Another Kelley GOLIATH

Article first published as GOLIATH Review on Seat42F.

The prolific David E. Kelley, gone from the broadcast airwaves for a few years, returns to television on Amazon this week with GOLIATH. Like most of his former series, GOLIATH is a legal drama. But with the freedom of streaming services, unbound from the set running times, act breaks, and episode counts of the broadcast networks he called home for so long, it’s a new beast from the old hand. And, let’s be honest, what fan of legal drama doesn’t want another one from this guy?

GOLIATH stars Billy Bob Thornton (Fargo, Friday Night Lights) as Billy McBride, a washed-up alcoholic who is past the peak of his career. Spinning into a personal hole, Billy has a bad relationship with his ex-wife, Michelle (Maria Bello, Touch, Prisoners), and daughter, Denise (Diana Hopper, Hidden Truth). He doesn’t start in a very good place.

Billy’s break comes when a woman brings him a big case that would pit Billy against his former partner, Donald Cooper (William Hurt, Humans, Into the Wild), and the firm Billy was forced out of, which Michelle is still involved in. Now, personal and professional life is intermixed as Billy fights for justice, and possibly for a little revenge from those who wronged him.

It’s an enticing premise. Everyone wants to cheer for the guy who is down, and who we expect to turn it around, especially when his opponent (Donald) seems so clearly in the wrong. It’s a black-and-white dynamic, and while the odds are stacked against Billy, David-and-Goliath-style, we are sure that the misfit crew he puts together, which includes a real estate attorney and a call girl, will win the day.

If I were to compare this to any of Kelley’s other series, I would say, on paper, it is most like Harry’s Law, which featured a noble, flawed character staging a comeback. Except, GOLIATH is a much darker drama and the case will be ongoing over at least the course of the season, whereas Harry’s Law was funny and procedural. So GOLIATH still has some of the classic Kelley elements and similarities to his past work, but isn’t just a retread.

The writer takes to the looser format very well. Watching GOLIATH, I was struck by how much it resembles some of the higher-quality series on the premium cable and streaming networks. It doesn’t have the same memorable juice as Fargo, American Horror Story, Westworld, Breaking Bad, and the others at the top of the heap, but it is a very solid entry that can hang in the same general stratosphere.

Helping this along is the excellent cast assembled. Thornton proved himself to any doubters with his last television role, and he is more than capable of taking the lead here. Yet, so are most of the other actors around him, so he is in good company with Bello, Hurt, Olivia Thirlby (Good Vibes, Juno), Molly Parker (House of Cards), Nina Arianda (Hannibal), Tania Raymonde (Lost), Sarah Wynter (24), Damon Gupton (Bates Motel), and more. There should be no complaints about the company.

The pilot starts off intriguing, but like the excellent Damages, it just seems to be scratching the surface initially. It sets up the scenario and introduces us to most of the players, but there are sure to be a lot of twists and setbacks as things unfold. At approximately eight hours running time, it looks to be a manageable, quick series, with no time for fluff and treading water, so I expect it will move quickly, but going by the pilot, not too quickly. I’m intrigued and plan to watch the full season.

GOLIATH’s entire first season will be available on Amazon Prime beginning today.

FARGO Miniseries Finale Review

Article first published as TV Review: 'Fargo' - Finale on Blogcritics.

FX’s Fargo has sadly come to an end. Ten episodes of brilliant, thrilling, suspenseful storytelling ends tonight with “Morton’s Fork.” The tale concludes with finality, tying up the loose ends from this excellent freshman run, leaving a possible (probable) season two to seek out new characters and new cases. It’s both satisfying and regrettable to see it go.

An important element of “Morton’s Fork” is that both Lester (Martin Freeman) and Malvo (Billy Bob Thornton) get what they deserve. The airwaves are full of dark, gritty crime shows these days, and those do not always leave the viewers with a good taste in one’s mouth. Bad guys get away to kill another day, and heroes question their moral compass. Fargo is lighter fare, though, mixing lots of off-beat humor and quirky charm in, so those who deserve to go down have to for it to be an ending that fans feel good about.

Equally crucial is that Molly (Allison Tolman), Gus (Colin Hanks), Greta (Joey King), and Lou (Keith Carradine) survive. They are a sweet family unit, and because of, not despite, their coming together late in the season, they have to have a happy ending. We cannot bear to see these characters who are so good at heart suffer more misfortune and pain. They need to win the day and come out the other side intact, and they do.

Gus has an interesting arc. He leaves law enforcement for good reason, being bumbling and inept. He runs into Malvo early, but backs off because he can’t handle that type of villain himself. Yet, with his family on the line, Gus steps up as a man, protecting those he cares about, killing someone his family will never be safe having in the world.. I’m not sure he should go back to being a cop again, but he certainly gets a chance to redeem himself here, which I think he deserves.

One might wish that Molly is the one who takes down Malvo, since she is really the main heroine of the miniseries, but she doesn’t get the short shift in “Morton’s Fork,” either. She still gets pay off for the detective work she’s completed, and she finally earns the respect and admiration of her boss, Bill (Bob Odenkirk), as he steps aside and recommends her for promotion. There is major triumph in this, even if she isn’t the one to bring in Lester or Malvo, which she is still instrumental in getting to a place where they are taken down.

Fargo proves that good and evil battles can still be thoroughly engrossing and entertaining without the grey areas that pervade a lot of modern fare. I have nothing against its peers, loving many of them dearly and intrigued by shifty players, but its also nice to get a whiff of Fargo‘s scent, unique for the time in its lightness when dealing with such heavy subject matter, and almost miraculously staying as well-developed as those darker programs.

Part of the reason for this is because at many points during “Morton’s Fork,” the audience thinks Molly, Gus, and / or Lou may not make it out alive. Whether it’s Molly rushing off to Lester’s house alone, not realizing the FBI agents there are dead and no back up is on the way, or Gus sneaking into Malvo’s hideout, then confronting the scary man mano-a-mano, or even Lou sitting on the porch with his shotgun, there are moments where things could turn dire.

Fargo does a terrific job with presenting danger, but knowing who it can and cannot spare. Agents Pepper (Keegan-Michael Key) and Burdge (Jordan Peele), lonely men with no real lives? Sure, they can die. Gus, who has a teenage daughter and is expecting a baby? No way. The sense that Fargo just might let Gus perish anyway keeps the action intriguing, but when the writers don’t go through with it, it’s a relief, not a cop out.

There’s a feeling of authenticity that is in the proceedings. The not-actually-based-on-truth story, even as the opening proclaims otherwise, is tongue in cheek, but always keeps itself grounded. There isn’t anything in the show that couldn’t actually happen, and Molly won’t be solving more major crimes like this week after week or even year after year. In this, Fargo is mostly unique.

There’s also an extremely high level of consistency in the miniseries. All ten episodes are written by the same guy, Noah Hawley (Bones), and that provides solid through-lines. There aren’t weak points or people acting out of character because no other voices go into writing dialogue for the players. Mix in an unusually talented cast with no weak links, handling the material like pros, and Fargo is very successful in what it sets out to do.

I could pick apart “Morton’s Fork” in a 10-page review and praise every scene for something special; it’s that good. But I won’t because I feel works of art on this level are meant to be appreciated and re-watched for new meaning frequently, not analyzed to death by any single perspective. For me, Fargo is right up there with The Walking Dead in that I couldn’t wait to watch it each week, growing excited at the prospect of each new installment, and rarely waiting until it actually aired to view it. (Thanks to FX for being more generous with early screeners than any series on any network in recent memory.) I rank it one of Top Five shows of the year, easily, and cannot wait to see what Hawley comes up with for Fargo next season, assuming its renewed, which it likely will be.

Whether to Watch FARGO is Not a "Dilemma"

Article first published as FARGO Review on Seat42F.

FX’s new FARGO is the story of a pregnant police chief (Frances McDormand) tracking a pair of hit man (Steve Buscemi and Peter Stormare) near the town of Fargo. The guys have been hired by a local failure (William H. Macy) to kidnap his wife in order to extort money from the woman’s father. But during the abduction, she is accidentally killed, setting off a series of dangerous, somehow funny, events. And bodies get put into a wood chipper.

No, wait a second. That’s the excellent 1996 film of the same name. Remarkably, pretty much none of what I said in the preceding paragraph applies to the story of the series, which goes in its own direction. I’m not saying that FX’s FARGO abandons the premise entirely. Although none of the character names have been changed, there are some very familiar character types.

Wimpy Lester Nygaard (Martin Freeman, Sherlock, The Hobbit) encounters by chance a hit man named Lorne Malvo (Billy Bob Thornton, Armageddon), who encourages Lester to find his inner man. The local police chief (Shawn Doyle, Big Love), who has a pregnant wife (Julie Ann Emery, Hitch), and his deputies, Molly (Allison Tolman, Sordid Lives: The Series) and Bill (Bob Odenkirk, Breaking Bad), are looking for Lorne, though they don’t yet know who he is.

By taking some characters that seem a lot like the ones in the movie and keeping the setting and the accents, FARGO ties itself to the earlier work enough to bring the fans of it in. Yet, in making some very different choices with the story from the first scene onward, it makes the action unpredictable, keeping viewers guessing what might happen and who could die next.

This FARGO expertly maintains the balance between blood and laughs that one might expect. Characters (yes, plural) that might be considered important die in the very first installment. At the same time, the dialogue and bumbling happenstances, especially when Lester is around, make the proceedings enjoyable and lighter than one may expect from a program with a high body count. There are numerous occasions when I could not help but laugh out loud, a distinction most sitcoms fails to reach on a weekly basis.

The pilot is titled “The Crocodile’s Dilemma.” For those unfamiliar with the logic paradox, this refers to a crocodile kidnapping a child. The croc promises the father that he can have the kid back if and only if the father is able to accurately predict whether the crocodile will give him back the boy. If the father states that the crocodile will not give back the son, then he has correctly predicted and the croc must hand over the boy, though then that means the father didn’t correctly predict because the crocodile didn’t keep him.

If that makes your brain hurt, I understand. FARGO isn’t quite as complex as all that. What it is, though, is a well-crafted series of events, some from cause and effect, others arising by chance, that intermix in such a way that there doesn’t seem to be an easy, logical way out for the main players. Since the show has ten episodes to tell their story, it isn’t obvious yet how unwinnable the scenario will be, but it does feel like this is the type of situation set up in “The Crocodile’s Dilemma.”

The cast is truly fantastic. Freeman and Thornton, of course, have a body of work that implies they can handle themselves, and they do, beautifully. But so do the rest of those named above, along with Kate Walsh (Private Practice), Colin Hanks (The Good Guys), Keith Carradine (Dexter), and numerous other guest and recurring roles, with a heck of a lot more famous folks signed to appear in later hours. Whoever put together this crew deserves major credit, as FARGO would not work without its cast.

Strangely, there are also a couple of parts that are left wanting, mostly because they are not played by big names, but seem like big names should have been obtained, meaning it feels like FARGO failed to get its first choice and settled for a replacement. The bully introduced in the first hour is definitely a “Tom Wilson type,” but is not portrayed by Tom Wilson. We also meet a “Stephen Merchant type” later on. I could be wrong about the second-choice standings, but these parts feel just too close to those performers to be played by anyone else.

Other than that, though, I have no complaints. FARGO is a compelling, highly entertaining masterpieces, crafted so intelligently, and executed in the best of methods. The tiny touches, such as a message spelled out on Lester’s refrigerator, kick the quality up yet another notch. I am already a firm fan of this miniseries. FARGO airs Tuesdays at 10 p.m. ET on FX.