2 out of 5

Created by: Gideon Raff

covers season 1

I can admit I probably only gave this show a chance due to it airing on FX, which has a pretty high success rate (in my mind) with its dramas.  Otherwise the ‘ripped from the headlines’ topicality and creator / developer credits (‘Homeland,’ ’24’) didn’t really speak to me, and, after having viewed Tyrant’s pilot episode, seemed to fuel some of the more eye-rolling TV trope-isms going on here.  Barry Al-Fayeed (Adam Rayner) has broken a 20 year self-imposed exile to go visit his family in the fictional Arab country ‘Abbudin,’ bringing his American wife and children along for the ride.  We get a sense of the authoritative regime run by his ailing father, and are shown (in an over-the-top fashion) the brutality of his brother Jamal (Ashraf Barhom).  Rayner plays Barry with zero personality, and there’s just no sense of his family actually knowing one another outside of the scenes that are filmed.  Part of this is a purposeful contrast to the dynamic, colorful Jamal and his wife, Leila (Moran Atias), but the main part of it is just poor direction of the actors and a script that tries too hard to feed us backstory backstory backstory to justify what’s to come.  Which is: Barry’s father dies, and Jamal is, perhaps, fatally injured.  We’re left with an enticing enough cliffhanger of Barry being prevented from leaving Abbudin, and the promise of shunting the diminutive brother into the role as leader, against his will.  Instead, Tyrant decides to peel it back: Jamal survives, but Barry decides to stay anyway, to guide his brother’s hand to, maybe a more peaceful way of life in Abbudin.  It’s an unexpectedly subtle premise for a show that, initially, wants to shock us with atrocities, and is what kept me watching – more, admittedly, out of wandering where the hell things were going than actually being interested, as the season continually functions as a delaying tactic and Barry – never quite as ‘cunning’ as I think he’s supposed to seem (again, acting and script playing a part) – Barry’s part in matters continues to feel unjustified.  He’s family, and the show just tries and tries to coast on that.

Now all of this sounds bad.  But Tyrant isn’t necessarily a bad show all around.  I do applaud the back door route taken to exploring US / international politics, and when the show gets around to it, considering some of these connections can be fascinating.  Ashraf Barhom is amazing as Jamal.  This character could be just an evil idiot, but Barhom makes his flip-flops between the insecure and vengeance-fueled ruler is grabbing and believable.  And when things start to shape into a plot toward season’s end, with some consequences FINALLY rolling around, we get a real sense of the hopelessness the show has been trying to beat into us elsewhere in more obvious ways.  To the scripting – well, other shows have had worse scripts and pulled it off.  I haven’t seen Rayner elsewhere to comment on his range, but he really just wasn’t the right choice here, not bringing enough weight to his side of the story, which exposes those scripting weaknesses.  And the decision to do the whole thing in English was really just dumb, and again, discredited the positives.

There are a ton of shows that find a light in their final episodes and then we never get to see them again.  Tyrant had some interesting ideas but not the tools to do them justice.  However, the end of the season could be a compelling framing for a more structured second season… if given the opportunity.