Roush Review: A 1930s ‘Perry Mason’ Pursues ‘Illusion of Justice’ in Season 2

Perry Mason

Matt's Rating:

Three years ago, I championed HBO’s bold decision to reinvent Erle Stanley Gardner’s iconic hero Perry Mason as a downtrodden, chronically rumpled gumshoe turned lawyer in Depression-era L.A. (Many viewers, and readers, disagreed, unwilling to abandon the stalwart image of Raymond Burr’s infallible, unflappable attorney from the 1950s and ’60s, still a favorite in reruns.) As played with forlorn pugnacity by Matthew Rhys, as if channeling the cinematic spirits of Bogart and Mitchum, the new/old Perry Mason felt like he fit into the film noir world of legends like Sam Spade and Philip Marlowe.

Perry’s first-season redemption arc made for compelling TV, but heavy-handed storytelling lets him down in Perry Mason’s long-awaited but disappointing comeback. Lured back to criminal law to defend Latino brothers from a Hooverville slum being railroaded for the murder of an oil-family scion, Perry enlists his lesbian partner Della Street (Juliet Rylance) and Black investigator Paul Drake (Chris Chalk) to contend with multiple layers of societal bigotry and corruption in their pursuit of what cynical, closeted D.A. Hamilton Berger (a sly Justin Kirk) calls “the illusion of justice.”

Merrick Morton/HBO

Here Berger is, elaborating to a sourpuss Perry: “Don’t you know what we’re selling by now? There is no true justice, there’s only the illusion of justice, the fantasy that keeps people believing that truth always prevails.” Though he stops short of telling Perry “Forget it, it’s Chinatown,” when the disillusioned lawyer stalks off in disgust, Berger muses: “Does everyone feel Mason hates him, or just his friends?”

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Fair point. Perry is a downer, dulling the requisite romantic subplot with his estranged son’s teacher (Katherine Waterston, straining to seem attracted), which lacks much in the way of zing. (Della has lots more fun hanging out in secret bars with her new squeeze, a bohemian scriptwriter colorfully played by Jen Tullock.)

There are few surprises in a storyline where wealth invariably connotes evil, which doesn’t excuse Perry from making several boneheaded moves that imperil his legal-beagle future. A twist at the midpoint of the long eight-episode season raises the stakes, but even the courtroom scenes are low in dramatic wattage in this dour David-versus-Goliath fable. I found myself pining for the good old cornball days when a spectator in the gallery would suddenly jump up and announce their guilt, rattled by Perry’s wizardry.

Maybe the next season, should there be one, could be all about Della, who at least looks jazzed about being in court.

Perry Mason, Season 2 Premiere, Monday, March 6, 9/8c, HBO