Gerald McRaney and 'Southland' Still Riding High
Major Dad Gerald McRaney has had a renaissance of sorts in 2013.
His February guest appearance on FX's Justified was a perfect fit for that series, with McRaney, as Josiah Cairn, cooly riffing the hillbilly snark that's the show's trademark.
He played stealthy billionaire tycoon and potential vice presidential candidate Raymond Tusk, who out-played the normally unplayable Francis Underwood (Kevin Spacey) in the Netflix series, House of Cards.
And McRaney's turn on Southland last week, portraying Hicks, a retired police officer who was Officer John Cooper’s (Michael Cudlitz) training officer, was one of those singular, dramatic moments in television when the electrified minutes stood still. The performance's unvarnished authenticity was a television milestone.
The episode paints Hicks as an unfortunate character, a recent widower who drinks to fill long days — days that leave him lots of time to look back at the power and the glory of the job he no longer holds and feed the psychological impotence that occurs when a gun and a badge disappear.
Having lost his wife to illness, Hicks also lacks real relationships, particularly since his entire adult life was focused on being a cop.
Cooper is unwilling to let Hicks slip away, broken and addicted. He's staged his own intervention by chaining Hicks, dressed only in a grimy T-shirt and boxer shorts, to the plumbing pipes in Cooper's house to force Hicks to dry out. It's Cooper's renegade attempt to rehab the old dog who was once his mentor — the man who, despite hitting bottom, is still a father figure to him.
Missed it? You can watch the episode, entitled "Heroes," online. (You will need to log in with your local cable provider information). It's worth watching, and proof, yet again, that basic cable shows such as Mad Men and Breaking Bad are giving premium cable shows an equal run for their money – demonstrating that great drama isn't incumbent on uncensored language or frontal nudity. (And as if to underscore my point, it was just announced that Southland has won a Peabody Award for outstanding achievement in television.)
McRaney's ability to portray Hicks' agony over the end of his career, and the seemingly empty future in front of him, is as withering and redemptive as any television dramatic performance I can remember — from any of the old Playhouse 90 moments through anything done on St. Elsewhere, thirtysomething or Six Feet Under.
Not that we would have expected anything less from a television and film actor with 40 years of work behind him, including the series Jericho, Deadwood and Promised Land, as well as the Simon & Simon and Major Dad roles for which he is most well known. (Southland airs Wednesdays at 10 p.m. ET on TNT, and is winding down its fifth season with three episodes left. TNT has confirmed that McRaney will return for the Southland season finale, "Reckoning," airing April 17.)
It's also worth noting that the "Heroes" episode (co-written by series creator, and NYPD Blue veteran, Ann Biderman) stepped up Southland's game considerably. The show has always stood on the gritty side of police realism, in the style of its police forefathers such as Homicide: Life on the Street and Hill Street Blues, and has an ongoing habit of portraying sucker punch-style mayhem to keep the adrenaline at a high level.
But Biderman took the show to a gentler and more powerful level with the interpersonal match between Hicks and Cooper, creating an emotional precipice that emerged not from gun-wielding street crazies, but from the depiction of a mature life somehow spun out of control.
Hopefully this stellar acting, and writing, is not coming too late to keep the show out of the network's crosshairs, because it would be a mistake to cancel a show displaying this kind of creative surge.
The ratings have been down from last year, averaging about 1.3 million viewers — well below A&E's Duck Dynasty, which airs the same night. That's not cancellation territory, but it could be, depending on TNT's commitment to the show, which also has one of the best casts on television, including Cudlitz along with Shawn Hatosy, C. Thomas Howell, Regina King and Ben McKenzie.
It would be a shame to lose such a provocative, smart drama. And if McRaney is not up for Outstanding Guest Actor when the Emmy nominations come around this summer — well, that would be a glaring error, too.