In the early episodes of Perry Mason, HBO’s grimly proficient update on the classic series, one moment stands out. Sister Alice McKeegan (Tatiana Maslany), a mesmerizing preacher with the mien of a tent revivalist, has been entertaining the Radiant Assembly of God with a skit. Without warning, she falls into a seizure, and the scene around her is transfigured. What once were cardboard waves become a roiling ocean, and Alice’s boat, an echo of Christ’s on the Sea of Galilee, washes precariously over it. The image is daring, profound, and startling. Had Perry Mason’s creators acted with similar boldness throughout, their good show might have been a great one.
Like its forebear, Perry Mason follows the exploits of Perry Mason, the iconic character conceived by novelist Erle Stanley Gardner. Unlike the original, HBO’s reboot features a Mason who drinks to excess, runs a failing dirt farm, and walks around with what appears to be egg on his tie. (“Turns out it’s mustard,” he tells the movie executive he’s just attempted to blackmail.) Though his status changes midway through the series, the Mason whom viewers initially meet is an occasional investigator rather than an attorney at law, a part-time gumshoe who can barely afford to bribe an attendant at the Los Angeles morgue. When a young boy dies during a botched kidnapping, attorney E.B. Jonathan (John Lithgow, always excellent) persuades Mason to leave the farm, return to the big city, and help track the child’s killers.
Starring in the role made famous by Raymond Burr is veteran television actor Matthew Rhys, whose performance in FX’s Cold War thriller The Americans ranks among the best small-screen work of the past decade. As Philip Jennings, the travel agent-cum-spy-cum-man of conscience, Rhys conveyed an essential sadness that both underlined and mitigated his character’s mercilessness. So good was the Welshman on that program, in fact, that it pains me to report that he is woefully miscast as Perry Mason, for whom postmodern dejectedness fits like a bad suit. As he proved on The Americans, Rhys can play glumness as well as anyone in the business. What he lacks is so much as an ounce of Burr’s midcentury cool.
That the eight-part series remains well acted despite a poorly chosen lead is a testament not only to the skill of its other regulars but to their sheer number, as well. As densely plotted as a Victorian novel, Perry Mason fairly bursts at the seams with storylines, subplots, and rabbit trails of varying significance. Joining Mason on the hunt is co-sleuth Pete Strickland (Shea Whigham), a dissipated bulldog whose loyalty is never quite assured. Pitching in, too, is legal secretary Della Street (Juliet Rylance), one of several holdovers from the original show. Among the criminal suspects are the parents of the murdered boy, Emily Dodson (Gayle Rankin) and her husband, Matthew (Nate Corddry). Or maybe the culprit is crooked Los Angeles cop Joe Ennis (Andrew Howard), a villain of such malignity that one half expects a “Defund the Police” rally to erupt every time he walks down the street.
Occupying Perry Mason’s other primary world are the leaders of Sister Alice’s congregation, who may or may not know more about the crime than they’re telling. Birdy McKeegan (Lili Taylor) is Alice’s mother, a steely matriarch who chides her daughter for going off-script during a prayer. Herman Baggerly (Robert Patrick) is the dead child’s grandfather, as well as a ruling elder and the money behind Mason’s investigation. Though the series can’t resist suggesting that the heads of the Radiant Assembly of God are charlatans, that message is obscured by the presence of Alice, whose religious belief is plainly sincere. The resulting tension is among the program’s most intriguing components. Someone is up to no good, but it isn’t at all clear who’s in on the secret.
Though Maslany is superb as the church’s charismatic evangelist, the series’s best performance may be that of Chris Chalk, who stole more than one scene as Cpl. Tom Walker in the first season of Homeland before taking a recurring part on Aaron Sorkin’s The Newsroom. An actor of extraordinary magnetism, Chalk is so effective as Paul Drake, the beat cop who eventually joins Mason’s team, that I couldn’t help wondering how he might have fared in the title role. Such a casting decision would surely have won plaudits, since Chalk is black. More importantly, it might have provided the show with a much-needed spark: a protagonist with confidence and energy. A hero with style.
Unfortunately, the Perry Mason of 2020 is too timid a beast for such recklessness. Though never less than competent, it lacks the thrilling peculiarity of some of HBO’s recent efforts: the maniacal cheerfulness of Succession or the nervy eccentricity of The Outsider. Indeed, aficionados of Depression-era drama may decide that a better choice by far is the network’s neglected masterpiece Carnivale, which ran for two seasons in the midaughts and told a much more compelling story of religion corrupted by sin. As for viewers in love with California, a much simpler option is available. Just rewatch L.A. Confidential.
For audiences who choose instead to stick with television’s latest detective yarn, an uneven experience awaits. Agreeable but entirely mundane, HBO’s new series has all the beauty one expects from prestige entertainment but none of its namesake’s staying power. To put it another way, Perry Mason is polished, watchable, and intermittently engaging. It’s just no Perry Mason.
Graham Hillard teaches English and creative writing at Trevecca Nazarene University.
