TV Benedict Cumberbatch is a troubled puppet master in new Netflix series Eric Everything changes when Vincent's son goes missing. By Samantha Highfill Samantha Highfill Samantha is a writer based in Los Angeles. Television is her one true love, and she tweets about it. A lot. EW's editorial guidelines Published on May 14, 2024 01:00PM EDT EW's 2024 Summer Preview has dozens of exclusive looks at the most anticipated TV shows, movies, books, and music of entertainment's hottest season. Continue to visit ew.com through May for more previews of what you'll be watching, reading, and listening to in the months to come. Sometimes, a man needs to make a puppet in order to learn something about himself. And in Eric, that man is Benedict Cumberbatch. The new Netflix series (launching May 30) follows Cumberbatch’s Vincent Anderson — the creator of a Sesame Street-esque children’s show called Good Day Sunshine — in 1980s New York when his young son goes missing. “I love thrillers, but I knew I wanted something emotional and psychological,” Eric creator Abi Morgan tells EW. “I grew up with my dad running a theater, so I was always seeing the magic behind the scenes. I was drawn to the idea of Vincent in the world of Good Day Sunshine.” Benedict Cumberbatch in 'Eric'. Ludovic Robert/Netflix Morgan then paired pieces of her upbringing with her time spent in NYC in the ’80s. “As you walk around any great city, you start to see the upper class, the lower class, the underclass,” says Morgan, who won an Emmy in 2013 for writing BBC America’s The Hour. “That became a very intriguing world for me. Suddenly I looked at New York like a forest — so it’s the idea of a boy who goes missing in this forest and a quest of a father to go and find him.” Sign up for Entertainment Weekly's free daily newsletter to get breaking TV news, exclusive first looks, recaps, reviews, interviews with your favorite stars, and more. That father is Vincent, a “narcissistic artist,” as Morgan explains, who struggles with addiction and convinces himself that his son will be found if he puts a puppet that his son designed, named Eric, on television. "Vincent's a very complicated, talented, but troubled man," star Benedict Cumberbatch says in the exclusive video above. "We meet him at a time where his world's been shaken up by his son's disappearance. He's a man struggling to come to terms with his mental state." Benedict Cumberbatch in 'Eric'. Ludovic Robert/Netflix The 25 best Netflix mystery movies In the process of bringing his son's puppet creation to life, Vincent starts hallucinating a life-size version of Eric. “We’ve always tried to see Eric as a manifestation of the inner workings of Vincent’s psychosis,” Morgan says. “When I pitched it, I said it’s kind of a buddy movie of an obsessive puppeteer and his puppet who go looking for his son.” Cumberbatch adds, "He's utterly real for him." McKinley Belcher III in 'Eric'. Ludovic Robert/Netflix The drama also follows Detective Michael Ledroit (McKinley Belcher III), the man trying to uncover the mystery of what happened to Vincent's son. "The show is not only interested in him as an officer and a detective, but as a Black gay man on the NYPD in the '80s in New York and all of the things that he's wrestling with," Belcher says of his character. “It's really about two men who are struggling to understand their identity and having to confront their own demons from their past and their present,” Morgan says of Michael and Vincent. “The piece is also playing with male toxicity and the things we inherit from our fathers.” Benedict Cumberbatch in 'Eric'. Ludovic Robert/Netflix Actors who have played the Grinch It’s not often that one show tackles trauma, addiction, racism, homophobia, male toxicity, and… puppets. As Morgan puts it, “It felt like an opportunity to do something that would be playful but ultimately would have a dark, emotional, psychological heart and play with the idea of childhood and where we believe the monsters really lie and where we come to realize they really are.” Benedict Cumberbatch in 'Eric'. Ludovic Robert/Netflix Eric premieres May 30 on Netflix.