‘Perry’ Part II
HBO reboot returns for more ‘30s drama
Amid a jazzy Christmas celebration on a dark Los Angeles street in 1931, a fedora-clad man cradles a bundled blanket, its woollen plaid bright under the light of a single streetlamp. As the music turns sombre, a gravelly voice comes over the telephone to instruct a local grocer and his wife, both shaking with fear, to leave $100,000 on the desk behind them and meet an approaching streetcar.
The opening scene to “Perry Mason” is neither easy to watch nor easy to forget, yet it’s been nearly three years now since this pilot aired. Thankfully, fans of the series led by Matthew Rhys (“The Americans”) no longer have to wait: Season 2 premieres Monday, March 6, on Crave and HBO.
While the title “Perry Mason” may sound like just another cop drama named for its leading character, viewers of a certain age may well remember otherwise.The original series, created for CBS in 1957 and starring “Rear Window” (1954) actor Raymond Burr in the titular role, followed defence attorney Mason throughout his slog of cases as he worked his magic to clear each client while always managing to expose the real criminal in the process.And while there are many similarities between the two shows beyond the name, HBO’s version is quite a bit edgier than its CBS counterpart.
In HBO’s “Perry Mason,” Mason is a private detective operating on the streets of Los Angeles in the early 1930s. Bedraggled and downtrodden following his time serving abroad in the First World War, Mason has since returned home to a failing America; a country crippled by loss of life, financial devastation and deep-seated corruption. Sadly, the L.A. police force is also deeply affected. Determined to make some cash while helping people in need, Mason tries to set his own personal troubles aside to focus on the heart of the matter: justice. As a result, Mason eventually turns to a career in law in order to help his clients to the best of his ability.
The first season’s eight episodes centre largely on the kidnapping of baby Charlie Dodson, mentioned above. To avoid spoilers for those not yet immersed in the L.A. noir series, suffice it to say that the season unfolds with suspicion falling on little Charlie’s parents, Emily (Gayle Rankin, “GLOW”) and Matthew Dodson (Nate Corddry, “The Circle,” 2017); the members of their evangelical church, including Sister Alice McKeegan (Tatiana Maslany, “Orphan Black”); and several others in their community, all of whom have the financial motive to extort $100,000 from the couple during the Depression.
Moving forward into Season 2, it’s 1933 and Mason finds himself thrown headfirst into a new case for another eight-episode run.This time around, the legal situation at hand is much more high-profile, leading those closest to Mason to question his ability to manage so much pressure in the wake of last season’s outcome. Putting all of his resources into civil rights rather than criminal justice, Mason takes on a new angle in his life. Be that as it may, his old demons are very much still in the shadows.
In a two-minute 40-second trailer released Feb. 8 by HBO Max, the streamer sets the scene for a massive racially motivated arrest, presumably at the beginning of the season. When two young Mexican men are arrested in connection with the gruesome murder of a California oil family’s scion, Mason has a hunch. After teaming up with fellow detective Paul Drake (Chris Chalk, “When They See Us”) to discuss the possible motive for pinning the crime on these two men, the pair compile their case and prepare to take it to court alongside Mason’s legal partner, Della Street (Juliet Rylance, “The Knick”). It isn’t long before those involved “uncover far-reaching conspiracies and force them to reckon with what it truly means to be guilty” (per HBO).
Among the returning cast members this season are also Shea Whigham (“Gaslit”) as Pete Strickland, Veronica Falcón (“Why Women Kill”) as Lupe Gibbs, Eric Lange (“Escape at Dannemora”) as Det. Holcomb, Diarra Kilpatrick (“American Koko”) as Clara Drake and Justin Kirk (“Weeds”) as Hamilton Burger, while a plethora of new characters also step onto the scene.
Hope Davis (“Your Honor”) joins the cast as Camille Nygaard, an “elegant business leader who becomes a companion” for Della (per Collider). Katherine Waterston (“Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them,” 2016), meanwhile, plays Ginny Aimes, a cheerful teacher at Mason’s son’s school, and Jee Young Han (“Santa Clarita Diet”) stars as Marion Kang, Mason’s newest legal secretary. Sean Astin (“Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring,” 2001), Mark O’Brien (“City on a Hill”), Jen Tullock (“Severance”), Paul Raci (“Sound of Metal,” 2019), Tommy Dewey (“The Mindy Project”) and Wallace Langham (“CSI: Crime Scene Investigation”) also star.