Amazon released the first season of Sneaky Pete on January 13, after CBS infamously passed on the series. The show, co-created by Bryan Cranston (Breaking Bad) and David Shore, had a lot to live up to after such a popular pilot episode.
In the pilot, Marius (Giovanni Ribisi) is finishing up his three-year prison sentence when he finds out he’s not welcome at home. Vince (Bryan Cranston), the guy he conned out of $100,000, is looking for him. His very talkative cellmate, Pete (Ethan Embry) won’t shut up about his idyllic childhood on his grandparents’ Connecticut farm. Marius figures it’s the best place to lay low and get some easy money, so he takes on Pete’s identity and heads for the farm.
Unfortunately, the farm is the exact opposite of easy money. The family runs a bail bond business, so they’d be the first to know if Marius violates his parole. Plus, the business is tanking, so there’s no money. To top it all off, the family is suspicious of him, especially the Grandma (the wonderful Margo Martindale) and the youngest cousin, Carly (Libe Barer). Cousin Taylor (Shane McRae) is even a cop, but is ironically also the least suspicious of “Pete”.
With no back up plan, Marius joins the family business and works closely with cousin Julia (Marin Ireland). It turns out they make a pretty good team. There are some romantic undercurrents, but since they are supposed to be cousins, nothing happens between them this season.
Meanwhile, back in the city, Vince gives Marius one week to pay him back the $100,000 he stole from him, or else he’ll start torturing his dopey brother Eddie (Mr. Robot’s Michael Drayer).
Marius discovers that there is $150,000 cash in the company safe. However, after many failed attempts to break into it, he discovers the money is gone. Grandma stole it and is caught up in her own con with Julia’s ex husband, Lance (Jacob Pitts).
To make things even more complicated, Marius has some guys on his tail, preventing him from coming up with the money: his parole officer (Malcolm-Jamal Warner!) and a cop on Vince’s payroll, Detective Winslow (Michael O’Keefe).
Luckily, Marius has a small pack of women on speed dial, ready and willing to help him sneak out of various sticky situations. He is also a brilliant con man, so we trust that he’ll figure out how to get out of this mess.
Everything shakes out in the last two action-packed episodes. Predictably, Marius comes out ahead, but it’s cool to see how it all comes together.
While Sneaky Pete is a fun show to watch, the first season was relatively unremarkable. The plot is bogged down with too many characters. There were a few too many balls in the air, making it hard to keep track of who is lying to whom, and why.
The casting, however, is the highlight of the series. Except for, ironically, Giovanni Ribisi. His performance was kind of blah for me. Admittedly, his character has a limited range. Marius is a cool cat, and knows how to hide his fear or anger in a situation. However, this just resulted in a lot of pained expressions for Ribisi. He winces through most of the series.
Even with a smaller part, Bryan Cranston shines as Vince. Cranston is so smooth as the egomaniacal bad guy. The diatribes he uses to introduce a violent scene are spellbinding. A great example is an early scene where Vince catches Marius and his team in a con against him. He goes into a lengthy dialogue about the differences between blanks and real bullets. Then he demonstrates by killing one of Marius’s friends.
With other cast members like Margo Martindale, Peter Gerety and Marin Ireland, this series has a pretty dazzling lineup.
Amazon has already ordered a second season of Sneaky Pete, so I’m curious to see if Cranston and Shore will be able to straighten out the plot and let the amazing cast do what they do best.
Grade: B
