There’s no reason Perry Mason should be this good. The original Raymond Burr-starring series from crime master Erle Stanley Gardner was a prototype for modern legal drama, and it came with its own noir attitude, but the HBO reimagining has injected some serious prestige into the court proceedings. It’s a much larger story than the week-to-week whodunnit. A totally different animal.
And the second season looks dynamite. Matthew Rhys is perfectly cast as the broken defense lawyer whose conscience only fully extends to protecting the innocent in a city that doesn’t care all that much about real justice.
Diving back into the 1930s, here’s the official synopsis for what season 2 has to offer: “Months after the Dodson case has come to an end, the scion of a powerful oil family is brutally murdered. When the DA goes to the city’s Hoovervilles to pinpoint the most obvious of suspects, Perry, Della, and Paul find themselves at the center of a case that will uncover far reaching conspiracies and force them to reckon with what it truly means to be guilty.”
Beyond Rhys, the show also stars Juliet Rylance, Chris Chalk, Diarra Kilpatrick, Eric Lange, Justin Kirk, Katherine Waterston, Hope Davis, and many more. The second season of Perry Mason lands on HBO March 6th.