Honestly, I’m not loving it as a whole. >_> It’s a reboot of the original Perry Mason show, which aired all the way back in the ‘60s! But that was a legal drama, here, they’ve made him a private detective. My own memories were of catching reruns of not the original show but the TV movies they made with the same actors many years later but I still didn’t even watch those, I just saw some old guy in a court and that was it.
History lesson aside, this is HBO so of course it’s Prestige, with the money to match. They’ve changed the time and set it back in the ‘30s, investigating a baby kidnapping/murder. It’s not just a mystery, right, there’s a lot of setting the scene and supporting background work. Tatiana Maslany’s character is an evangelical (based on the same real life person Kerry Bishe’s character in Penny Dreadful: City of Angels was) who offers some of that color, and is supporting the dead baby’s mother.
I’m finding it gorgeous to look at but not really particularly compelling, otherwise. Yet, anyway. Della Street is the secretary of the lawyer who keeps Perry hired, and is pretty independent-minded and awesome, so her parts are cool but she’s not anywhere near the lead, so. This fourth ep was the first with any details about her background, and they weren’t much.