show, because in my opinion Who is Erin Carter has the potential to be a sleeper hit.
In the meantime, here’s what else I’d recommend watching on the streaming giant after you’ve finished with the tightly-paced first season of Who is Erin Carter:
- Ganglands: In this bloody and brutal French-language Netflix series, a skilled thief and his team of robbers are pulled into a turf war in order to protect his family from a powerful drug lord.
- Kleo: Like Who is Erin Carter, Netflix’s German-language spy drama Kleo boasts a fantastic female protagonist in the form of a top Stasi agent who carries out a mission to liquidate someone in a nightclub. Soon after, she reels from a devastating betrayal and scrambles to find out who or what was behind it.
- My Name: These next two Netflix series likewise feature strong female protagonists. My Name is a bloody revenge saga set in Korea. After seeing her father killed, a young woman played with mesmerizing ferocity by Han So-hee turns to a crime boss for help and then enrolls in the local police force (making this plot ever-so-slightly reminiscent of Scorsese’s The Departed).
- Snabba Cash: As mentioned above, Snabba Cash is a must-watch for fans of Who is Erin Carter, as it also stars Ahmad, and Netflix summarizes it as follows: “The lives of an ambitious businesswoman, a charming gang enforcer, and a troubled teen collide amidst a desperate — and sinister — pursuit of wealth.”
- Wrong Side of the Tracks: In this Spanish-language drama, an embittered war veteran who hates the way drug dealers have infiltrated his neighborhood sets out to reform his impressionable granddaughter after she gets tangled up with them.
