I’ve recently been watching the first season of the television show Boss, which stars Kelsey Grammer, the guy who used to play Frasier. The show is one of those paid television episodic soap operas that involves Grammer as a guy named Tom Kane, who happens to be the mayor of Chicago. As you would expect, a show about Chicago’s inner government is going to be one about the Democratic Party’s control of the city, and as might also be expected, it’s also about the serious corruption of Chicago itself.
Now, I could go on a huge bent about politics and how I suspect the show might actually be written by Republicans who hate Chicago and Chicago-style politics, but I’m suspecting that’s not the case. But rather that it’s designed by people who just hate politics and love to throw mud all over the place and laugh at how well it sticks to everything.
A quick run down of the premise: Tom Kane is dying of some degenerative disease, so he has to keep it a secret from practically everyone. At the same time, as the Mayor of Chicago, he’s probably the most corrupt individual to run a city since, well, honestly I don’t know someone as corrupt as this guy in the whole of history. Caligula comes to mind, but even Caligula seems like a nice guy compared to Tom Kane. As we quickly find out, Kane screws over his closest allies, his enemies, his wife, his daughter, a nurse caring for his father in law, union members, the city of Chicago, cities near Chicago, his own senior adviser, his own senior propagandist, and…well, you probably get the idea that there’s not a person Kane wouldn’t screw over if you gave him enough time.
In a show like this, you’re bound to find some characters to care about to juxtapose against the evil Tom Kane, but honestly, there’s not a single one. His department head is probably the closest to someone you’d like or respect, but at the same time this guy has no problem hiring people to beat up other people, or just kill them. And this is literally one of the good guys. Kane’s female assistant (I guess she’s a deputy mayor, although I suspect “sex object” is part of her job description as well) is a beautiful blond woman who has zero problem sleeping with Kane’s new project, a guy running for governor under Kane’s umbrella. I guess we’re supposed to feel some compassion for her as she screws the governor candidate over and over again, even though the guy is married and screwing pretty much anything that moves. I guess she’s the jilted woman on the show?
Speaking of the blond woman and the governor candidate: Look, I’m not a prude or anything. I like a good sex scene here and there, but my god, this show has so much sex going on that at one point I felt I had to pause the playback and seek out a priest to confess. And I’m not even religious. Look, I understand the girl is attractive and foolishly chose “will appear nude” in her contract, but my god, I’ve seen her have sex more times in one season than I honestly think I’ve had my entire life. And I had a good run. I almost fear whenever the two actors end up in the same room together because panties are going to slide off, his shirt’s going to go flying off, and we’ll have porn for the next five minutes.
Anyway, as I was saying, I couldn’t find myself caring about a single character on the show. They’re all a bunch of scumbags that I’d vote out of office the first moment I got a chance. And that’s every politician on the show. It doesn’t matter if they’re with Kane or against him. There’s not a single one that doesn’t look like he or she came from the same crappy cloth as Kane did. They’re all on the take, taking what’s on the take, or just evil, bad people.
You might say it gives a watcher the sense that anyone in politics is a crappy person and not worth respecting.
Part of me wants to say I dislike the show, but it’s got that certain quality that comes to people who are transfixed by an out of control train wreck. You can’t stop watching, even though you’re convinced you’re completely wasting your time and energy.
So, I finished the first season and am apprehensive about season two. There’s only so much corruption and sex I can take in an hour.