“Mayor of Kingstown.” “C.B. Strike.”

“Mayor of Kingstown” (Paramount+ via Amazon) crime thriller. Going Season 3. Kingstown, Michigan is a fictional company town where the business is incarceration. The McLusky family have been keeping the peace in Kingstown for decades, acting as the mediators between the street gangs, prisoners, guards, and cops. The series tackles themes of systemic racism, corruption, and inequality–with cold, uncompromising glare that its dramatic weight loses any hope of any lighthearted detour. 

       Heavy stuff, indeed. But I am not complaining. I’d say this is the best brawn bravado and bullets opera that Taylor Sheridan has put up, so far. Tight scripting, fleshed-out characters, the eerie plotline could be implausible and fantastic but, hey, what do I know, right? System shit like this happens; streaming TV tells it as it is better than today’s journalism. 

       Performance is A-1. Jeremy Renner as Mike McLusky a.k.a. The Mayor, is a battered soul inside a creaky, dilapidated armor. There is no way to redemption but to keep on breaking within but fighting without, hard. Mr Renner gives Mike emotional gravitas that a mere actioner with muscles wouldn’t be able to. This is a dramatic ride, not a macho roundhouse gig, because Jeremy is driving it. 

       Ah, the underrated, grossly ignored Dianne Wiest of 1986’s “Hannah and Her Sisters” and 1994’s “Bullets over Broadway.” As Mariam McLusky, the matriarch of the McLusky brothers. Mariam is a college professor who volunteers teaching inmates in the female prison. The motherly pain that she carries for years is channeled in a contradiction of care, power, and vulnerability as she delivers her lectures. Ms Wiest made them sound professionally easy and dutifully unperturbed yet I could almost feel my own mother’s words piercing my heart. 

       But a real delight to watch. Relatively newcomer Tobi Bamtefa as Deverin "Bunny" Washington, leader of the Crips and Mike’s friend sorta. 

       I haven’t seen Taylor Sheridan’s prequel/spinoffs of “Yellowstone,” but so far, this is his best TV series. Recommended. 🎥📺📹

“C.B. Strike” (HBO Max via Amazon) British crime drama. 5 Seasons/Series. Based on the book series Cormoran Strike by Robert Galbraith. Follows a war veteran turned private detective, with an amputated leg, operating out of a tiny office in London's Denmark Street, who uses his unique insight to solve complex cases. He works with his business partner, Robin Ellacott. 

       I wouldn’t have clicked this series if not for the enticing intrigue: Robert Galbraith is the pseudonym of  J. K. Rowling. Yes, J.K. Rowling. The 15 episodes across 5 series are adapted from (Ms/Mr) Galbraith’s novels “The Cuckoo's Calling” (2013), “The Silkworm” (2014), “Career of Evil” (2015), “Lethal White” (2018), and “Troubled Blood” (2020). 

       The series is actually very engaging, well-scripted, and acted finely in an intensely minimalist manner. The quietly seductive chemistry of the icy Tom Burke as Strike and feisty Holliday Grainger as Robin is the focal lure of “C.B. Strike.” From Episode 2 of Series 1, the awkward nag of uneasy attraction between them builds up–all towards the end of Series 5, yet we are still hanging. And yes we prefer it that way, I do. 

       The series is sexy in a cerebral way (no “Outlander”-styled love scenes here), thrilling as it is restrained, and a fine entertainment especially in these coming winter nights. 🎥📺📹