O, hai, New Favorite Show!!!
Seriously. I finally got around to streaming this on Netflix, and I was completely blown away. This is not some "West Wing" styled political melodrama that mixes romance with facile policy nods. This isn't even the gritty urban drama of "The Wire." Instead, "Boss" is a relentless ride into the pitch-fucking-blackness of one of the oldest and most corrupt political machines in our nation's history.
The show's central component is the merciless and gorgeously apocalyptic portrait of a Chicago politician who clings to power at any cost (Kelsey Grammer). Fans of the Bard can't look at it without summoning Shakespeare's greatest works (particularly MacBeth and King Lear), but where Shakespeare allowed for heroes and villains, the creators of "Boss" abandon any notion of a moral universe in service of shining a light on the venality and brutality of those who pretend to serve us while secretly ruling us. In a way, the show explores the same amoral landscape that "Angel" attempted to, and does it so unflinchingly that its human monsters make Angel's supernatural ones pale in comparison.
Grammer steals the show as Mayor Tom Kaine, but the rest of the cast here is rarely short of brilliant, and the writing is crisper and more daring than anything I've seen on TV in recent memory. Anyone who is looking for soothing political bromides or left-versus-right partisan polemics is going to be very disappointed with the storytelling here. This is not a show about politics. Rather, it is a show about power: those who seek it, those who wield it, and those who want only to protect the status quo (as one such character memorably puts it, "Change on the outside, continuity on the inside"). I'm not going to reveal any plot details or spoilers, but suffice to say I was struck by how brilliantly all of the threads were stitched together by the finale. I also don't think I've ever anticipated a second season of any show more than this one.
I'd give "Boss" my unqualified endorsement except for one thing: this show is incredibly dark. In fact, you might even watch the first three or four episodes and say, "Wow, yeah Lostboy's right, this is pretty dark," but don't be fooled, because the real descent into the black abyss hasn't even begun. It's definitely not for the frail of heart, but if you think G.K. Chesterton was right about it being okay to go "to the brink of the lowest promontory and look down at hell", then this is the show for you.