Mr. Phillips

Mr. Phillips is one of two pale, immaculately dressed aides who orbit the enigmatic Lady Trieu, appearing at odd moments to perform inexplicable tasks with total calm — catching things that fall from the sky, standing sentinel, saying little. He is polite, unhurried, and utterly opaque about what he actually is.

Tom Mison plays him with a blank, courteous stillness that turns every scene he's in into a small mystery — you watch him instead of listening, because his affect gives away nothing. The show trusts that unexplained strangeness, delivered without a flicker of irony, is more unsettling than any exposition could be.