![]() The pilot episode, directed by Adil El Arbi, bathes Franklin’s neighborhood in a tree-lined California glow before revealing all the cracks in its surface. Through the six episodes made available to critics, these threads unite only tangentially, which might not have mattered had the show not taken such a dioramic perspective on its chosen subject matter.īut what Snowfall lacks in clarity and concision it very nearly makes up for in style. Lucia, played by the quietly captivating Emily Rios (another soon-to-be breakout star), is the cartel head’s daughter, plotting to seize control of the family business. The third, final, and most underdeveloped portion of the narrative triptych includes a Mexican drug cartel that recruits Gustavo, an ageing wrestler, to do its dirty work. But the scope with which Snowfall chronicles the Contra scandal – the real-life version of which nearly subsumed the Reagan administration while helping proliferate the crack-cocaine that would pillage black neighborhoods – is far too anecdotal, leading us to wonder why it’s included at all. ![]() Hudson, who was terrific last year as a drug-testing volunteer in Lucy Prebble’s play The Effect, is perfectly cast as a disgraced former government operative, equal parts cautious and thrill-seeking as he guns for a high-stakes assignment. Other narratives are comparatively half-baked, including that of Teddy McDonald (Carter Hudson), a CIA agent who teams up with a Contra soldier (Juan Javier Cardenas) to peddle cocaine and fund the sale of government arms to anti-communist rebels in Nicaragua. Idris, a British actor short on recognition but long on talent, plunges many depths in the role, as the aptly surnamed Mr Saint wrestles, mostly internally, with his chosen trade and the momma’s boy sullied by it. Though Franklin is cool as a cucumber when he arrives at a gaudy, gilded mansion in the Valley – greeted by the sound of a gunshot and a flamboyant, speedo-wearing cocaine hustler named Avi (Alon Aboutboul) - the angst and naivete that would afflict any teenager tasked with turning a brick of cocaine into a wad of cash lies just beneath the surface. A steely, enterprising kid with gusto, Franklin works two jobs, one clerking at the local convenience store, the other selling weed for his uncle Jerome.įranklin quickly finds out that the money’s in cocaine when a friend asks him for help renewing his supply. Franklin went to a fancy suburban high school on a scholarship and then moved home to be near his mother, Sharon (the amazing Michael Hyatt), with whom he lives. The first of those loose narrative threads follows Franklin Saint, an affable young man played with cool curiosity by the baby-faced Damson Idris. But Singleton, alongside his co-creators Eric Amadio and Dave Andron, bites off a lot and leaves much to be chewed plotlines are abundant but their intersections vague and slow to emerge, while an extremely talented ensemble cast is left underserved by the push-and-pull between the show’s three competing storylines, each of which might merit at least a limited series on its own. ![]() Snowfall is something of a period piece, its documentation of the epidemic that befell so many black neighborhoods in the 1980s complex, stylized, and atmospheric.
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