Episode Title: “Pilot”
Writer: Chris Mundy
Director: Ernest Dickerson
It seems like AMC held back the final eight episodes of “Breaking Bad” for three reasons: to drive up interest in the finale, to get another round of Emmy nominations next year and to use “Breaking Bad” as a springboard for their next big drama.
“Breaking Bad” came back with a record high in viewers and it’s hard to imagine the series not taking another round of awards this year and next year. But the jury is still out on whether “Low Winter Sun” can pick up and run with the huge boost it’s getting from “Breaking Bad.” Getting 2.5 million viewers for the premiere is impressive. Getting the viewers to stick around will be the hard part.
There are full spoilers ahead for the pilot episode of “Low Winter Sun,” so if you missed it you will probably want to skip this review or else another body might show up unexpectedly.
“Low Winter Sun” gets off to a fairly promising start when two detectives, Frank Agnew (Mark Strong) and Joe Geddes (Lennie James) go through with their plan to murder their colleague, Brendan McCann (Michael McGrady). Geddes seems to be the one who really wants McCann dead while Agnew has to be told that McCann murdered his lover to spring him into action. Even so, Agnew shows some remorse before he goes through with it.
It soon becomes clear that Geddes’ plan to dispose of McCann is pretty well thought out. Later in the episode, we see how Geddes and Agnew fooled the security cameras and made it seem as if McCann made it home safely before leaving on his own a few hours later… where his body is dumped with his car in a river.
The next day, both Agnew and Geddes act naturally about McCann’s absence until Internal Affairs comes looking for McCann. And McCann’s body turns up in the car soon after.
Despite some underdeveloped characters, the cast of “Low Winter Sun” is filled with performers you’ve probably seen before like Ruben Santiago-Hudson (“Castle”) as the commander of the precinct, Charles Dawson, David Costabile (Gale on “Breaking Bad”) as the IA investigator, Simon Boyd and even Billy Lush (of the late, lamented “The Chicago Code”) in a small role as a former military man named Nick Paflas.
Strong is essentially playing the same character he portrayed in the original British incarnation of “Low Winter Sun.” Although Agnew is clearly meant to be the lead, the real star here is James’ Detective Geddes. He’s charismatic and interesting in a way that Agnew has yet to achieve. It’s strongly implied that Geddes is the real antagonist of this show who may have orchestrated McCann’s murder just to save himself from being implicated in the IA investigation.
Dawson has a few interesting beats in which he explains that he’s not really interested in whether Geddes or McCann or dirty as long as it doesn’t blowback on him during the investigation. It’s only the surprise they find in McCann’s car that leads Dawson to assign Agnew to investigate Geddes’ possible involvement in the crime… because Geddes is the only cop whom Dawson really trusts. Meanwhile, Detective Dani Kahlil (Athena Karkanis) is already picking up on the friction between Geddes and Agnew, as well as Agnew’s suspicious reaction to what’s in McCann’s car.
The other side of “Low Winter Sun” follows a group of criminals led by Damon Callis (James Ransone), with support from his wife, Maya (Sprague Grayden). As characters, they barely registered at all and it seemed like a very different show whenever the scenes focused on them. Their connection to the main plot is through McCann, who was a dirty cop on their payroll. And when McCann doesn’t show up for an important drug bust, Damon takes it into his own hands to steal the drug stash and murder the man who was guarding it.
The most frustrating aspect of this pilot is that it doesn’t go far enough. We’re dumped into the middle of the story and by the end of the hour we haven’t even left the crime scene where McCann’s body was discovered. TV is the right medium for slow burn plotlines, but this is too slow. It makes “The Killing” look like a fast paced series.
Whereas “The Killing” had a spectacular pilot before becoming a “meh” series, “Low Winter Sun” only has a solid pilot that feels somewhat incomplete. It’s far too soon to say whether this series is going to rise to the challenge and live up to the high mark of AMC’s previous dramas.
Hopefully that goal isn’t entirely out of reach.
