Examination of rapper killings a riveting series

TV REVIEW

The USA cable network exaggerates only slightly when it calls the murders of Tupac Shakur and the Notorious B.I.G. “the two most famous unsolved cases of all time.”

Hype aside, though, no one can dispute the questions that remain unanswered about the 1996 drive-by slaying of Pac and, six months later, the slaying of Biggie Smalls.

The killings are the subject of “Unsolved,” a new cold case, truecrime series premiering tonight with “The Murders of Tupac Shakur and The Notorious B.I.G.”

Remember the CBS show “Cold Case,” which aired for seven years and is still enjoying a healthy afterlife in reruns? Those cases were always solved at the end, but they were fiction. Real-life cold cases aren’t always wrapped up so neatly, and that’s surely true for the murders of the two giants of rap music.

The new series was created and written by Kyle Long and directed by the Emmy-winning Anthony Hemingway. Together, along with an incredible cast, the two try to untangle an exceptionally complex story, focusing on what led up to the killings through the lens of two police investigations by the Los Angeles Police Department, several years apart.

The first was headed by Detectives Russell Poole (Jimmi Simpson) and Fred Miller (Jamie McShane). The second was conducted by a special unit headed by Detective Greg Kading (Josh Duhamel).

The series is riveting, but it makes viewers work.

Hemingway worked on “American Crime Story: The People vs. O.J. Simpson.” Unlike that case, officially still unsolved, the interwoven stories of “Unsolved” aren’t as well-known and did not include gavel-togavel trial coverage on television.

They have, however, prompted a variety of who-did-it theories through the years.

Viewers already familiar with the rise of rap music — figures such as Suge Knight, Sean “Puff Daddy” Combs (as he was known then), Snoop Dogg and Keefe D; the East Coast-West Coast rivalry; and links to the Bloods and Crips gangs — will have an easier time following the show’s structure.

The series skips around from the shootings themselves, to earlier times when Tupac (Marcc Rose) and Biggie (Wavyy Jonez) were friends, then to each of the two belated Los Angeles Police Department investigations.

The challenge gives the series exceptional authenticity, even as it deals with speculative information.

Long’s script is richly detailed. The dialogue is florid, colorfully profane and convincingly authentic at every turn. One is brash and artistically ambitious but fascinated by the writings of Sun Tzu in “The Art of War.” Christopher Wallace, aka Notorious B.I.G., is less demonstrative than Pac but is no less committed to his art.

Long and Hemingway take a lot of chances with “Unsolved,” and come very close to confusing their audience. But their drive pays off.

Even if we don’t always know where we’re going, the ride is exciting and challenging.