The Serpent is about a narcissistic sociopath, whose vanity allowed him to think that he could get away with murder. He started taking pleasure in slipping out of the grasp of the authorities time and time again to display his intelligence to the public. Though the first two episodes are slow, the plot gains momentum in the third episode. The show, overall, is an interesting watch.

“Based on real life events”; whenever this ominous message pops up on screen at the start of a show or movie, we know that we are in for an experience that would be scarier and more messed up than anything a few writers in a writers’ room can drum up from their imaginations. The Serpent – the newest addition to Netflix’s ever growing repertoire – is one such show. Based on real life murders committed by the slippery Charles Sobhraj on the hippie trail in Asia, in the 1970s, it is a reenactment of how Sobhraj used his charm and seductive powers of persuasion to lure in unsuspecting hippie tourists all over Asia. He would poison them and then, under the guise of nursing them back to health, would drug them further until they were too weak to fight back. He would then proceed to rob them of their money, valuables and passports, killing them in the process. He would fool the already negligent authorities using forged passports of his victims as he and his accomplices would travel out of the country to throw off the scent of the missing tourists. The authorities would put the deaths of these drowned, poisoned or burnt up victims down to freak accidents, labelling the poor souls as unidentified.

In The Serpent, Sobhraj doesn’t just use his charm to trap tourists; his two accomplices are also his victims, of sorts. The deplorable Ajay, Sobhraj’s right hand man, happily performs the tasks Sobhraj considers beneath him. Ajay finds a particular joy in lying to and murdering the victims, all the while hero-worshipping Sobhraj and blindly following his lead. Then there is the complex Marie Andrée Leclerc, Sobhraj’s girlfriend, whom he keeps around to make the Anglo-Saxon tourists feel comfortable by feeding her dreams of living in Paris with their many children. Leclerc, who seems to be in a state of Stockholm syndrome, aids Sobhraj in fooling his victims and turns a blind eye to his heinous actions.

Sobhraj’s murder spree goes unnoticed by the police until he kills a Dutch couple and the crime catches the attention of a Dutch diplomat, Herman Knippenberg who, along with his wife Angela, realises that people meeting Alain Gautier, a rich gems dealer, and his wife Monique (the aliases Sobhraj and Leclerc used to con their victims), are turning up dead within a few days. Thus begins the cat and mouse game between Knippenberg and Sobhraj, culminating in a satisfying end, albeit one that is long dragged out.

The story of the show comes from real life accounts of the would-be victims and the major players in the show. For better or for worse, it is a character-driven show. Charles Sobhraj (played by Tahar Rahim) is described as enormously charming and seductive. However, he comes off as endlessly deadpan and cold, making the audience feel disconnected from him and making his unflappable nature feel very grating. What makes him interesting is how he kills as a means to an end, as opposed to other serial killers, who usually kill for the sake of killing. His past experiences as an unloved son and a constant victim of racism in France, fuel his anger and explain his need to be in control. His adversary, Herman Knippenberg, on the other hand, is supposed to be a leader in his own right, methodically gathering evidence against Sobhraj and not giving up until Sobhraj is taken in custody. But, the actor playing him lacks the gravitas and Knippenberg comes off as a petulant man-child with an obsession with Sobhraj, like a dog with a bone, who ultimately blows up his own personal life.

The women in the show are far more interesting characters than the men who drive the story. Leclerc slowly comes out of the spell cast by Sobhraj, as the series progresses, and starts questioning her position in his life and how she got so deep into a mess that she didn’t want to be in. Angela Knippenberg (now Kane), is the calm behind her husband’s wayward storm, keeping him in check while doing a lot of the grunt work in his investigation. The real hero of the show, Nadine Gires, who is Sobhraj and Leclerc’s neighbour in Bangkok and the wife of a French sous chef, takes it upon herself to bring Sobhraj to justice for the atrocities that he has committed, after helping one of Sobhraj’s victims escape. She enters the lion’s den as a double agent to gather the evidence that ultimately makes Sobhraj the target of Interpol and results in his arrest.

Despite its weaknesses when it comes to characterisation, the show does a stellar job of telling the story. It shows the horrors of Sobhraj’s murder spree, while illuminating how the negligent and irresponsible authorities not only repeatedly ignored the murders but, when presented with evidence, asked an untrained person to carry out the investigation. It truly puts into perspective the time-consuming paperwork and the channels one has to go through to figure out what really happened after somebody dies while travelling. The victims’ families might as well have given up without a closure. It also shows the authorities in Third World countries as inherently corrupt and irresponsible, although the lapses may have been due to a lack of resources.

The writer is a dentist who practices in Lahore.