TNT and Edward Burns have a hit with Public Morals. Allowing viewers to binge on the 10 episode season over the long weekend has given them the chance to get intimate with the 1965 Hell’s Kitchen denizens. The series follows a group of cops who walk a fine line between the law, or as Terry Muldoon puts it, keeping a lid on everything as the landlords. There is a ring of authenticity to this “throwback” cop show; the sets, the cars, the music, the clothes and the dialogue all fit in this Mad Men with guns look at the age of change in America.
Burns is the series creator and he wrote, directed, produced and starred in the show and is, as he put it, telling the Irish-American story in the US. Picking a time when the world was going through massive upheaval, he focusses on the streets of New York and the different crime factions who were all elbowing one another for control of bit more money and turf.
The show has an impressive roster of performers. Brian Dennehy as Joe Patton, Michael Rapaport as Charlie Bullman, Neal McDonough as Rusty Patton and Ruben Santiago-Hudson as Lt. King. Timothy Hutton is Mr O (O’Bannon), a man whose demise threatens to start an all-out war for control of Hell’s Kitchen.
Elizabeth Masucci plays Terry’s wife Christine, Katrina Bowden is the hooker, and increasing love interest of Charlie Bullman and Michele Hicks is Kay O’Bannon, widow of Mr. O and lover of Rusty Patton.
Public Morals is about the Irish cops who worked the streets in New York and did what they had to in order to put food on the table and a roof over their families heads. In many ways, this cops and mobsters story feels like a variation of other shows that have gone back to the “good old days’ for a change of pace.
Like NBCs Aquarius, the David Duchovny vehicle based on the search for Charles Manson which is also based in the 1960s, Burns’ series attempts to put the viewer in a time machine, where twist top beer bottles did not exist and ring pulls on tin cans were brand new, cutting edge technology. The main difference is that while the NBC show may be based on reality the TNT offering feels more real.
The NBC show uses the “hippy” music of the era and relies upon a different set of pop culture references for their background while the TNT series relies on the music that the “grown ups” were listening to and icons that the older set enjoyed. Perry Como, Sammy Davis Jr. et al play in the background while the snap brim fedora-wearing plainclothes cops go through their lives.
The series looks taut and tastes a bit like other time period cop shows, for example, the Vegas based show Crime Story, which was about the mob in the desert town. Public Morals works well enough that everything does look and feel like 1965, the year the show is set in.
This is a good solid hit with a great plot, interesting storylines and characters that feel so real we care about them. Widower Bullman who lives with his mother and three kids, Muldoon the family man and the rest all have depth and prove to be interesting as dothe other characters who fill this world.
It is nice to see Michael Rapaport play a “good guy” after his character in Justified (Rapaport played Daryl Crowe Jr. a hillbilly criminal who was disturbing to say the least.) Kudos go to Edward Burns who allows his fellow actors to shine and has picked his performers well.
TNT will, hopefully, allow Public Morals to come back for another season, if, Edward Burns is not too exhausted from all he has given himself to do. This is a great looking, superb sounding and interesting bit of entertainment. A tale of Irish-American cops, gangsters and their families. As the Irish say, “It’s a good bit of crack.”
Do not miss this one, it is special.
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