Violence and Consequences
Season 3 of Showtime's Ray Donovan, starring Liev Schreiber as Ray and Jon Voight as his ex-con father Mickey (released on DVD in December), follows Ray, a "fixer" from South Boston based in Los Angeles and employed by Hollywood's elites. The show, in the modern mode of the sympathetic anti-hero, is well-executed L.A. noir, with few actual "good guys" but a lot of larger-than-life drama, the way Hollywood sees itself and hopes we do too.
In the world of Ray Donovan, sex, drugs, and anarchy combine to produce an appealing mixture of corruption and moral complexity. Donovan represents sheer force of will, frequently actuated through hideous violence. But the show also gives its characters credit for an intelligent sense of the consequences of their brutal actions. -Ed Krayewski
This article originally appeared in print under the headline "Violence and Consequences."