If you've seen any of the ads for "The Black Donnellys" (if you watch any NBC, you have) then you know that it was created by Paul Haggis, the scribe behind "Crash" (2004), "Million Dollar Baby" (2004) and "Flags of Our Fathers" (2006). Indeed, the show clearly echoes these films' moral and thematic complexity, as well as their characters' pathos.
But the show makes a few missteps (and managed to lose 4 million viewers by its first episode's second half) that show Haggis' inexperience with series creation. (This is the first series he has created, but not the first for which he's written.) Aside from that, though, the show is well-done and almost perfectly suited to our time.
In the 1970s, directors like Francis Ford Coppola and Martin Scorsese made the urban Italian experience one of the most important touchstones in American culture. Though that era has worn off to some extent, the way that Americans can be made to feel alientated due to their ethnicity has been a major theme ever since. As some other writers have observed, the present day is taking that very theme and applying it to Irish-Americans, long overdue for a time of cultural representation.
Perhaps the earliest indicator of this was Denis Leary's show "Rescue Me," which addresses the Irish-American experience in New York, a city with a very strong Irish presence. And it cannot be coincidence that Martin Scorsese's first Oscar win came for "The Departed" (2006), a story that involves the Irish mob and takes place in Boston, another city with a strong Irish presence.
Before going any further, it is important to address what many people see as the negative stereotyping inherent in mob stories. For decades, Italian-Americans have complained about being forever associated with the Mafia, something they see films like "The Godfather" (1972) as perpetuating. It is not unlikely that soon Irish-Americans will begin to grow concerned by an outpouring of Irish mob stories.
There is a reason, though, that these stories work so well. More than almost any other job, organized crime, especially ethnically-controlled, tends to be steeped in tradition.
Despite the unfortunate fact of these organizations' criminal activities, they do provide an excellent eye to the experience of American immigrants trying to succeed in a new culture.
"The Black Donnellys" works as a good counterpoint to many Italian mob stories. The Donnellys are outsiders in New York's organized crime, which is almost entirely Italian-controlled. The Donnellys do not have nice mansions in New Jersey like Tony Soprano; they live in ratty New York apartments. However, they deal with similar issues.
"The Black Donnellys" includes the Michael Corleone dilemma, asking under what circumstances a good man who abhors crime would become embroiled in it. Like "The Godfather," it is always an issue of family.
In the first episode, we are introduced to a woman who, within her first scene, confesses to loving one of the Donnellys despite being married. While this provides a good romantic subplot to an otherwise male-dominated storyline, bringing it up within the first 45 minutes is a cinematic error.
When you only have two and a half hours to tell a story, you often need to cut to the chase. On television, though, we are learning more and more that plots can be developed slowly and delicately and that there's no reason to jump into anything.
On "The Wire," the cops didn't even know what the drug lord looked like until halfway through the first season.
In introducing such an intense romance so early, "The Black Donnellys" is making the same mistake veteran Aaron Sorkin did with "Studio 60 on the Sunset Strip," the show whose timeslot it is replacing.
Otherwise, though, the show is very well done. It is not yet particularly compelling and hasn't yet introduced mob plots we haven't seen in "Mean Streets" (1973), "Goodfellas" (1990) and "The Godfather," but its set pieces suggest that it can grow into something much grander.
