Netflix’s House of Guinness spotlights a family feud with a neurodivergent thread

Netflix’s eight-episode drama House of Guinness arrives with a baroque portrait of a family empire and the bitter fight to control it. Set in the late 19th century, the series centers on the Guinness dynasty after patriarch Sir Benjamin Lee Guinness dies, leaving four adult children to vie for control of the sprawling brewery and family fortune. The eldest, Arthur (Anthony Boyle), seeks ascent in English society rather than the family business; the lone daughter Anne (Emily Fairn) is trapped in a loveless marriage; the second son Benjamin (Fionn O’Shea) is debt-ridden and struggling with mental health pressures. That leaves youngest son Edward (Louis Partridge) positioned as the family’s hopeful to keep the enterprise afloat while steering it toward the future.

Edward is portrayed as principled, business-minded, and deeply committed to the Guinness legacy, yet socially awkward in ordinary interactions. The eight-episode arc follows him as he negotiates family rivalries, financial pressures, and an increasingly high-stakes path to modernization. Partridge has said the performance contains a deliberate throughline that resonates with contemporary ideas about neurodivergence. After I shot it, after I watched it, I thought maybe I could have turned that up a bit because it was something I spoke about with [director and EP Tom Shankland], and ‘neurodivergent’ is a good, right way to put it. Just like some lack of awareness when it comes to how to deal with people and emotions and social life. There is a flicker of that, he noted. I think he kind of learns stuff along the way and I think, yeah, acknowledges that in himself, possibly throughout the series. But yes, I did intend for a bit of that so thanks for picking up on it.

In House of Guinness Episode 3, Edward invites Irish Catholic activist Ellen Cochrane (Niamh McCormack) to the Imperial for tea and conversation, with the aim of building bridges between his wealthy Protestant family and the Fenian movement for business purposes. Ellen initially balks at meeting such a prominent member of a Unionist family in an upper-class establishment, but goes through with it. The scene unfolds as Edward pours Guinness the proper way to signal decorum and restraint, while Ellen responds with a flirtatious defiance that complicates the exchange. McCormack said she loved the moment and enjoyed the improvisational curtsy at the end, a choice she said director Tom Shankland ended up loving. There’s so much power play going on there, and she kind of then takes the cake with downing that pint in very, very fancy hotel that she has no business being in and she kind of makes her mark on that. And it is that power play. And I think that kind of continues with the relationship as the series progresses, but I loved it.

When pressed about the scene’s undertones, Partridge smiled and acknowledged the subtext with a tease. I think that might be your dirty mind! No, there was a little something. There was certainly a look in the end, but I think at that point Edward is purely business-minded. So he wouldn’t even have clocked, really, until maybe the end, and then he would have said, ‘Oh, I daren’t think a thought like that,’ It’s very naughty of him. But that is the beginning. She is the bit of thread that unravels him, he hinted, leaving open the possibility of more dramatic twists in future episodes.

House of Guinness is now streaming on Netflix, offering a stylized, high-society take on a family saga that blends historical detail with contemporary sensibilities about personality, power, and belonging. The production, directed by Tom Shankland and developed with the involvement of executive producers for the streamer, leans into a brisk, modern cadence while anchoring its intrigue in the Guinness namesake’s legacy and the era’s social fissures. The show’s lens—framed around a dynasty’s scramble to preserve wealth while renegotiating tradition—sits at the intersection of culture and entertainment, inviting viewers to weigh how much of Edward’s behavior is a product of history and how much is a narrative device for today’s audience.