Netflix’s Kaleidoscope Order Recommendation – Quick PSA: if you are looking for a little bit of advice on how to watch Netflix’s new show Kaleidoscope, I’m here for you. This is a spoiler-free zone. You can read this from top to bottom, and get advice on how to choose how to watch the show. Trust me, you are going to want to make choices before you hit play. Okay?
Readers of THiNC. know just how much I enjoy it when show/movie creators play with the format and try new things. Single site films (or as I call them, closed box movies – here’s a list), single shot films (My favorite of which is Victoria), and everything in between. But Netflix has tried to push the envelope more than any other in the technological presentation of shows and movies. For example, who can forget the crazy, choose your own adventure, style of Netflix’s Black Mirror episode Bandersnatch? And now, Netflix has released Kaleidoscope, an innovative show that is delivered to the viewer in a scrambled, completely random, fashion. And by random I mean – everyone gets the order of the episodes differently. Literally.
It’s a given that you should watch the show – it’s an awesome bank-heist film, filled with shady characters, double crosses, and amazing actors. Oh, and by the way, its scrambled premise! Well, today, we are going to go through a few of the various orders that are possible, and I’ll give you my own personal favorite, plus a few others to intrigue you for re-watch potentials as well!!
Normally, my posts are SPOILER FILLED CHAOS for anyone that hasn’t watched the show. But today? I’m trying to do my readers a solid. I want to help you make a decision on how to go forward in deciding how to watch the show. Normally, I really don’t want anyone in my posts that haven’t already seen the movie. But this one is weird, in that I know that you are going to want help from a reliable source that will give you the best way to watch the show for your first time through. And trust me, there are okay ways to watch through… and then there are fantastic ways to watch through. There are through-lines and character arcs that you want to keep the drop from happening until the last moment… and there are others that just don’t matter. And so I’ll help you select the right way to watch.
Kaleidoscope Random Order: The way the show is supposed to be watched is the order in which Netflix randomly delivers the episodes to you. Well, it’s not 100% random. Black will always come first (which isn’t an episode, but rather a little primer on how the show works), and ends with white, and in between, all the rest of the episodes (Red, Orange, Yellow, Green, Blue, Violet, Pink). Honestly, everyone is served up the show intentionally randomly, your order is different from mine. Pretty cool. So, yeah, let the cosmos decide for you… and watch it randomly. If you are a putz! hahah.
Kaleidoscope Chronological Order: For the artistically challenged, and those who want the least effort in deciding, but don’t want fate to choose for you… go with the chronological order. And that is easy to do yourself, because the time frame of the episode is in the title. The one caveat being, that the two episodes after white, still need to go before The Heist. So it would look something like this:
- Violet: 24 years prior
- Green: 7 years prior
- Yellow: 6 weeks prior
- Orange: 3 weeks prior
- Blue: 5 days prior
- Red: Morning after
- Pink: 6 months after
- White: The Heist
Now, You obviously could watch it in real chronological – blue, white, red, pink… true chronological order, but I wouldn’t recommend it. Let’s just leave it at that.
Kaleidoscope The Standard Approach: Now, if edited in the standard, Hollywood approach, I’m betting this would be the order in which they would have laid them out for the viewer… and if that more standard approach seems interesting to you then follow this path… I can’t really explain why this is “standard” without spoiling it. But think Ocean’s 11… right? The team forms, they move the plan forward, backstory is explained, sort of an approach. Fair enough?
- Yellow: 6 weeks prior
- Violet: 24 years prior
- Orange: 3 weeks prior
- Green: 7 years prior
- Blue: 5 days prior
- Red: Morning after
- Pink: 6 months after
- White: The Heist
Yellow really does make sense as a natural starting point. Yellow is where the team is assembled. And that is how all the heist movies start… get the team together. It also leaves a lot of their backgrounds for later, and let’s those surprises reveal themselves in time. Then if you sprinkle in the two flashback episodes chronologically, you get sort of a see-saw effect going. See? A standard Hollywood editorial approach.
But, knowing my readers… and knowing how you prefer a challenge…
THiNC. Recommended Order –
Kaleidoscope Reverse Chronological Order: Now, possibly a much better approach? Reverse the Chronological order… I see this as a more Quentin Tarantino-eque approach. It definitely increases the mental workload you’ll need to do to pull the strings together. And that, actually, might be the most enjoyable for many of you here on this blog. To watch in this way:
- Pink: 6 months after
- Red: Morning after
- Blue: 5 days prior
- Orange: 3 weeks prior
- Yellow: 6 weeks prior
- Green: 7 years prior
- Violet: 24 years prior
- White: The Heist
This approach will clear up some of the hanging mysterious earlier, but will definitely radically increase the confusion and chaos of other mysteries. I may still go back and re-watch this way, it’s a really enticing approach.
Final thoughts on your chosen order of Kaleidoscope –
Look, obviously, you can take the episodes in at any order you wanted. And, actually, Netflix and the show creators have actually gone through quite an effort to make certain that everyone receives the episodes in totally random order. So, yeah, feel free to watch away in the order that they come to you. Personally, I watched the show in the show in the Hollywood standard approach. I had taken the advice of a writer on Variety, and so assumed that that would be the best – you do have to be careful not to spoil it after all. So, absent someone here on the THiNC. Discord to give me advice, or a friend to hand me their perspective, I went with this advice. But, I really do think that for those of you who like a more complicated narrative, Reverse Chronological may be the way to go!? Dunno. Please give your advice here in the comments below if you have a better approach to take, I’m sure readers that follow after you would covet it.
Regardless, do watch the show… it’s fantastic. (And not a single solitary spoiler in this entire post! Unbelievable!!)
Edited by: CY