Boss Season 1 Review

• 8th Jun 2013

Sopranos meets the West Wing in this caustic portrayal of Chicago politics. Kelsey Grammer plays Chicago Mayor Tom Kane, a ruthless politician who will crush anyone in his path. He revels in the steady ruination of those around him and I guarantee that you’ll never see Kelsey Grammer as the affable, bumbling Frasier Crane again. We join him as he learns that he’s suffering from an incurable neurological disease, but rather than repenting on his ways, he’s hell-bent to finish what he started and ensure an enduring legacy, even if it is built on bloody and brutal violence.

Connie Nelson plays Meredith, his cold, elegant wife who partners Tom in his calculating scheming only to find herself outgunned at every turn. Not knowing about Tom’s illness, she finds herself on the back foot and even manipulates her long estranged daughter in order to find out Tom’s secret. Hannah Ware is their tragic daughter, Emma, who’s been ostracised by the family after succumbing to a drug addiction. Their renewed contact threatens to push this fragile, honest young woman over the edge and the only one looking out for her is the local drug dealer.

With a heady mix of sex, drugs, violence and complex politics, this is an anti-redemption tale of the utterly corrupt and terrifying. Created by the Farhad Safinia, the co-writer of Mel Gisbson’s Apocalypto, it has the same unrelenting brutality attached to it. With only two series and a TV movie finale scheduled, it’s a seering portrayal of Tom Kane’s last months as the most powerful man in Chicago. Essentially, if a man in that position, with his background, faces the end and doesn’t want to make amends for all the crimes he’s committed, what is he capable of if he has nothing left to lose?

Maliha Basak