Brief Story Line
Katherine (Abigail Spencer - Timeless TV series, The Forger etc) was tortured and left for dead by a gang called Brawlers led by Burt Harlow (Rory Cochrane - CSI: Miami etc). After many years, she assumed the name of Doris Quinn and decided to revenge against the people who tried to kill her earlier. She enlisted the help from Earl (Craig Tate) and Cordell (Wavyy Jones) for her mission.
Meanwhile the gang itself was enjoying huge success from their various businesses including running clubs called Bang-A-Rang with dancers, pit fights and other entertainment. With the second in command Joel (Rodrigo Santoro - Ben Hur 2016 remake, 300 etc) and the support from another senior member named Bash (Gilbert Owuor), no other gang dared to challenge them. There were also the runners for the gang called 3 River Phoenixes that consisted of Matty (Rhys Wakefield - True Detective season 3 etc), Johnson (David Dastmalchian - Ant-man and the Wasp etc) and the newest recruit Ethan (Mena Massoud - Aladdin live version etc). One of the dancers named Meredith (Madison Davenport - From Dusk till Dawn TV series etc) was running drugs in the club despite the disapproval from Joel.
And so what would happen to Katherine and could she successfully did her revenge? Find them all in this drama series.
End of Brief Story Line
When I first read about the premise to this series, I had something totally different in my mind. I thought it would be a real suspenseful series with tons of violent actions and satisfying feeling of looking at the vengeance being fulfilled. However it did not turned out like I had anticipated. This series (at least season 1) was focusing a lot on the turn of event and the characters development. Yes the cast did quite admirably in showing us their acting capabilities with Abigail Spencer in particular as the main lead, but since I was expecting a lot more on the action stuff, it did not really satisfy me as a whole.
In term of story, I thought the idea was quite good albeit not the most original one (story of a person being tortured & left for dead only to return to revenge has been told so many times in series or movies). The main attraction on this type of story would be how satisfying to see the bad persons being tortured back for the vengeance. There were occasional actions in this series that I quite enjoyed (my most favorite episode was no. 7 and the season finale which I thought were very stylish). However, since it was focusing on those characters story, it made me felt a bit bored and sometimes overly long to get to the point. It did not feel straight forward enough.
I said earlier that the cast were quite well in portraying their characters and frankly there were quite a lot of characters shown in here where each had his or her own problem. Aside from Abigail Spencer, the people who had more screen time would be Rodrigo Santoro as the more peace-minded gangster leader Joel, Mena Massoud (far from his Aladdin persona) as the young man Ethan, Madison Davenport as Meredith while the rest were important as well but not having the focus compared to other cast. There was also a recurring character played by Ron Perlman (Hellboy, Sons of Anarchy TV series etc) which was kind of interesting.
One thing that I also noticed was the many songs playing in the background in various scenes, from the suspenseful, the more dramatic part and so on. I liked the way the opening scene of each episode revealed something new from the past that made the story a bit easier to understand little by little. I also noticed that the setting of the series was a big ambiguous, where there were some things that gave the impression it was set in the older days (the cars, old tube TV set, the clothes they wore and the use of pay phones), but sometimes there were modern things too like the use of handphones.
In term of story, I thought the idea was quite good albeit not the most original one (story of a person being tortured & left for dead only to return to revenge has been told so many times in series or movies). The main attraction on this type of story would be how satisfying to see the bad persons being tortured back for the vengeance. There were occasional actions in this series that I quite enjoyed (my most favorite episode was no. 7 and the season finale which I thought were very stylish). However, since it was focusing on those characters story, it made me felt a bit bored and sometimes overly long to get to the point. It did not feel straight forward enough.
I said earlier that the cast were quite well in portraying their characters and frankly there were quite a lot of characters shown in here where each had his or her own problem. Aside from Abigail Spencer, the people who had more screen time would be Rodrigo Santoro as the more peace-minded gangster leader Joel, Mena Massoud (far from his Aladdin persona) as the young man Ethan, Madison Davenport as Meredith while the rest were important as well but not having the focus compared to other cast. There was also a recurring character played by Ron Perlman (Hellboy, Sons of Anarchy TV series etc) which was kind of interesting.
One thing that I also noticed was the many songs playing in the background in various scenes, from the suspenseful, the more dramatic part and so on. I liked the way the opening scene of each episode revealed something new from the past that made the story a bit easier to understand little by little. I also noticed that the setting of the series was a big ambiguous, where there were some things that gave the impression it was set in the older days (the cars, old tube TV set, the clothes they wore and the use of pay phones), but sometimes there were modern things too like the use of handphones.
In the end, the series was actually not bad and probably likable by people expecting to see characters development, but for me who already had certain expectations, the only occasional action sequence did not really satisfy me. Yes there were episodes 7 and 10 which were nice but they were not enough to give me content. The ending though not too spectacular was quite intriguing and made me understand why there needs to be a second season (by the time I write this post, there is no confirmed news yet about whether or not there would be a 2nd season). Anyway, if you are looking for a really intense and violent revenge story, this might not suit you, but if you are one of those people who need to see characters develop properly, then probably this one would be enjoyable. The choice is yours.
Mike's movie moments rating: 3 out of 5 stars
Mike's movie moments rating: 3 out of 5 stars
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