The series is set in Philadelphia and the beauty is that it was actually filmed in the City of Brotherly Love or the City of Sisterly Love. There have been productions like How To Get Away With Murder (2014) or Abbott Elementary (2021), which is set in Philly but shot in Los Angeles or Shazam! (2019), which is set in Philly but shot in Toronto. M. Night Shyamalan used to shoot his films in Philadelphia but hasn't done so recently. Being born in that east coast city and having lived there for some time, it's great to see real locations brought to the screen and know that the production was actually on the streets of Philly, framing its various landmarks. Of course, some of the show was also filmed in New York, but a large chunk was in Philly. The creator of this series is Stephen Belber who is from Washington, DC and has mostly worked as a New York playwright, so the reason that Philly is the main location in this series probably has to do with its star who is from my home town.
Colman Domingo (Euphoria and Fear the Walking Dead) stars as Muncie Daniels, a writer who works as a contributor for CNN. He lives in Philadelphia, probably some place downtown. His ex-wife and teenage son also live in the city but likely in West Philly or in an equally nice neighborhood. He also has an adult daughter who lives in North Philly, but he's estranged from her. They don't have the worst relationship, but there appears to be some distance between them. It's not clear but his children might have different mothers and the mother to his son appears to be the one to whom he's most close. That might contribute to the distance between him and his daughter. There also seems to be an economic divide. His daughter is doing fine for herself, but she clearly lives in a poorer neighborhood than her father and brother.
Marsha Stephanie Blake (How To Get Away With Murder and When They See Us) co-stars as Elena Daniels, the ex-wife to Muncie, although it's not totally clear if they're divorced or not. They do seem to be living apart and she seems to have custody over their teenage son. However, when Muncie gets into trouble, Elena is very eager to help him. She does so because her son still needs and looks up to his father, so she doesn't want to do anything to upset that. Therefore, she's as supportive as possible, even though she has her limits. Yet, those limits don't include helping Muncie escape the police when he's accused of murder.
Yes, the plot of this series revolves around Muncie being accused of killing someone. It's obvious that he's being framed, so Muncie goes on the run, avoiding the police who are after him. It then becomes about Muncie trying to prove his innocence by finding the real killer and rooting out the reasons or possible conspiracy around it. It becomes an Alfred Hitchcock thriller in the vein of something like North by Northwest (1959) with Domingo in the Cary Grant role, although there is a moment where Domingo pulls a similar trick as Eddie Murphy from Beverly Hills Cop (1984).
Like with Hitchcock, there is political intrigue here. Hitchcock films involved foreign spies and international affairs. This series centers on domestic affairs. The key issue focuses on political campaigning and how wealthy people and wealthy corporations influence elections, as well as how far-right organizations and movements are aspects of that influence, specifically how White supremacist groups are aspects. There are other far-right organizations like 2nd Amendment extremists that get mentioned, but the flashpoint has a White supremacist group in the middle of it all. This obviously becomes a point of contention for Muncie because Muncie is a strong-willed and very opinionated Black man.
Tamsin Topolski (Slow Horses and Penny Dreadful) also co-stars as Lucie Snipes, the wife of the man who gets murdered. It's revealed that her husband was part of the White supremacist group in question. She has two young children but she wanted to distance herself from that group. She agreed to be a part of it because she initially was a drug addict and in legal trouble, so the group became a safe harbor. However, she started to disagree with some of their views and even some of their tactics. Like them, she doesn't agree with the mainstream media and values truth, but it's a question of whose truth does one trust. When her husband disappears and is presumed dead, the White supremacists are likely to believe that Muncie did it, but Lucie gets a feeling that there might be more to the story.
John Ortiz (American Fiction and Silver Linings Playbook) plays Franco Quinones, a FBI agent who is working on a case involving the White supremacist group. When Lucie's husband disappears and is presumed dead, he wants to know what happened because he thinks it might be connected to an even bigger case of political corruption. Muncie doesn't know if he can totally trust this guy to help or if he's just a glorified cop that's going to put him in prison. Franco seems to be a kind of Captain Ahab chasing after possibly corrupt businessmen and one in particular as his "white whale."
Gabrielle Graham (Twenties) plays Kallie and Thaddeus J. Mixson (Reasonable Doubt and Creed III) plays Demetrius. Graham and Mixson round out the cast as the two aforementioned children of Muncie. Both actors really standout and pop off the screen in memorable ways. Sometimes, the children in a series or film like this can be incidental, but the series really allows the actors to breath life into them, also giving Domingo, fresh off his Academy Award nomination, strong performers to bounce off.
Rated TV-MA-LSV.
Running Time: 1 hr. / 8 eps.
Available on Netflix.