Sandwiched between the summer and winter season's of TNT dramas like Major Crimes and Rizzoli & Isles, Public Morals tells the story of NYC vice cops in the Sixties who tow a shadowy line between keeping the peace and stuffing their pockets with bribes and swag. The series was created by and stars Edward Burns, who brings the same gritty neighborhood realism to the show as his celebrated indie film The Brothers McMullen.
Burns plays vice cop Terry Muldoon, and Michael Rappaport (looking a bit like The Honeymooners' sad sack second banana Ed Norton) plays his partner Charlie Bullman. Together they've got a good thing going; as Muldoon tells Irish crime boss Joe Patton (played with a sinister old country brogue by the esteemed Brian Dennehy,) "Nobody's getting hurt and we're all making money. Let's keep it that way."
Silly me, I thought the Italians ran organized crime in Sixties Manhattan, but here it's an Irish gang and one of its major players gets offed by Patton's hot-headed son in the first episode. That sets off various power plays among both the cops and the gangsters, presaging a gang war that will derail Muldoon's tenuous peace. Among the players, Kevin Corrigan stands out as the weasly underling Smitty, and Brian Wiles brings a bit of mystery as a fresh-faced rookie detective who got promoted because his dad's a 1PP bigwig. Is he there to learn the rules and play the game, or is he a plant looking to uncover the systemic corruption in the Vice Squad?
There are a number of younger actors playing various relatives, hoods, and cops who manage to get their shirts off gratuitously at least once an episode, making Public Morals feel a bit like a daytime soap (where beefcake is a way of life.) There are also a few back stories to add interest: Muldoon has a wife who's clueless about her hubby's corruption and wants to move to the suburbs, as well as a teenage son who admires the mobsters down the block perhaps a bit too much. Bullman, rather unbelievably, has taken a prostitute under his wing and is trying to keep her off the streets, sneaking money out of the family cookie jar to help her. It's a good bet that somewhere during Public Moral's 10-episode first season, those secrets will start to unravel.
Ed Burns, who wrote the first four episodes as well as starring in the series, certainly has the kernel of a good idea here, but the soap opera tropes, confusing extended family relationships (this guy's the nephew of that guy who's the uncle of this kid who's dad is this guy), and dull plotting just aren't clicking yet. Rappaport comes across as way too dopey to be a police detective, which might work if played for comic relief but just grates against the series' supposed realism. And while the show does a decent job of recreating the Sixties with vintage cars and suits, the haircuts and beards are often all wrong, and Dennehy's stereotypical Irish mob boss often feels like he's been transplanted from another series, one set in the Thirties or Forties.
Verdict: Wait for Major Crimes to return in January if you want a good drama on TNT.
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