Mob City 2013

After Frank Darabont got fired from The Walking Dead for wanting to try to make it an epic series like Game of Thrones* he made this tiny mob show for TNT.

*Darabont wanted The Walking Dead's S2 opener to show Atlanta during the outbreak and seeing how the soldier zombie from the pilot ended up in the tank and we would've seen a winter season which has never been shown throughout the show's current run. *

It's quite a solid venture that feels more up Darabon't alley than the zombie hit he brought into the small screen (The Shawshank Redemption and The Green Mile are his two most well-known works, and although The Majestic is far from as great as The Mist, it showed Darabont's affection for period pieces). Like The Walking Dead's first season, the pilot and the season finale of Mob City are the highlights of Darabont's second TV venture, where the four chapters in between introduce us characters we'll soon love aren't necessarily on par with its other chapters.* The production and sets are top-notch, especially for a show that wasn't on HBO. And Jon Bernthal nails it as the leader who had an interesting character arc set up for himself in the season finale.

TWD S1 had the episode with the vato kids who have their tiny retirement community, far from the show's strongest outing but seeing as to how the Scott M. Gimple run has episodes that delay a climax to satisfy AMC's 16 episode seasons, it's far more entertaining than the multiple filler episodes that currently air.

Honestly, I think if TNT had stuck with this they'd probably have a hit. It wasn't a rating success but like what Darabont had hinted at in his first season of TWD, he had ambitious plans that could've put TNT on the map as a channel that rivalled AMC and FX as airing prestige dramas.* But this also aired while Boardwalk Empire* had two more seasons.

2013 saw the end of Breaking Bad and plenty of shows really wanted to take the mantle of prestige cable drama hit. And at this point, Netflix debuted House of Cards and Orange is the New Black. Strangely in a streaming dominated world, TNT has actually now found success with The Alienist and Snowpiercer, both containing bigger budgets with bigger stars, making one wonder if Mob City would've fared differently today

*Before True Detective and Big Little Lies made HBO the place for Hollywood stars, Boardwalk Empire was at the moment still one of its flagship shows even though it failed to gain the same critical and cultural raves as Breaking Bad and Mad Men or the mammoth-sized viewing numbers of the then young Game of Thrones. Not only was TV heading into the movie star/anthology era that we're still in today but it was rare to have a period piece drama on the air on a network that wasn't premium. Mad Men was probably the exception, but its first season was a critical darling that got people talking while Mob City was still finding its footing. And Boardwalk Empire was very cinematic and contained plenty of the historical figures seen here, so perhaps critics didn't see themselves blown by Darabont's 1940s gangster story since a far more gorgeous looking series with plenty of the same elements was currently on the air. And who would people prefer to see face off mobsters each week? Jon Bernthal or Steve Buscemi? You're crazy if you don't say, Buscemi.

Like plenty of the mobster victims on here, Mob City aired at the wrong place and wrong time. And perhaps it was for the better, it seems stars like Jon Bernthal, Milo Ventimiglia, and Jeremy Strong (who's criminally underused here) went on to do big stuff. Though talent like Alexa Davos, Neal McDonough, Jeremy Luke, and Andrew Rothenberg probably could've received a lot more attention if this had lasted longer. If it had been renewed, I don't doubt Darabont would've made a superior second season.