Perry Mason (2020)

Masonic Disorder

Perry Mason (2020)
Season 1 - 8 episodes
HBO Blu Ray Zone B

Warning: Some mild spoilers

Okay, following my viewing of the original 1930s Perry Mason films, I bypassed the Raymond Burr series (for now) and ended up taking a look at the newest incarnation of Erle Stanley Gardner’s famous literary lawyer. Now, if you’ve read my other Perry Mason reviews, you’ll recall that I haven’t actually read the original source novels... something which stood me in good stead because the movies are, apparently, nothing like the original novels and I have an idea that, despite being touted as being based on the earlier, darker novels of Gardner’s character, quite a lot of this show deviates from its literary source quite a lot too.

What we have here is an eight episode story arc of a case which is particularly dark and we have Perry Mason, played by Matthew Rhys, as a fairly broke private investigator working for a lawyer, EB, played by John Lithgow. It’s set in 1931 and 1932 and it’s pretty much a ‘superhero origin’ story as far as the regular characters from the books go. Della Street, played by Juliet Rylance, is Lithgow’s secretary but any sexual sizzle between the characters like in the books (heck, Perry even married Della in one of the movies) is removed by her also being a lesbian. Ditto, the few appearances of young, future DA Hamilton Burger are notable in that he is also gay.

Then we have Chris Chalk playing a black version of Mason’s future detective Paul Drake. He starts off here as a cop walking the beat and he’s one of the most interesting characters in this, throwing up the whole racial tensions issue. My one slight problem with that is that, as a private detective in the 1930s, I’m not sure the colour of your skin wouldn’t be a major hindrance to gaining access to places as a private investigator but, please chime in down below in the comments section if you know different and it turns out this was a common practice after all. Shea Wiggum is also in this as private investigator Pete Strickland and he also does a really good job here.

The show is bleak from the onset, when a group of kidnappers are paid off but, when the mother and father go and collect the baby boy that was stolen from them after they leave the money, he’s dead with his eyes sewn open. From there on in, the law firm which employs Mason gets involved in what turns out to be a very convoluted case and, well, the inevitable happens in a way I won’t disclose here but, by the fifth episode, Mason fudges his way through a law exam (in much the same way that original novelist Gardner did when he passed the bar to be a lawyer) and inherits the office of the former lawyer, due to the perseverance of Della Street and the impetus of clearing the kidnap victim’s mother of conspiring to set into motion the entire set of events.

And there’s a whole lot of stuff going on involving an evangelical superstar (Tatiana Maslany aka She-Hulk) promising to resurrect the child in her religious fervour, bent cops, whorehouses, morally questionable officials and various other distractions like Perry’s ex-wife and son, his casual lover (played wonderfully by Veronica Falcón) who wants to buy his small ranch out from under him and various other twists to the plot, more than enough to warrant eight episodes of what is, frankly, a quite gripping story arc.

In terms of the literary legacy and straying far from its source, I’d say that the style of the show is much closer to the modern, 1940s and 1950s set hard boiled novels of James Ellroy than anything else. It’s full of foul language and gritty, ugly ideas and scenarios. It definitely gives the central character something to test his mettle against and, although I found the ending of one of the characters in the last episode a little unsatisfying, I found the whole thing to be well thought out, well executed and... well, doing this thing in period with this many extras... it must have been expensive to produce. My understanding is that Robert Downey Jr spent some time developing this series with HBO and was originally going to play the lead but had to drop out of acting duties due to scheduling conflicts. Instead, he’s produced the series and I’m guessing that’s why the budget it attracted was as large as it was... or at least, as large as it seems. Terence Blanchard’s score, which does a very nice thing on the end credits of the last episode, is also pretty good and fits the flavour of the show like a glove.

I liked pretty much everything about the new Perry Mason, to be honest and I’m glad that, by all accounts, another series is going to be forthcoming from the same company. My father, who is a big Perry Mason fan and who I bought this set for, was a bit unsure of the first episode or two, until he realised that this was an arc which transformed the detective into something, well just a little closer to the Perry Mason character as he’s more usually presented. Not a whole lot like him but, still, I think my dad really liked this one too so, for me, that’s a ringing endorsement that I can pass on to other lovers of the character for sure. Can’t wait to buy my dad series two when it gets a blu ray release.