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Critic Reviews
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Has the feel of a high-quality procedural to us instead of a super-serialized prestige show.
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"For Life" limits Pinnock's range of expression to determination, frustration, anger, sorrow, and despair – all of which is understandable. Hope flits across his face a time or two, but otherwise he's trapped in his fury, bringing the audience right in the cell with him. And this also makes "For Life" an imposing emotional experience to process hour by hour, one that – regardless of how brilliantly its ensemble performs – may be tough to overcome. However, the narrative's toughness also works to the show's credit.
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[The female characters] keep the show percolating even as its core cases tend to feel, in the show’s first two installments, somewhat flat and unmotivated.
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It's enough to tentatively say that there actually is a version of For Life that could be quite solid. After two episodes, it's mostly there in hints and subplots.
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Pinnock’s performance gives a palpable, urgent quality to Aaron’s intensity as both a prisoner and an attorney, outraged at a corrupt system and longing to return to his wife (Joy Bryant) and teenage daughter (Tyla Harris). “For Life” is hampered by the formula of prime-time legal dramas, wherein the greater character studies lose out to the revolving subplots of cases, which can lead to a predictable tedium.