Streaming Outlook: Comedian Billy Crystal is back with the mystery series “Before.”

A child psychologist desperately grieving for his dead wife develops a mysterious connection with an eight-year-old patient: On paper, this doesn’t exactly sound like a role that would immediately bring to mind the famous US comedian Billy Crystal.

The 76-year-old is known from film comedies such as “Harry and Sally” and “City Slickers” and from the elegant presentations at the Oscars. After almost a decade without a major TV role, Crystal is now back on the streaming service Apple TV+ in the mystery series “Before”. All 10 episodes have now been released (on Fridays since the end of October).

Role as a child psychologist

Crystal plays exactly this child psychologist, Eli Adler, who mourns his wife Lynn (Judith Light, “Transparent”) after her death from cancer and repeatedly sees her moving around the house.

One day an eight-year-old boy (Jacobi Jupe) stands at his door and scratches at the paint on the frame until his little fingers bleed. Eli wants to help him, the boy runs away, but suddenly finds himself in the psychologist’s bedroom that night. This time Eli follows him home to his foster mother, who tells him about her worries about the child.

The next day, Eli is asked if he can work as a psychiatrist on a new case – it is Noah. He is violent at school and has nightmares about water coming through walls while speaking 17th-century Dutch. Eli feels a great connection to the child and only gradually finds out why.

Mix of thriller and mourning drama

“Before” brings together this mixture of psychological thriller and grief drama in pale colors. The story is told with many flashbacks, which often rely on surprising shock effects and always turn out to be dreams. The ten episodes sometimes last less than half an hour, but still don’t manage to maintain tension throughout – the characters are too templated in many places for that.

The chilled series always comes to life when it thinks about how we not only develop grief and trauma ourselves, but also how they are passed down from our ancestors.

Is there life after death and life before birth?

For Crystal, the series is a matter of the heart; he is also involved in it as a producer. In an interview with the German Press Agency, he says that it didn’t take long for him to be convinced to play the lead role, after all, he pushed the entire series forward with several studios himself.

The spiritual aspect of the story appealed to him. “It’s like Eli says at one point,” says Crystal, “if you believe that there is life after death, then you have to be open to the possibility that there is life before we are born.” Crystal sees something forgiving in this. “Maybe that gives us options – and options give us comfort.”