Patrick Dempsey Has The Memory of a Killer And He May Not Have It For Long

 

 

I don't have a lot of rules when it comes to TV but after a quarter of century of viewing I've reached some conclusions. One of them that will probably not surprise you is the Law of Shondaland:

Any actor who stars in a Shondaland series has done better work before and will unquestionably do better work again.

Ever since Grey's Anatomy debuted way back in 2005 in all of the series that I've watched (as far as I could stomach) this rule has a 100 percent accuracy rating. It is true with Sandra Oh and Katherine Heigl, it was true with Kerry Washington and Joe Morton and its being proven true with Aja Naomi King and Jonathan Bailey. And it was just as true with none other than Derek Shephard, aka McDreamy played by Patrick Dempsey for ten seasons before Shonda Rhimes decided to have his character killed off rather than renegotiate his contract. (I don't care what those involved say, until I learn otherwise I'm assuming that Rhimes is playing by the rules of the soap operas her shows clearly are.)

It has been forgotten by history that Dempsey had in fact appeared as recurring characters in two ABC dramas that were infinitely superior to anything Rhimes has produced. His first official role of significance on television was played the mentally unstable brother of Lily Manning, Aaron  on the still much missed Once & Again  throughout its three seasons. Playing a character who had spent much of his teenage years in a mental health facility but who had found a combination of meds that were working (when he took them) Dempsey inhabited a character who was trying to reenter reality. Before the series cancellation he  had actually found love with a fellow patient. He would receive an Emmy nomination for his role in that show

He then had a guest role in a multi-episode arc of The Practice during its final season. During this arc James Spader's Alan Shore (in a role that began his own career revival) was called in to when Dempsey, playing a childhood friend of his, was accused of murder. The final season was both a creative and ratings revival for the show and in this arc Alan, already embodying the sleazy characteristics that would carry him over to Boston Legal a year later, was able to show genuine emotional depth in his scenes with Dempsey, particularly when the final twist cast everything Shore thought about his friend into question. Dempsey received another Emmy nomination for his work.

Throughout his decade on Grey's Anatomy Dempsey was one of the few characters on the show – indeed in all of Shondaland – who was guided by a moral compass far more than the sexual drive that was true of almost everybody else in the show. That allowed him to make increasingly inferior material work as his basic integrity managed to hold the series together even as it became increasingly melodramatic. Well before his character was killed off it was becoming clear Rhimes was doing much to erode that basic integrity and while I fought his eventual fate was childish as is often the case with anyone who leaves these kinds of show I considered it the freeing of a captive prisoner.

Dempsey has taken the road less traveled. He played the title role in The Truth about the Harry Quebert Affair and then actually took a role in an Italian-British collaboration Devils. His most recent work was playing Capt. Aaron Spencer on Dexter: Original Sin Harry Morgan's old partner whose son is apparently abducted by a serial killer but as the show progresses its clear there's far more to it – and Spencer – then meets the eye. Without giving anything way it was wonderful watching  Dempsey get to play someone with a much darker side than he had over ten years of Grey's Anatomy and I was curious to see what he would do next. So when I learned that he was going to be the lead character in the new Fox drama Memory of a Killer – the first real lead role he's ever had on television of any kind – I wanted to see what he'd do.

In a sense his work as part of Dexter has more than prepared Dempsey for his work as Angelo Doyle. Like Dexter Morgan he has a face he shows the world and a secret face that involves killing people. Indeed like Dexter he also has a code. But its more complicated then that as we see in the opening.

We watch  Angelo prepares breakfast for his daughter Maria (Odeya Rush) who's pregnant) with her first son. The two of them talk, he tells them that he's got a busy day selling photocopiers and says goodbye to her and her husband, promising to meet later. Then he drives out of his small Long Island suburb to a small house that has a basement and subbasement. He changes out of his clothes, puts on a suit and sunglasses and starts to take apart a rifle. He then goes to the basement and we see a fancy sports car and he drives over the bridge and into Manhattan.

We then watch as he prepares to carry out an assassination attempt but is thwarted when the target moves away from the window. He talks through his earpiece to the man inside Joe (Richard Harmon) and asks him to get him a reservation and a weapon. He then gets into the restaurant where the target is, walks inside, goes to the men's room and then walks with authority to the towel dispenser. He takes out a screwdriver and in a series of cuts we wait until his target is inside the men's room and then kills both him and his henchmen. Much of this is done in total silence, all before the opening teaser is over.

It's there we see him with his closer childhood friend Dutch. Dutch is played by that magnificent character actor Michael Imperioli and its clear you can see that this is what would happened had Tony not snuffed Christopher out in the final season of The Sopranos.  Dutch, however, is more competent and congenial with Angelo. The two of them go back to the streets of Brooklyn and Dutch has respected Angelo's privacy, only calling him in when he needs a job done. He doesn't know about Angelo's family, doesn't know that he has a wife who was killed and a possible granddaughter. Angelo has clearly spent decades keeping the two worlds separate. The problem is, things are about to get troublesome.

After this we see Angelo visit his brother Michael who isn't much younger then him but is something from late stage dementia, not even able to talk. It's clear Alzheimer's runs in the family and that it sets in early: neither man is out of his fifties. By the time the pilot is over Angelo's memory is beginning to betray him: he can't remember the security code to his apartment, he leaves his gun in the refrigerator and he's clearly having trouble memorizing dates anymore. This is bad enough as it is; it's worse because by the end of the first episode someone has clearly figured out the connection between the two worlds – and they've taken a hit out on him.

Dempsey turned sixty earlier this year and this is the kind of role that might appeal to him. He still very much has the McDreamy vibe to him and Angelo has the ability to pick up an attractive (age appropriate) female bartender with no problem and even though he's clearly out of practice in the pilot. But I've often wondered, while he spent so many years at Seattle Grace, if he saw so many other heartthrobs like Jon Hamm and Matthew Rhys (who also started out in network shows) doing darker roles and getting Emmy nominations and awards and wondering if he'd been missing out. Here he gets to very much have his cake and eat it too. Angelo Doyle has the aspects of many antiheroes of AMC dramas – the good looks of Don Draper, the  disease of Walter White and the code of Dexter Morgan. But while there are places in the Venn Diagram of all these shows where Anatomy of A killer has overlaps there's a sense of style that's clearly Dempsey and the shows own.

It helps that the series has fairly decent credentials: the executive producers are Todd Kessler and Aaron Zelman who created the masterpieces Damages and the equally brilliant Bloodline. Both men have experience working in network television prior to this and they clearly have the gift to help the show navigate the overlap between streaming and network. This is done by having many of the scenes unfold in relative silence with only the occasional text message to intervene. Considering how many of even the best television shows in the 21^st century are dialogue heavy I find this refreshing.

And it helps that while there is clearly some kind of master criminal  tracking him down (the Ferryman) the real adversary that Angelo faces is the deterioration of his own mind. Breaking Bad, for all its brilliance, never let Walter's cancer become too obvious until its final stages: by contrast its clear from the first episode Angelo's mind is deteriorating and he's clearly unprepared to handle it. Trailers indicate that he will eventually start seeking treatment for it and it is in the early stages. But considering that in the last episode he called his daughter to confirm that a hit was done – and used Dutch's name doing so – there's going to be a point when he can't handle it.

Memory also gets to handle family in a way that The Sopranos really couldn't. In that drama there was no aspect of Tony's life at work or at home that wasn't touched by being part of the mafia.  In Memory Angelo has managed to keep his work life and his home life separate for decades. But now violence is starting to come to Angelo's suburban life and the FBI is clearly sniffing around him. (Hello Gina Torres!)

Memory of a Killer has already had a much stronger three episodes in its first season then many Fox dramas have had, arguably the best stretch since Accused debuted three years ago. It also has a much darker feel to it then network dramas have at the moment – or for that matter even when they were trying to emulate cable and streaming. That may be a problem down the road for the show but for now its refreshing and bold. Don't get me wrong: I still prefer the stories of Will Trent and Elsbeth but I like a little darkness now and then and so far Memory is providing it. I hope it lasts long enough – though I do know given the character's problems, there's a time limit as to how long it can go and still work.

My score: 4 stars.