Christine Diamond

Fun series. Sad to learn there won't be a season 2.

Andra Day's performance as both an actor and a singer was impeccable and the music was amazing. I felt transported to another time and experience. Interesting take on Lady Day's loving, brutal, tortured, and heartwrenchingly complicated life -- slicing as an emotional pendulum through the sometimes jarring, sometimes seductive, always tragic, drug-addled, FBI-harrassed journey of the beautiful, charismatic, jazz legend. I can see how some felt it was hard to follow at times. I thought so, too, but I just went with it and let it flow like a work of art, and then it worked. For example, I winced at some of the sex scenes for their impersonal usery, but if I'd turned away during one particular scene, i'd have missed how it gently transitioned into love making. Likewise with the montages that took us back through her childhood as Jimmy got to know the surprisingly courageous woman behind the music. The sequence was confusing at first, but how else could they show her origin story and the inconsolable horror of the events that inspired Strange Fruit. It had to be done poetically. All-in-all, an artistic and moving take on an important story with beautiful music.