Genre: TV Series
Grade: A-
Notable People: Billy Bob Thornton, William Hurt, Nina Arianda, Bruce Dern, J.K. Simmons Created by: Jonathan Shapiro and David E. Kelley
Title: Goliath
Review: the fourth and final season of this film noir TV series was the loudest by far. Full disclosure: I have never been a Billy Bob fan….but this series has given him the role of lifetime, and he has seized the day….Carpe Diem!!!!….Set in San Francisco and focused on the drunken, burned out lawyer who takes on Big Pharma, it is an homage to 1940s filmmaking, from the dark black and white dream sequences to the John Ford Western inserts and the Dashiell Hammet/Sam Spade like streets of Frisco moments…with a 40s sound track to match and so darkly me you’ll want to adjust your TV settings. The final scene set to Jack Kerouac reading his San Francisco blues to Errol Garners be bop piano is for the ages………and The Cast…. holy cow…. Simmons is evil personified in another of his fine acting performance, Dern is still kicking and hard to take your eyes off of, and Hurt…. well, it’s Bill Hurt. Billy Bob shines in this complex and sorrowful role, but the show belongs to Ms. Arianda as Billy’s brash, foul mouthed, unfiltered law protégé. This is a story foe our time ,and by the end you will be thinking that this should be happening in the real world, as Big Pharma and the crazed cycle of opioid profit meet their match.