It grabs you in the first five minutes with a prison break, then spends thirteen episodes daring you to care about the plot when the motion is this good. Axel free-running across ledges and rooftops is the actual thesis of this show: MAPPA animating weight, momentum and bad landings with more conviction than most series give their finales. Chad Stahelski choreographs the fights like he's still on a John Wick set, all reloads and body mechanics, and Kamasi Washington's horns plus Bonobo and Floating Points turn the 30-day countdown into a groove instead of a panic. Yes, the red herrings pile up and Skinner's grand indictment of a painless humanity lands thinner than Watanabe wants it to. Doug, Elaina, Leland and Chris stay closer to sketches than people, and that's why half the audience bailed by episode six. The other half stayed for the way Axel hits the ground running, and honestly, that was enough.

Nobel laureate neuroscientist Dr. Skinner creates Hapuna, a cure-all drug with no apparent downsides that ends illness and pain and ushers in an age of peace and prosperity. Soon after it spreads everywhere, Skinner disappears. Years later he resurfaces with a grim announcement: the drug was built to turn deadly, and everyone who has taken it is doomed. He claims to hold a cure but will surrender it only if he is tracked down in person within 30 days. To hunt him, a team of five agents drawn from around the world is formed under the name Lazarus. Among them is Axel Gilberto, a young maverick serving an 888-year prison term who is pulled into the group against his will. With their own lives at stake, the eccentric crew races the clock in a tense sci-fi action thriller.