Diksha Sundriyal
Max’s ‘Full Circle’ is a crime drama that unfolds over the course of six episodes to reveal the deep, dark secrets of its characters. It begins with a botched kidnapping by a Guyanese gang, which is being investigated by Melody Harmony, a rogue inspector of the US Postal Inspection Service. Harmony is frustrated with her boss, who won’t let her have the case, even though she knows she is the best person for the job. When the case is not given to her, she decides to investigate it in her own time, which leads her to the kidnapping.
Played by Zazie Beetz, Harmony is a smart and intuitive investigator who sees the bigger picture when others can’t. Despite being the good guy, she has her flaws, especially when it comes to her personal life, which makes her a relatable character. If you want to know more about Harmony and whether her character is inspired by a real person, we’ve got you covered.
Inspector Melody Harmony is a Fictional Character
‘Full Circle’ is a fictional series written and created by Ed Solomon, with Steven Soderbergh as the director. Harmony is an original character conceived to serve the purpose of the story. She adds to the plot’s tension by being just as abrasive and messy as she is intelligent and shrewd. While she investigates the crime, we get a peek into her past and discover that she has her fair share of problems.
It’s unclear why Solomon chose to make Harmony an employee of the USPIS. According to Beetz, it might have to do with the fact that the show has insurance fraud as one of the primary plot devices, which requires something like the Postal Service instead of the FBI or the CIA. The writer got the idea to use the fraud from a news article he’d read many years ago. It revealed that a crime syndicate was operating in New York, killing people to take out their life insurance claims.
Because Harmony is such an important part of the story, presenting her character as a deep, three-dimensional person who also feels relatable to the audience was essential. Beetz described her on-screen character as “somebody very difficult to have any kind of relationship with,” revealing that she, Solomon, and Soderbergh worked closely to craft the character. For her part, Beetz looked into her own experiences as well as that of the people around her to give certain qualities and attributes to her character.
“It was important for me to understand how to empathize with her and to not judge her. I was able to do that because I have spent time with people who can be hard to build a relationship with, and I can see them with their full context and still approach with love and grace, to the best of my abilities,” the ‘Atlanta’ actress said. She said they came up with their own diagnosis of the character and explored her inner life and insecurities which drive her actions that eventually influence the investigation. She saw Harmony as confident and ambitious, “a lot of that is also driven by insecurity and needing validation and wanting validation.”
Apart from this, Beetz also helped develop the look for Harmony. “I decided to give her a row of bottom braces just because I thought it was interesting, and I thought it was indicative of some other things about who she is and her character and what might matter to her or not. That was never written in the script. I just made that call by myself,” she said. Considering all this, we can say that while Harmony is a fictional character, the show’s creators have sketched it so the audience may find her relatable.
Read More: Is Savi Mahabir Based on a Real Guyanese Crime Boss?
