Sunday, November 20, 2016

The Review: Goliath


Goliath 9/10

Some spoilers. I have seen the poster for this series from Amazon called Goliath at the bus stop for over a month and when ironing clothes for the week decided to give it a try. I hadn't heard a single thing about it and kinda didn't want to watch because of the vague poster and lack of advertising. I am so glad that I decided to watch this! There is a reason I didn't give it a perfect score and I'll get to that soon enough. This stars Billy Bob Thornton as Billy McBride. He used to be a part of a successful law firm in Los Angeles called Cooperman/McBride until something happened. A lot of things happened but two very big things happened to end this relationship. McBride is a half-assed father, alcoholic, but great lawyer when he needs to be. Thornton was great in this and I would say he carried the show but there are so many other strong characters it wouldn't be fair.


One day a realtor/lawyer named Patty played by Nina Arianda shows up asking for McBride to help her with a case involving her friend. I have to point out how much I loved this woman in this. When she showed up I thought she would be very flat and one dimensional but she got stronger with each episode. He does and ends up sleeping with her. He decides to take her case involving a boat explosion and suicide of her brother. Her sister thinks her husband killed himself but she doubts it. The boat belong to a very powerful government weapons contractor who is represented by McBride's old firm. Donald Cooperman played by William Hurt is the creepiest creeps McGeeps on television right now. Not just because one half of his body is melted (when you see how it happened its very honked up) but because of this strange sense of entitlement and vengeful heart towards his old partner McBride. He has cameras everywhere and loves not leaving his office (pretty sure he lives there) and sits in the dark with red lights using his goddamn clicker (which you too shall hate) to get folks attention or stop them from talking.


Something I noticed while watching this show: mostly women. No problem with that or anything but it was cool because when you have more of something it gives you a chance to have a bigger variety of that thing. In this case ladies. Even if you wanted to say one was a drug using prostitute in Brittany Gold played by Tania Raymonde she is far more than that. She isn't flat or one dimensional. I went from liking her, to hating her, to feeling bad for her. Such emotion! There is also Diana Hopper as Denise McBride. She is Billy's daughter and thank god they didn't make her annoying! She seemed to be more mature than a lot of adults on this show. Maria Bello is in this as Billy's ex wife but she didn't make much of an impact on me. Who did though was Callie Senate played by Molly Parker.


She is the reason why I gave this a 9 instead of a perfect 10. Whenever she was on screen it was as if she was shouting “Acting!” You know how in some movies or shows someone walks into a perfectly good scene and suddenly they make you realize you're watching a TV show? That was her. Her character is evil, manipulative, vindictive, and spiteful. She is so over the top that if she were real everyone would be punching her as soon as she entered rooms. Oh, there is also Lucy Kittridge played by Olivia Thirlby. We are introduced to her and her stuttering problem that pops up at the worse times. She seems so damned innocent when this starts that by the time its over I didn't know who the fuck this girl was anymore.


Damon Gupton and Dwight Yoakam are also here and I loved the scenes when the two of them were together. I would watch their show. Gupton as Leonard Letts pretty much behaved how I would if I were tossed into this crazy ass situation where you find out the place you work for is into shit far shadier than you would tolerate. There are more people but you get the idea. This show has a great cast and storyline that is far more complex than it seems. I could just saw “Evil corporation protecting evil government with the little guy trying to stop it” but that doesn't come close to truly describing this show.

The acting on this is good (except for the one I mentioned) and each episode had one or two things happen that made me go “Oh shit!” and I had to watch the next one immediately. I finished the whole season over two days and enjoyed every single episode which is getting rarer these days. This show has violence, one and a half sex scenes, and court drama. I normally won't touch a show with court stuff but the way they did this one was awesome. Oh! I almost forgot to mention Harold Perrineau as Judge Keller! I kept on thinking I knew where he was headed and what he was doing and turned out to be wrong every step of the way. If you get the chance to for sure check this show out.

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