Parish

Parish the show leans unapologetically on the tropes of Unforgiven and Thief—tales of hard dudes with half-decent hearts who are tugged back in, to be framed by a tough world and their inescapable leanings.

Parish is a rather generic crime drama with shallowly-sketched characters. But Esposito makes it watchable, purely because we love seeing how he portrays his character’s barely-controlled rage.

For what it’s worth, I know my dad will love it, and perhaps that’s enough to justify its existence and a potential follow-up the finale evidently prepares in case AMC decides to renew it for another year. But if you’re used to such high-standard crime dramas as Breaking Bad, Your Honor, or Ozark, there’s a chance you’ll find it a little lacking the same way I did.

Bad choices naturally lead to worse outcomes in this anti-hero series that would have been innovative in 2005 but today feels like a dull relic.

Parish should be off to the races, but, sadly, too often it stalls out.

Without Esposito, Parish would be a far less intriguing affair. He keeps the series afloat when it struggles to live up to its potential after the halfway point, and even when it’s running on fumes, it crosses the finish line without completely squandering the goodwill it crafted at its start.

Mr. Esposito is his usual soulful self; Bonnie Mbuli makes a good impression as Shamiso, the Horse's wise and wily older sister. One can imagine that "Parish" had its problems as a production, but much of what's wrong here is about a lack of grace. Cut-away moments that illustrate Gray's lingering grief are too many and too much; the arty sequences are often enough art-free; and there's a sense of tires spinning as Gray gets sucked into an ornately felonious set of circumstances.

Once you get past having Esposito behind the wheel, the show too often feels as if it’s stuck in neutral.

Parish is essentially two shows in one. The fresher, more compelling of the pair follows Horse and his siblings, brash brother Zenzo Tongai (Ivan Mbakop) and shrewd sister Shamiso Tongai (Bonnie Mbuli), as they make power plays in a New Orleans criminal underworld. .... Less captivating but more central to the plot is Gray’s “one last job” arc.

Having Esposito in the driver’s seat prevents Parish from spinning out altogether, and there are moments of cool style, like Gray and Colin joyriding through the night to the sound of Otis Redding’s “I’ve Got Dreams to Remember.” But a more streamlined, smartly constructed version of the series could have gotten much more mileage.

The six episodes allotted to “Parish” require a narrative discipline that simply isn’t in play, and Esposito’s talent demands original writing that rarely presents itself here. He’s excellent despite this lack – so much that it makes you want better for him.

The supporting cast here isn’t horrible, and gets richer in the last episode in a way that’s clearly designed to set up the next season—it’s more the mediocre writing that seems to be literally fighting with Esposito. The fact that he makes this clichéd character and the show around him interesting as often as he does is just another testament to his skill set. You’ll just wish it was in service of a show that had a better idea of what to do with its star.

Parish fumbles all its themes, barely scratching the surface of them, and delivers a show that feels generic, soulless, and ultimately forgettable.