funny, engaging, and very dark

Rating: 8/10 (20 June 2018)

This dark comedy follows the devious machinations of various communist leaders after Stalin has a heart attack. This is political humor with bullets, as the plotting goes on amidst a backdrop of torture, assassination, and mass arrests.
The cast is excellent, particularly Simon Russell Beale as a Dick-Cheney-like monster and Andrea Riseborough and Rupert Friend as Stalin's sharp-witted daughter and hilariously bonkers son.
The series paints a portrait of a strange world where people are in awe of and terrified by Stalin; even people he unjustly arrested and tortured seem genuinely enamored of him. It's weird, but there's apparently an element of truth to it, perhaps because Russians so loved their revolution that they couldn't hate the part of Stalin they associated with it.
But the series clearly isn't interested in historical accuracy. When I saw the "historical accuracy" section in the wikipedia entry for this film I was surprised to think there was any at all (there's a *little*, although some Russian scholars seem to really hate the movie).
Highly recommended.