City on a Hill

The first season was good. I thought the second season wouldn't be as good because J. Tucker wasn't coming back, but Kevin Bacon is superb.

He is so good as Jackie Rohr that I will forever see him as this character.

He makes the show fun to watch.

The rest of the cast is great, but he steals the show.

Kevin Bacon channels James Woods circa 1988 (Cop/Boost) and purloins some of Bogie's sidemouthed wisecracks to deliver his best performance since Footloose. This is a hardboiled, true to Southie kind of show. I love that dirty water. Bravura performances from Mark O' Brien, Aldis Hodge (I'm King Kong!), and the luminously intoxicating Jill Hennessy (I love her just on a titular level) too. In fact, the entire cast of characters is well scripted, directed and developed. This show has a gritty, blue collar blues feel that will make you want to bathe in tomato juice after watching it to get all of the stink off of you. A tone poem of corruption, hard booze, harder floozies, booger sugar, bullet wounds, and paradoxical tenderness. It reminds me of something Bukowski would write.

As the series has progressed, the unlikely relationship between completely opposite backgrounds of Bacon's and Hodge's characters has meshed with Rohr seemingly seeking some sort of redemption after a corrupt past, and assistant district attorney Ward bending away from the pure by the book straight arrow, has focused on finding justice in Boston's police problems of the 90's. The chemistry between the two main characters is the best part of the series.

Aldis Hodge was in Leverage and I was wondering when we'd get to see him again. Hodge and Bacon are excellent actors and play really well off each other. But all the characters in this show really pop. The show follows the efforts of a DA (Hodge) and crusty jaded FBI agent (Bacon) to clean up Boston in the 1990s of the ridiculous levels of crime.

There's a real nuance of layers in the story line. You tend to feel sorry for the criminals too, such a way of life has been ingrained in them and passed down in generations.

Im no damn hollywood critic so you really should watch yourself. I just came across this show last night and binged season 1. Great acting by everyone. Im just a few years younger then Kevin Bacon and have seen much of his work and he is so good at playing a sleazy FBI agent, yet he makes me actually like him. I see that season 2 starts next weekend and ill be watching and so should everyone.