Thursday, January 03, 2013

TV review - "Boss - Season 2" (2012) ***

Astonishingly bleak for an American show - Hollywood is known for focusing stories in characters who are likeable and winners. Well Mayor Crane is a winner, in a way, but he's also dying, he betrays his nice (and hot) drug addicted daughter, everyone around him is looking to stab him in the back and drag him down. It's relentlessly grim - and not quite believable that someone has the skill of pulling off all these murders.

The character Kathleen Robertson played developed a bit disappointingly for me - she seems to have this complexity, struggling with trying to do the right thing and what seems like a sex addiction but then just becoming completely ruthless towards the end, with no real indication why.

The crusading journalist was okay I guess, but what I really loved were the developments involving the super slimy Zajak and his opposition candidate, plus all the ruthless black characters (NB watching this it struck me how rarely black actors get to play evil, complex roles on TV apart from pimps and drug dealers... it doesn't come across as offensive on Boss because everyone is equally bad.)

Kelsey Grammar's performance remains superb and he's well matched by other members of the cast. It's beautifully shot, too - the city of Chicago seems cold, harsh, distant. (There's no place of warmth.) The sex scenes feel thrown in, though - it's as if they go "hey we're on Starz, we'd better get people to have sex."

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