Once in a while a show debuts in the summer that you get excited about. The thing with the summer time versus the regular fall schedule is that the lessened competition from other shows allows you to give a program a more prolonged look instead of giving up on it.
This summer that show for me was Showtime’s Brotherhood. Midway through the season I was still very iffy about sticking it through the full first season. Thankfully though I was rewarded for my patience as the last few episodes have been incredible and the season finale, set to air Sept. 24 in the U.S., (I found a sneak peek), was incredible.
For those that have not heard anyting about the show here is a quick intro to the series. Brotherhood focuses on, well you guessed it two brothers. In this case its the Caffee brothers, Tommy (Jason Clarke) and Michael (Jason Isaac).
Michael is the older brother who has returned to Providence, Rhode Island after seven years away. No one knows where he was and he isn’t up for telling anyone anything about his absence. It seems Michael fled seven years ago to avoid getting whacked by the local Irish mobsters he had pissed off. Seven years later the mobster in question is dead and Michael returns to claim in stake in the Providence underworld.
Meanwhile, his younger brother Tommy has made quite a life for himself. He is the state representative for “The Hill”, the Irish-neighbourhood of Providence he and his family grew up and still live in. Tommy is protrayed very much as a working-class JFK. Thing is Tommy’s political dealings can get just as murky and illegal as Michael’s mobster dealings.
While the show itself centers around the two brothers the supporting cast is steallar from Tommy’s wife Eileen (Annabeth Gish), the matriarch of the Caffee clan, Rose (Fionnula Flanagan), the state cop who has a idealizes the Caffee brothers, especially Tommy, Declan “Deco” Giggs (Ethan Embry), who along with Michal’s right-hand man Pete McGonagale (Stivi Paskoski), steal the show in many episodes.
So if you have not been as lucky as I to catch Brotherhood over the past summer try to find it in re-runs or on DVD. Later in the year when The Black Donnellys and Providence are released on network TV you can truly say that Brotherhood is the combination of those two premises, but much superior.
