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Jun 18, 2020 · Criticism. Shows. ‘Perry Mason’ Review: HBO’s Swank Noir Is One of the Most Beautiful Series Ever Made. Matthew Rhys dons the storied lawyer's fedora for a striking origin story that's still...
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Mar 3, 2023 · Review. TV Reviews. 'Perry Mason' returns for Season 2, but the reboot is less fun than the original. March 3, 202311:54 AM ET. Heard on Fresh Air. John Powers. 6-Minute Listen. Playlist....
Jun 19, 2020 · Perry Mason review: A detective show for our dark times. 19 June 2020. By Caryn James,Features correspondent. Matthew Rhys stars as the scruffy, no-nonsense noir hero, fighting for justice...
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By Matt Fowler
Updated: Sep 1, 2020 9:22 pm
Posted: Jun 22, 2020 12:25 am
This is a spoiler-free review for all eight episodes of HBO's Perry Mason, which premieres Sunday, June 21.
In the same way Daniel Craig's string of modern James Bond films provides fans with a pre-Dr. No backstory for 007 -- from his humble beginnings as a newly-licensed "blunt instrument" to the suave super-spy we've seen over seven decades of movies -- HBO's Perry Mason provides us with an origin tale for a different, but still iconic, literary and screen hero.
One huge difference here, however, is that Ian Fleming's Bond novels gave us a complex and layered protagonist, while defense attorney Perry Mason - in both the books by Erle Stanley Gardner or the long-running TV series (or later TV movies) - was a thin character at best. A towering figure, yes, but not one that was complex or fleshed out. With actor Raymond Burr portraying the character (the most frequently) for 40 years, Perry Mason was the linchpin for landmark procedural TV, giving viewers an unflappable courtroom crusader who defended the wrongfully-accused. Mason's cases were both legal dramas and murder mysteries, since the story always involved Mason uncovering the real culprit while protecting his client.
It's wonderful to have The Americans' Matthew Rhys back on TV. Instead of inhabiting the quiet storm of Philip Jennings, Rhys is now playing an unmade bed of a man. A textbook '30s hard-boiled P.I. with a love of drink, a penchant for getting in over his head, a habit of making enemies, and a knack for just scraping by, Perry is a far cry from the clean-cut justice-seeker TV fans know, even if they just know the character peripherally. He's a traumatized trouble-magnet who works under the wing, and charity, of John Lithgow's fatherly attorney E.B. Jonathan, having been tutored as P.I. by a super sleuth named Pete Strickland (Joker and Boardwalk Empire's Shea Whigham).
Almost 10 years ago, Robert Downey Jr. bought the rights to Perry Mason and by 2016 he and True Detective's Nic Pizzolatto were set to turn it into an HBO series, with Downey headlining. Downey eventually bowed out of starring (but is still an executive producer), Rhys was in, and the showrunning was handed over to Rolin Jones and Ron Fitzgerald, who'd both done Weeds and Friday Night Lights. What remains after a decade of development is a seedy, scintillating mystery that propels Mason through a maze of corruption and coverup while placing him, as an underdog, in the crosshairs of crooked cops and a grandstanding D.A. (the always great Stephen Root).
Obviously, story-wise, this era of Los Angeles is well-worn territory. In fact, just from a 2020 TV standpoint, you can watch similar themes unfold over on Showtime's Penny Dreadful: City of Angels (with added demons and Nazis). The lone gumshoe ruled this tumultuous terrain, slipping through the cracks of a city steeped in racial tension, cutthroat Hollywood producers, and radio evangelicals. Orphan Black's Tatiana Maslany fills the celebrity preacher role here which, like the character Kerry Bishé plays on Penny Dreadful: City of Angels, is based partly on Sister Aimee McPherson from the '20s and '30s. As "Sister Alice," Maslany's ministry storyline takes up a large chunk of the series, and one that provides the least amount of dividends overall, but it still weaves integrally into the story's main case.
Check out the trailer for HBO's next literary adaptation, Lovecraft Country:
Maslany, like Root and Lithgow, emits a fierce and fine performance, providing the type of theatrical sermons that only Tinseltown could inadvertently manifest. During the '30s, citizens flocked to these three-ring faith healing carnivals in an attempt to cleanse themselves of the town's surface-level griminess. Narratively, the church aspect gives Mason, himself a lost soul due to wartime atrocities and a recently estranged wife and son, some sunbeams to deflect and neglect. His redemption won't be found in the same way his fellow neighbors seek enlightenment. Mason, who lives off the grid on his family's dilapidated dairy farm near an airstrip (that's now known as the Van Nuys Airport), has become addicted to wallowing and stumbling. Little does he know that his ultimate savior will be truth and justice.
The case here, which in the past has been the real star of Perry Mason as a courtroom drama, involves a heinous baby-snatching, a steep ransom, and a trade-off gone horribly awry when parents Matthew and Emily Dodson (Nate Corddry and GLOW's Gayle Rankin) cough up a hundred grand to get their son back, only to discover the baby has been killed. Hired by an enigmatic Mr. Moneybags type played by Robert Patrick, Lithgow's E.B. employs Mason to dig into the case. It's a headline-making crime in a town where police are pressured to quickly close cases, not solve them - and it's the catalyst for Mason's maturation and metamorphosis.
Perry Mason is a pulpy, provocative origin story for one of fiction's pioneering crime fighters, giving the character a juicy and jolting backstory as he finds himself, as a P.I., in a headline-making case that works to reshape his soul and redeem his past. Matthew Rhys is exemplary, as are most of the performers on the series, though sometimes the...
Review scoring
great
Matthew Rhys steps into the shoes of pop culture's most iconic lawyer for a gritty, ghoulish and great origin story.
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Mar 6, 2023 · Stellar Acting Keeps Season Two of Perry Mason Afloat. Nandini Balial March 06, 2023. Tweet. “This is not your father’s Perry Mason.”. So says Matthew Rhys, who stars as the famous defense attorney, in a recent interview about the second season of the rebooted legal drama. And he’s right. As written by Jack Amiel and Michael Begler for ...
Perry Mason is an attorney who specializes in defending seemingly indefensible cases. With the aid of his secretary Della Street and investigator Paul Drake, he often finds that by digging deeply into the facts, startling facts can be revealed. Stream Perry Mason free and on-demand with Pluto TV.
Mar 6, 2023 · Top Critics. All Audience. Mini Anthikad-Chhibber The Hindu. A tighter, more focused second outing sees Erle Stanley Gardner’s pugnacious attorney in fine fettle aided, like in the first season,...
