"Boss" Review: One Blue, Hairy Motherf**king Beast of a Show
By Dustin Rowles | Posted Under TV Reviews | Comments (24)
“Boss” is the “The Wire”-influenced, modern Starz version of All the King’s Men, a tale of a Chicago political machine, insidious compromises, and the tragic downfall of a man too overbearing, too ruthless and too unlikable to be a hero, and too compelling, too hypnotizing to be a true villain. It’s the meatiest television role of Kelsey Grammer’s career, and he tears up every scene he’s in, like a man hellbent on strangling the memory of Frasier Crane and replacing it with Huey P. Long by way of King Lear cum Stringer Bell. It is a stunning and powerful performance, and while few would doubt that the multiple Emmy winner had it in him, it’s nevertheless intoxicating to witness.
Grammer stars as Chicago Mayor Tom Kane, who we learn in the opening scene — set in a hidden away, abandoned slaughterhouse — is suffering from an incurable degenerative neurological disorder similar to both Parkinson’s and Alzheimer’s that will eventually cost him the very thing that got him to where he is: His intellect. He has three to five years left to live, and those years will be plagued by memory loss, the shakes, and hallucinations until he’s reduced to a vegetable. In the midst of all this, Kane is attempting to maintain the stranglehold he has on Chicago politics, which means pushing through a multi-billion dollar airport expansion project that will be his legacy and ensuring that the State Treasurer Ben Zajac (Jeff Hephner) — a young, good-looking, ambitious and smarmy politician — takes out the existing Governor, a cock-sucking coot who is three weeks away from winning the Democratic primary.
In addition to Chicago politics, Kane is also managing with his own family politics: He’s all but estranged from his frigid wife, Meredith (Connie Nielson), in what appears to be a marriage of political convenience, and their do-gooder daughter, Emma (Hannah Ware) — also estranged — is battling a drug addiction and a fascination with a dealer. Kane is left to navigate these pitfalls and obstructions while maintaining a secret — that of his disease — that could destroy his political career before he’s ensured his legacy.
There’s a lot going on in the densely plotted pilot episode of “Boss.” Showrunner Farhad Safinia (who co-wrote Mel Gibson’s Apocalypto) throws a lot of balls up in the air, but the opening episode — directed by Gus Van Sant — demonstrates a deftness with multiple narratives. Grammer is unholy: He grabs the audience immediately, proving himself both cunning and charming in his dealings with the treasurer before transforming into a terrifying, evil son of a bitch when an alderman’s mistep threatens to derail his airport project. The only way to describe it would be both unhinged and controlled, like a calculating Tasmanian devil. Even his closest advisers are not safe, as his personal aide Kitty O’Neill (the super-hot Kathleen Robertson) learns when Kane quietly cuts an emotional chunk out of her soul with a couple of lines so chilling that I burrowed a hole in my couch. Only Ezra Stone, played with delightful oiliness by Martin Donovan, seems to be immune, but only because he knows how to stay out of Kane’s way and give him what he wants.
“Boss” is not without a few shortcomings: The sleaze and salaciousness is overcooked, as though it were amped up for a Starz audience thirsty for a brand of sex and violence that feels somewhat out of character for the rest of the show’s tone (it is not necessarily unwelcome, however). The daughter character also feels a too well constructed: She’s a nurse in a church hospital, a bleeding heart humanitarian who also just happens to have a taste for the crack pipe, but the character is well-utilized to show us brief glimpses into Kane’s own compassion. There’s a good, soft-hearted person somewhere underneath 30 years of political calculation and gamesmanship. Emma brings out the vulnerability underneath the meanness. The interesting wrinkle in “Boss,” however, is that it’s hard to know if the series will offer him redemption or if it will take us down the hole with him.
“Boss” is an ugly show in the best kind of way, a dark and thematically rich series that will finally put Starz on the cable map (it’s too bad it came too late to save “Party Down”). It’s a high-quality riveting drama, textured, hard-boiled and effing relentless. Kelsey Grammer — echoing decades of Shakespearean stage performances — brings to life an unflinching character that will stand with Don Draper and Walter White as the best on television right now, the kind of character that lingers in your headspace for days. It’s a goddamned beast of a show, the best new drama of the fall season.
(Full disclosure: Angelina Burnett, who has occasionally contributed to this site, is the story editor on “Boss.”)
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Comments
Posted by: Melody Be at October 24, 2011 12:51 PM
Am I the only one who remembers when Grammer was a coked out, DUI getting, perv who was leaving dirty messages on a 13 year old's answering machine? The man is gross. A good actor but a despicable human being.