The day after Christmas in 1931, an infant, Charlie Dodson, was kidnapped for a ransom of $100,000. Though the ransom was paid, the child was dead. The police suspected the child's father. However, his alibi checked out and the child's mother was arrested and charged. The kidnappers were discovered dead in a murder-suicide scenario. Emily Dodson (Gayle Rankin) had been having an affair with the lead kidnapper. E. B. Jonathan (John Lithgow) had accepted the case when the father, Matthew Dodson, was accused. However, Matthew's father, Herman Baggerly (Robert Patrick), was unwilling to foot the bill for an adulteress.
Sister Alice McKeegan (Tatiana Maslany) was a radio preacher with a nation-wide following. Herman Baggerly was a supporter of her ministry, and the Dodsons were members of the church. Alice involved herself in the case, much to the irritation of the church fathers and her own mother, Birdy McKeegan (Lili Taylor). Curiously enough, the lead kidnapper and Emily's lover had been an accountant for the church. It is noteworthy that Sister Alice is largely based on a real person, Sister Aimee Semple McPherson (1890-1944), a radio preacher based out of Los Angeles.
Perry Mason (Matthew Rhys) was a divorced father, a dishonorably discharged officer from the Great War, a failed dairy farmer, and a private eye living a hand to mouth existence. He is a man with few friends and spends much of his time depressed or drunk, often both. He has the emotional self-control of a toddler who wants his mother to buy a toy at the store. He is only too happy to cheat, if that is what it takes to get his way. "There's what is legal, and there's what is right." Perry is E. B. Jonathan's investigator, who more often argues with his boss; it is a wonder that E. B. put up with him. This Perry Mason is a foul-mouthed slob. The number of F-bombs dropped might compete with a Tarantino film's use of the N-word. This guy is an interesting character, but he isn't Perry Mason.
Della Street (Juliet Rylance) was E. B. Jonathan's secretary, though she spent most of her time arguing with her boss, quite similar to Perry. She must be repeatedly reminded to answer the phone. Della lived in a boarding house; one of the other boarders, Hazel (Molly Ephraim), is her lover. Yes, Della is a lesbian; must get that representation in there. Oh, Assistant DA Hamilton Burger is also homosexual; don't want to leave the fellas out. It turned out that Della did most of the work for the law firm and expects to be a partner in a couple of years. Really, E. B. proved to be an empty suit with an over-inflated ego.
As a Depression-Era show, one expects a downer soundtrack. Such is delivered. There is a repeated melody that signals sadness and depression. There are no breaks in the gloomy setting, just one long tale of woe and dread. It's a miracle that there were not more suicides among these characters.
The trial, which serves as Perry Mason's first as a lawyer, is ludicrous. DA Maynard Barnes (Stephen Root) pinned his entire case on the fact that Emily was having an affair with the kidnapper. He proved beyond any doubt that she was an adulteress, therefore you must find her guilty of murdering her child and sentence her to hang! Not only is his case thin on evidence, he knows the detectives on the case were corrupt; heck, he demanded that the detectives eliminate anyone who knew too much. Yes, the whole justice system is rotten to the core. Half of the stuff that Perry and his fellow investigators, Pete Strickland (Shea Whigham) and Paul Drake (Chris Chalk), uncover proved to be inadmissible. Sure, that's nice for the audience to see the full story but it helped the case not at all. Then there was the imaginary cross-examination of the actual killer that harkened back to the Raymond Burr series.
Excellent cast, a terrific film noir setting, this had lots of potential. However, it should have been some original character, not an origin story for Perry Mason that changes all the characters. Watch Spider-Noir instead.
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