Yep, they’ll get so much right. Then have they’ll have characters talk about exercise (… perfectly on point for rich folks in LA in the '30s) and their “core” (… totally anachronistic.)
What really got me, though, is when they went to the movie theater to watch King Kong … cropped into a widescreen format. Which someone, the director or the visual effects person, must have ordered done because 4:3 “looked wrong.”
The one that actually affects the plot is that there’s no way a rando PI is gonna know how to do ballistics testing in his backyard in 1933.
As far as the first murder victim’s father having shady dealings goes, it’s important to remember that in early '32 Prohibition was still the law of the land (though honored more in the breach than in the observance). It wasn’t repealed till 1933.
Well, rando PI was a cop in the first season. And apparently firearm forensics wasn’t completely unheard of in the 30’s. I kinda agree, it seems unlikely, but for purposes of potentially moving the story in a different direction I’ll let it slide. Objection overruled. ;)
Just watching the third episode. The movie theater scene reminded me that my late dad (born 1928) told us a couple of times that he’d gone to see King Kong as a young kid but it scared him too much so he’d leave the theater but he kept coming back till he managed to watch it all the way through. :-)
This would have been in La Grande, Oregon in the mid 1930s most likely, in the town’s only cinema, named The Granada.
That’s my understanding, yeah. Add to that the younger boy’s sketch of the car, plus his accuracy playing whatever that game was, and I suspect there’s a lot more to their story than they let on.
More than a full season in and I’m still not sure how I feel about noir Perry Mason, but one thing is for sure - the plots are a lot less predictable than knight-in-shining armor Perry!
In the first season they made a bit of fun of the inevitable “confession on the witness stand by someone other than the defendant” that was a regular part of the old series.
Thanks, I saw all that. I meant that there looked to be something horizontal that sort of looked like a pistol barrel with a suppressor, but I guess I was imagining it.
Another week, another frustrating ending. Were we the audience supposed to recognize the car that stopped at the corner a block away from Paul Drake’s car? That was the same corner he’d sent his brother-in-law to observe, right?
I get that the shoes the kid crossing the street (and stopping Paul’s pursuit) was wearing were the ones he got off the wire at the beginning. What is the significance there, though? I guess I must have missed that. Did the shoes belong originally to the guy the mob boss made Paul beat up (possibly fatally)?
BTW, regarding the ending of the previous episode, given what we saw in this one, I guess we can safely say that the guy who left the cigarette burning and the model train running was Strickland, which is weird because I thought he and Perry were friends.
I knew the older brother was going to end up taking the fall for crime by the end. They telegraphed that pretty early on even without the revelation of the art school acceptance letter.
I love Perry and Pete’s on-again-off-again bromance.
Better than the first season, I think. Mainly because the first season was good but the court case never made any sense. In this one everything ended up fitting together pretty well.
I like this show but it is really about style over substance. Which is not a terrible thing. It has a lot of style.
I agree. Great stuff! Occasionally the show comes across a bit stiff or plodding but overall I really enjoyed it. The period really comes alive through production design and costumes plus the scope of the story was really satisfying. Thumbs UP.
I also really enjoyed the second season. My wife was less enthusiastic, mainly because she’s not a big fan of Matthew Rhys to begin with, compounded by the fact that she doesn’t like how flawed and weak they make the Perry Mason character out to be and how slow and plodding the pace was at the start of this season. I like that Mason isn’t the shining white knight and because of his flaws and doubts the supporting cast like Della and Paul get to shine a lot brighter. I think all of the characters are very well acted, the scripting and plot are both good, and you couldn’t ask for better production quality as I am consistently amazed at how they manage to reproduce 1930’s L.A. so convincingly in so many different ways.
I thought the plot this season wrapped up nicely, and would very much like to see a third season. I suppose it will depend on money though, as I can’t imagine this show is cheap to produce, and HBO Max is very cost conscious lately, as are all of the streaming networks.
