We’re only one episode in, but already a lack of originality casts doubt on the ultimate success of the show the dialogue, the setting, and the plot twists feel re-hashed.
The problem here is most of the show’s choices feel equally predictable, and the overall impression is of a drama cobbled together from the parts of dimly remembered noir clichés.
Bernthal carries himself with less intensity than he found appropriate in the zombie apocalypse, instead adopting the gruff, silent-when-not-wisecracking persona we’ve seen in a thousand other period crime pieces. Noir.” Lucky for me, I didn’t have to think that one up myself it was the show’s title during development, and at some point the choice was made to switch to the more generic “Mob City.” Based on real accounts from the LAPD of crime in the late ‘40s, and created by Frank Darabont ( The Shawshank Redemption), the series centers on Joe Teague, a former marine and current cop played by Joe Bernthal (Shane from The Walking Dead). The best possible description of TNT’s new gangland drama Mob City is the phrase “L.A.
