Bonding Season 1 Review

April 29, 2019 at 3:56am
By Jason Stettner

This is a Netflix Original Series that focuses on the bond of two individuals that have a connected path, and their cooperation together in the world of bondage. Tiff (Zoe Levin) is a New York grad student that has been moonlighting as a dominatrix. She decides to list her close, gay friend from high school to be her assistant. His name is Pete (Brendan Scannell), though he does get a special name when they’re working together. I’ll let you discover that if you watch it, it’s funny to see happen.

He’s someone that’s down on his luck, and basically aims to reconnect with a person that he was close to in the past. Tiff also carries a special title, as Mistress May and this is generally a dark comedy that takes the style of BDSM to fresh heights of humor. It presents some bizarre scenes, fetishes as to say and tries to add some light hearted comedy to it.

The show can actually be rather funny from time to time, it was mostly strange to me. I can see that the content presented in Bonding may make some uncomfortable, or just give you some awkward vibes and that’s somewhat the point of this.

One of the weak points here is that the show is relatively fast paced, there’s not much of a calm for anything to sink in. This is due to the limited number of episodes, and the very short run times. It seems like certain concepts are showcased, but not enough time is spent exploring them.

I desired a little more in regards to seeing these two individuals interact. They had some funny scenes, side stories and a little dive into relationships. It just felt so rushed at every point, like the show was racing towards an end. I wasn’t too blown away by the narrative either, I didn’t find it too enticing. The concept itself is fine, definitely a chatting point and perhaps why this one will gather attention.

It’s easy to watch with this short style, but you’ll be left feeling as though there could have been more or what you viewed didn’t sink in due to how quick everything developed. It’s just wild to see the two sink into this line of work naturally, find partners and then move forward. It didn’t feel very natural in terms of a time line.

The Conclusion

Bonding Season 1 can be quite funny, the material is very awkward in nature and it’s just alright overall. It goes through things far too quickly, racing towards its set conclusion. That in itself was very strange, didn’t get much of a build-up and just sort of happened. There was a minor connecting tease prior, but it felt sudden. The highlights were definitely when the two were out of their comfort zone during their work.

Mistress May obviously had some more confidence having enticed her friend Pete to join in. Levin is actually quite great in this season. There’s definitely some strange sexual content here, so you’re again warned to expect weird stuff. You see folks showering others, various weird costumes, a penguin wrestling session and some perhaps unsafe BDSM elements. There’s not really a disclaimer, but best to be careful when aiming to emulate anything shown. There was also some rope type play, servants of absolute usefulness and so many strange moments.

This is not your typical Netflix Original series, prepare for the unexpected and be surprised all of the time with this one. I didn’t hate it, I got some laughs from it, though generally I wasn’t blown away by it. It’ll probably be something I forget, aside from it sparking the occasional conversation as someone will mention it.

Bonding Season 1 Review at Home with Streamed Viewing
Content Access was Provided by Netflix

Rating Overall: 5.2