Owen suffers from schizophrenia, Annie is out of her pilfered stash of pills, the thing that lead them both to participate in a dangerous pharmaceutical trial that will, they're assured, with no complications or side effects whatsoever, solve all of their problems, permanently. But when something goes wrong in the experiment, they face more than expected.
Maniac is just showing off from the first scenes. Like the man said, it insists upon itself. I felt just as trapped in Fukunaga's oppressively bespoke universe as Annie and Owen are in theirs, and I'm pretty sure that's not the point of the series.
Smart writing, great creepy sensibility, well-balanced episodes: Maniac is basically fabulous... I'm trying really hard not to utter something like "tour de force" but... um...Whoa. All the feels.
