The Chicago Code

Sadly, the true misfortune of The Chicago Code getting canceled after one short season is that somehow Shawn Ryan and Tim Minear managed to produce a series that I don't really care is already over. I mean, it's a solid show, certainly above average for a police drama on a network. But it rarely went beyond that, and while it certainly had potential to turn into a great show, I never really saw enough of it get realized to the point where the cancellation felt like a big blow. It was an experiment that didn't quite work, and I kind of wish the creators had really done something riskier with it, because while trying to make a grittier, more nuanced cop show that was still broad enough to attract a wide audience, they didn't really succeed at either, and they still got cancelled in the first season. I haven't seen their previous team-up Terriers yet, but I have the feeling it will continue to have a strong cult following years from now, when Chicago Code is relegated to being the answer to a trivia question, a footnote among the wide swaths of series that no one really cared about.

Which is a shame, because there really was some good stuff here. Although it's a little too teal and orange for my tastes, the show still looks pretty great, making the city of Chicago seem like a really nice place to be despite the apparently rampant gang activity and political corruption. The show does action better than most cop shows that even try (a carryover from Ryan's The Shield), with some solid chases by car or foot and exciting standoffs. Although the show relies on having a new case every week until the end to attract irregular audiences, is still does a decent job of tying things back to the overarching plot relating the main characters' attempt to nab a powerful alderman, and when they finally get around to bringing that story to the forefront, it's handled pretty well. Although the show only ended up having one really great episode in my opinion (the second to last), it was still an enjoyable ride most of the time, even if it rarely aspired for more and the resolution was too quick and easy after the buildup.

The cast is pretty good, especially the main character and his partner. Brotherhood's Jason Clarke plays a McNulty-esque cop named Wysocki who cares more about good police work than niceties, although he has a much nicer relationship with his most prominent superior. His partner is Evers, new on the force and a bit clean-cut for Wysocki's tastes. Their relationship starts off as something of a cliche, but the writing and acting of the show make it seem natural, and the thing I'll miss most about the show is probably the development of their careers together. The other main characters are an assortment of cops at various levels, and Delroy Lindo as the corrupt alderman they target, who's also good at selling his dark side without letting you forget that he does do some good for the city. The show deserves some credit for being better and smarter than networks usually allow their series to be, but it's just not enough to take it from pretty good to something truly worth missing. More than anything it just made me want to watch other things by the producers, which is fine, but doesn't really speak for how well it stands out. I would have watched season two, but I'm not terribly bummed that it isn't happening.

Brotherhood

Along with creator Blake Masters, Brotherhood was largely written and produced by Henry Bromell, who ran the underrated Rubicon for the too-brief time it was on the air. The show also co-stars Jason Clarke, who now plays the male lead on Shawn Ryan's new FOX cop drama The Chicago Code. These were reasons enough to check out Brotherhood, as if it didn't seem interesting enough on its own.

The show tells the story of two Irish brothers in Providence, Rhode Island; Tommy is a prominent member of the state's legislature, and Michael is a particularly unhinged member of the city's organized crime underground. The two are held together despite their very different worlds by their common upbringing and their amazingly bitchy mother, who came over from Ireland in her youth but blames pretty much everything she sees wrong in the world on illegal immigrants. Other significant characters include Tommy's wife Eileen, who hides a self-destructive side under he perfect politician's wife exterior, the brothers' Irish cousin Colin who becomes Michael's right hand, and Declan, an old friend of Tom's who is turned against him by his career as a detective. Although the show has a definite plot with plenty of twists and turns, it is primarily character driven, painting a rich tapestry of their messed up and interwoven lives while also offering up scathing critiques of how broken many of our country's institutions are.

It's hard to say who you're supposed to root for, because none of the characters are innocent, but none are truly beyond redemption either. Sure, Michael extorts from people and sometimes even kills him, but Tommy ruins plenty of people himself making deals to ensure his own prominence in the government. It's not a very pretty picture, especially with how often the series shows that the two systems that are theoretically completely dissonant, crime and politics, are actually permanently linked together. You can just enjoy the show for the graphic violence and its often hilariously bumbling criminals, but there's a lot more to it if you care to look. The way the show handles gaps between seasons is interesting; many shows take a similar strategy of assuming that a certain amount of time has passed, but few allow so many apparently significant events and developments happen off-screen, as if there's just some chunk of the show missing. Similarly, though the show was canceled after its third season, the finale works well enough as a conclusion to the story. Sure, there are places they could have gone with all of the characters, but there's something of a finality to the way the brutality of the violence peaks in the last episode, and being a show about the lives of the people in it, I don't really see a more conclusive end point that would have been better. People live for a while, and then they stop. Brotherhood is a show that explores that in a really interesting way.