Magic City ‘Year of the Fin’: The Frog & The Scorpion

(The series premiere of Magic City previewed on Starz March 30th. The official season premiere is April 6th, and will run 8 episodes in the first season.)

The prevalence of cigarettes, suits, and slicked haircuts in promos for Starz’s new drama Magic City will lead many to believe this is the channel’s attempt to get some of that Mad Men money. To a point yes, although the show’s premiere felt much closer (and I’d argue a little too close) to HBO’s period drama Boardwalk Empire. There is a lot of promise to what this show can be – and there are plenty of hints in the promo – but the pilot isn’t quite up to the task of keeping viewers afloat through its introductory hour.

Needless to say, there are a lot of characters and complex interactions between them. Issac (Jeffrey Dean Morgan, in the titular role) is running a Miami based hotel, and we meet him in the midst of a stressful moment: Frank Sinatra is coming to perform New Year’s Eve, and a local union chief is threatening to ruin the big night – which could have some messy complications for Issac’s business if he fails to sell out the party. Not to mention his hotel was financed by a member of the mob, the wife of which is being screwed by Issac’s daughter. There’s other kids and characters, and a bunch of boobs, and basically, a whole shit ton of puzzles pieces thrown on the table without a lot of connections.

I really hope this doesn’t set the tone for the short first season (eight episodes), which doesn’t give a whole lot of time to both establish a setting and characters, and then drive them through a satisfying season arc. There’s just not enough time, so the writers are forced to drop us right smack dab in the middle of things, with clear intentions of working both backwards and forwards in time as we move along. All the flag markers are there, but in the first hour, there’s isn’t a whole lot for viewers to cling onto.

And like I said, it draws way too much from Boardwalk Empire, right down to the social revolutions and the calender date. Both take place on New Year’s Eve on coastal towns. Both involve booze (in Magic City, it’s needed for the success of the evening, in Boardwalk it was being outlawed at midnight), gangsters, and main characters who are trying to come to terms with the people they are, and who they need to be to get what they want in life. Nucky Thompson has a little more financial security, but everything else is there, from trademark dressing styles, to cigarette inhaling, and even some daddy issues sprinkled on top.

These parallels in both plot and character (did I mention Issac has a wife with a foreign accent? There’s another similarity) would be less obtrusive if there was more attention paid to the setting of Miami, the revolution happening down south (which by the way, do we need any more scenes in old movies of people crowding around radios and shitty TV’s? C’mon guys), and how the stress of that, combined with the social unrest and cultural mix of the area, can lead to these life-defining decisions. It’s a missed opportunity I hope the show redeems as it continues.

The other big detraction is the disconnection I felt between the big plot points the series was trying to set up. I really wish we could’ve got more of Michael Strauss and Issac’s relationship: it would’ve added dramatic weight to many of Issac’s decisions in the pilot, and also could’ve helped establish more where on the moral spectrum Issac is trying to lie – an ambiguity the pilot really swings and misses on. Adding some context in later episodes is going to help this (if it happens): this can sometimes be the downside of having a series premiere that jumps right into the deep end like this.

Thanks to the allusions in the opening credits and episode titles, this show is ultimately about men being sharks – and hopefully, the women around them won’t just be on-screen playthings to keep the main character’s dicks busy. One thing is clear: if the show is going to succeed, it needs to slow itself down and establish who these people are, and why this story is important: not only for the characters, but for the setting of the show. Why 1959? What does the setting of the Cuban Revolution and the culture of early 60s Miami is important here?

If it ends up just being for scenery, then Magic City is going to fail miserably. No personality for the show’s period and setting defeats the purpose of the show being set there, and instead it will feel like a cheap imitation of the shows it so clearly means to emulate. What I’m saying is it needs some Cuban flavor, I guess. That and some goddamn exposition into who these people are.

Grade: C-

Other thoughts:

– we get it with the fucking cigarette smoking. Enough is enough people: being authentic to be authentic is one thing, but milking a concept just because makes for sore nipples.

– A whole lot of cast was thrown at us in the episode, and of course, one of them was some shady black guy who had some connections to important shit tht we won’t find out about for awhile. Again with the Boardwalk Empire comparisons.

– I can do without all the empty threats of antagonists, and stereotypical portrayals of mob guys smoking cigars and being all threatening. If our main atagonist is going to be doing this all season, it will get old real fast.

– I did like the use of Sinatra as mere presence, and not something to behold visually. There was that cool little Ella Fitzgerald moment, too – I hope the show continues to drop in these little musical touches, without feeling the need to point neon signs at them. Nice piece of background.

I have a lot more thoughts, many of which I’m reserving until I see a couple more hours of the show. A little too melodramatic, a few too many thoughtful glances into the distance, but like many of the mediocre pilots we’ve been digesting in recent years, there’s always hope and room for growth. I’ll be sticking with Magic City through its short first season, so keep your eyes peeled for the weekly recap!