Showtime Series Review: Your Honor

The new 10 part Showtime series "Your Honor", starring Brian Cranston is as close to a Shakespearian tragedy as I have seen in a long time. The story starts simply, "what would a parent do to save their child if they made a mistake". In this case a judge Michael Desiato, played expertly by Brian Cranston has a son named Adam who has Asthma. Adam makes a tragic driving error by bending down to pick up his inhaler and hits a teenage boy on a motorcycle, who himself was driving erratically. Unfortunately this teenage boy has a father who is both a murderer and master criminal, making going to the police and confessing no longer an option. From the very beginning, this basic conflict make for a highly believable and unique story that I have not seen before, with extremely well drawn out twists and turns all the way to the last episode.

This series is brilliant because of the way all of the lies Judge Desiato tells everybody he knows, trying desperately to hide the fact that his son was involved in the accident that killed a teenage boy. The lies mutate and grow ever more complex and impossible to conceal as the story unfolds. Desiato's friends notice little discrepancies that don't seem right, other small lies slip out, other things are found out that at first seem to be perfectly hidden. With a lie this big, over time it becomes impossible to keep it a secret. The unwinding of so many lies during this story, is the best part of this series.

As he was with the great series "Breaking Bad" - arguably the greatest television series of all time, Your Honor shows Cranston at his best with great dialogue, story and most importantly, his great acting as judge Desiato. All of the remaining cast members are also great in their roles with an ending that is both a surprise and ultimately tragic.

The IMDB ratings are an outstanding 81%, which is an accurate number, along with a ridiculous 44% rating on Rotten Tomatoes, that has only one very inaccurate critical review. Regardless, I highly recommend this series which is now available on Amazon Prime.