3 out of 5

Created by: John Singleton, Eric Amadio, and Dave Andron

covers season 1

Snowfall is a very smart, well-cast show with fascinating moving parts, but it’s a bit too sprawling – at this point – to demand viewership.  The premise of the show – intended to chronicle the rise of crack cocaine during the 80s – is rather problematic for series-spanning serialization for a couple reasons: that attempting to chronicle such an event distilled into TV-digestible plotlines may be over-simplifying, and that historical capsules feel a little silly when presented as bids for future seasons as opposed to clear-cut mini-series.  Snowfall doesn’t get tripped up by either of these potentialities, but it’s for that reason that it remains a bit too oblique during its first season.

We’re primarily dealing with three plotlines, and though there are intersections, the show (appreciably) doesn’t make a cute point of it; the idea, rather, is to show the different avenues into this business and the toll they take from those perspectives:

Damson Idris as eyes-on-the-prize teen Franklin, eager to earn his way out of the hemmed in lifestyle he observes on his L.A. streets.  Low-stakes marijuana slinging turns into cocaine, fueling his business sense and pushing him toward more lucrative possibilities.  For those of us (i.e. me) with little foreknowledge on the history of drugs, and assuming there’s truth in Snowfall’s telling, it’s interesting that crack – the crystallized, smokable version of cocaine – was seemingly ignored at first, and that the drugs had certain social divides as being, for example, a white man’s drug.  Franklin’s juxtaposing desires of serving his neighborhood and friends and family while also encouraging the flourishing of crack on his streets is probably the series’ most compelling thread, and thus it’s thankful that Idris is such an intelligent actor, portraying his character with the perfect blend of stubborness, naievty, intelligence and fear.

Carter Hudson as Teddy McDonald, a disgraced CIA agent who sidles his way into governmental drug dealings with funding the contras.  Teddy’s storyline – again, to under-educated me – is maybe the most difficult to track, as we jump into the middle of the mix and it doesn’t feel as directly tied to the proposed focus of the crack epidemic.  Indeed, while we do get to witness Teddy’s head-barely-above-water manipulations of various factions, which is a primary source of funneling the drugs into America, his plotline is more distracted by the dramatics of keeping his operation hush-hush, which leads to a long line of lies and violence.  It’s a necessary historical piece of the puzzle, but it feels like the most dressed up aspect to keep it interesting and to justify its screentime.

Sergio Peris-Mencheta as Gustavo Zapata and Emily Rios as Lucia Villanueva, involved with the cartel and trying to set up their own operation outside of Lucia’s family.  Peris-Mencheta, while given minimal dialogue, is an absolute presence on screen, the seemingly big, dumb, thug who’s actually sitting back and watching events unfold to catch his opportunity to strike.  Rios is a perfect juxtaposition, and mirrors Idris’ ability to represent both toughness and terror in a single scene.  The duo’s motivation, like Franklin, is about money and power, but from a different cultural, familial, and socioalogical perspective.  The cartel obviously already exists in a world of violence, but the flood of drugs and the burgeoning surge of crack poises things such that everyone is scrambling to be at the top.  We don’t really know who to trust in the cartel sequences – including between Gustavo and Lucia – and although the direction of their story still isn’t as clear as Franklin’s, the tension is there.

But as far as where the first season ends up…?  There’s no real clear cliffhanger or turning point.  It’s hard to even say, at a high level, what happened this season, except to chronicle a certain span of time and what occurred during that time.  It’s fascinating television, for sure – well-produced, wonderfully acted and carefully crafted – but there’s not a clear throughline, yet, to sell it from episode to episode.  However, the feeling that something is around the corner is palpable.  It’s great that its been renewed for a second season, and I hope / suspect that as all the storylines warm up, this will become a great series to sit and watch in chunks.