The best way to watch Kaleidoscope on Netflix

To some extent, Netflix’s Kaleidoscope is a traditional heist story. It has all the regular beats: old revenge, team building, small missions for the big one. But there’s one major way Kaleidoscope differs from similar shows you’ve seen. You can watch the episodes in any order.

The series premiered on January 1st and is currently the #1 TV show on Netflix. Without giving too much away, Giancarlo Esposito plays Ray Vernon (aka Leo Pap), the leader of a mob that settles an old score and sets up a multi-billion dollar job. Each episode tells a part of the story, focusing on Vernon’s motives or planning the heist or what happens next. The segments come in whatever random order Netflix decides to deliver to you (except for the actual heist that serves as the final episode).

This isn’t the first time Netflix has experimented with non-linear storytelling. in 2018, Black Mirror : Bandersnatch offered a choose-your-own-adventure movie about a computer programmer. The following year, the audience could decide for the adventurer Bear Grill In You vs. Wild.

The Kaleidoscope episodes are named after the different colors, a nod to the show’s name of course, but also a way to easily keep track of the order you’re watching and compare it to your friends. No need to watch as Netflix recommends. You should know how to view the kaleidoscope.

If you’ve been through this and need help figuring out what happened, here is the ending explained.

Do I have to choose an order?

Not mandatory. If you tap play on a show, you’ll see a quick preview of how it works, then jump right into the episodes. They can come in any order except White, who is the marauder, and are structured to be the series finale. That is, if you want to choose an order for yourself, you can.

How to view it chronologically?

In the spirit of the series, I’ll skip the episode description so as not to spoil anything. If you choose to watch “Kaleidoscope” chronologically, the episode order, starting with young Vernon 24 years before the robbery, is as follows:

• Violet (24 years before the robbery).
• Green (7 years ago).
• Yellow (6 weeks ago).
• Orange (3 weeks ago).
• Blue (5 days ago).
• White (piracy).
• Red (next morning).
• Rose (after 6 months).

However, if you decide to go this route, be aware that all the big twists in the finale happen in the White episode.

Are there other ways to view?

If everyone’s doing the math right, seven non-repeating episodes that can be watched in any order should give you over 5,000 options (even more if you didn’t watch “White” last). How many of these watch orders you want to see is between you and your schedule.

Netflix tweeted out some custom offers if you want to watch Kaleidoscope as a Quentin Tarantino movie — a reference to non-linear Tarantino movies like Pulp Fiction — (blue, green, yellow, orange, purple, pink, white, red) or a classic crime novel like (orange, green, purple, red, yellow, blue, white, pink).