Becoming The Muse

Marked

Marked is a South African crime thriller series created originally for Netflix by Steven Pillemer, Sydney Dire and Akin Omotoso. The six episode series premiered on Netflix on the 31^st of July 2025.

The premise of the show follows Babalwa, a driver for a cash-in-transit armoured vehicle who finds herself in urgent need of money, when her daughter requires life-saving surgery, with no medical aid and bills piling up. How far will she go?

The Good

I am a huge fan of South African productions since they are the next best thing available to feed an appetite for local content. The production consists of an ensemble cast of South African who’s who actors starring; Lerato Mvelase, Sphamandla Dhludhlu, S’dumo Mtshali, Natasha Thahane, Gaisang Noge, Mduduzi Mabaso, Desmond Dube and Jerry Mofokeng.

A Zimbabwe-born South African actor, Leroy Gopal plays a character called Tatenda Ngezi, a Zimbabwean immigrant and victim of xenophobic attacks, simply trying to save up money to help out family back home. It was nice to hear some Shona phrases sprinkled into conversations.

I wasn't paying attention when watching first episode of #Marked then I heard someone called Tatenda speaking Shona 🤣
– Leroy Gopal pic.twitter.com/ShMc4cb41Q

— ~B 🇿🇼 (@Beatonm5) August 2, 2025

 Lerato Mvelase’s performance as Babalwa brings an emotional intensity that anchors the show, drawing the rest of the cast into the orbit of her desperation and descent down a dark path, from which there is no return.

Mirroring Babalwa’s journey is Zweli, a character played by Sphamandla Dhludhlu, a street-raised thug whose had to turn himself into a beast to survive the world and could either be Babalwa’s redemption or corruption,  maybe its the other way round…

The show has stunning cinematography with well-choreographed action sequences shot on the backdrop of a picturesque South Africa.

Marked explores some hard questions about faith, morality and offers a social commentary on circumstances that shape or corrupt the character of people, for better or worse.

The Bad

Like any other production which has a heist in its story… some of the structure is predictable, there is the planning, assembling a crew, preparations and then the part where it all goes crazy… the execution…

A heist storyline, should probably stay as a movie because as a series, it can feel like its got erratic pacing, especially when its a character-driven plot that is pushing moral ambiguity and questionable choice outcomes.

I don’t understand why they called it Marked… unless I missed something I cannot see how that connects to the characters or the plot and wasn’t referenced in the script…. I would have called it Money Heist but thats been done.

Marked should have been called Heist if the name hadn't already been used 🤣🤣🤣#markedNetflix#Marked pic.twitter.com/fy8ZZGwV3K

— ~B 🇿🇼 (@Beatonm5) August 2, 2025

For someone who is doing everything she can for daughter, there isn’t much of familial connection, and the sickness is only used as an excuse to cut up onions in the plot… emotional blackmail much?

And what in the ending was that!!!!!

The Ugly

The show cast faith more as a weakness that is abused by church to collect tithe and platitudes to keep them waiting on miracles than being more pro-active… You cannot simply pray away something that requires surgery, maybe you could, but that’s the sort of thing that’s most likely to result in a crisis of faith, leaving you vulnerable.

Final Thoughts

Marked is a thrilling heist series that will have you on the edge of you seat as you try to figure out where the chips will fall… Its like Unseen meets John Q

Have you watched Marked and is it something you would watch?