Back at the end of 2020 and start of 2021 when the limited series, Your Honor, aired, I was really bummed I didn’t have Showtime at the time. Well, now that I have it and have seen this series, I can say that it wasn’t totally worth it. That’s right, even a series with the mob, murder, and Bryan Cranston couldn’t make it land with me.
The concept is a very interesting one! A judge’s son hits a mob boss’s kid with his car, and in a panic just leaves him there to die. That whole first episode was really, really interesting and tense and graphic and all the things I’d like in a show. Unfortunately, from there it all just sort of fell flat. Even with all of the complex entanglement of characters, this story just failed to hold my interest. In fact, I dozed off for at least a couple minutes for every single episode of this 10-episode series. That’s bad. The last time that happened was for the first season of the series Homecoming…which I also didn’t like.
After the accident, in which Adam Desiato kills Rocco Baxter, Adam’s father and well-respected judge, Michael, is going to have Adam go to the police to turn himself in until he finds out he killed Jimmy Baxter’s son. Jimmy is the worst criminal in New Orleans and Michael knows that if Adam turns himself in, he’s a dead man. From there, Michael pulls endless amounts of strings to cover up Adam’s involvement, but sets off a chain of events that lead to possibly even more tragedy. An young kid named Kofi ends up taking the fall, gets killed in prison by Jimmy’s other son, and then Kofi’s family pays the price.
Family members, police, lawyers, and even politicians all play a part in this complex story, but the connections are so miniscule that it’s enough to make someone’s head spin. Perhaps too many hands were in the jar? It just felt like no one story here was all that strong, and when you’ve got the likes of Michael Stuhlbarg playing the gangster Jimmy Baxtar, it seems like a missed opportunity. Cranston’s Michael was desperate and ultimately wrong for what he was trying to accomplish. It’s also crazy to think how quickly he went from the good guy to possibly the worst guy. Also, Adam might be one of the most stupid high schoolers I have ever seen. His relationship with his teacher and then with Rocco’s sister were my least favorite part of this series, and yet so much time was spent with them.
Ugh, I digress. The ending wasn’t quite as strong as the first entry in this limited series, but it did end with a shock and also a little bit of karma. In the end, all of the key players end up relatively in the same spot, but when a bullet meant for Baxter’s eldest son ends up hitting Adam instead, it’s crazy think everything that happened in the series was for no reason really. Michael tried so hard to keep his son alive and he ended up dead anyways. Overall, a frustratingly boring series that had some real promise. I say go spend your time with some more worthy limited series instead.