And now, a study in opposites as I review one terrific show kicking off its 4th season with a solid, firing-on-all-cylinders episode and a brand-new show that already feels stale.
Deception…I like to do the bad news first, and NBC’s new Monday night drama Deception (for those that are restless for Revolution to come back) is definitely bad news. It’s supposed to be a mystery soap opera where a female cop (played by Meagan “Whore Face” Good, whose facial expressions range from who-just-farted? to I-know-someone-just-farted) investigates the murder of her very rich friend friend by…sigh…going undercover in her treacherous family. It takes all the worst elements of Revenge and a typical cop show, swirls them together hoping to create something halfway original, and never once raises the game from faux-broadcast-network-suspense to genuine suspense. It’s a shame to see actors as good as Victor Garber (forever Sydney’s ice-cold pops on Alias) slum it in projects like this. Grade for premiere: D
Justified…And now for the good news. Justified is back and with a promising kick-off to what should be an interesting fourth season. I was a huge fan of the first two seasons of this show, but found the third season scattershot and lacking, with too many villains (the blowhard crime boss Limehouse and Detroit mobster Quarles and Dickie Bennett and Wayne Duffy) and not enough depth. [I think it was a little too-inspired by Elmore Leonard, an entertaining fast-paced writer whose work may not be deep enough to sustain a great show. Whereas Justified’s second season sometimes reached the level of Greek tragedy, and was the furthest away from Leonard’s style.] We don’t know yet if this season will wind up the same way, but it’s already off to a better start.
In the premiere, we had a wild, amusing plot-line with Raylan (feeling the budget cuts as a U.S. Marshall) trying to make some extra cash as a bounty hunter and routinely running into problems with meth heads, a shady chop shop, a fugitive that keeps slipping his grasp, and Patton Oswalt as a wannabe action-hero-type that worships Raylan. Not to mention there’s some seriously shady business going on with his now-incarcerated father and a mysterious man from the 80’s who fell from a plane with several kilos of cocaine. [This is the season-long mystery rather than the season-long villain.]
But the night’s real action may have been in seeing the great Walton Goggins up to some new tricks as Boyd Crowder (my pick for one of the best characters on TV). Boyd’s Oxycontin business is being hindered by a snake-handling backwoods preacher who may be more dangerous than he first appears. I’ll admit, the casting of Joe Mazzarra (an actor who makes no great impression in the first episode, and is probably too young and too…clean for the role) as this preacher may be off, but I’m willing to let it play out. Besides, if the show is going to explore how some of these rural “churches” are no better than gangs——-extorting money from businesses both legit and criminal, and causing trouble for the ones that don’t pay——-then count me in. Grade for the Premiere: A-