Show of hands, and be honest here: Who among you thought this drama about a drug dealer cozying up to a serial killer would feature real-life mafia don Vincent “the Chin” Gigante in a supporting role as that drug dealer’s benefactor on the inside?
No one? Okay then!
Hell, I was taken aback, too. But at the suggestion of a friendly (more on that later) prison guard, our anti-hero Jimmy Keene, cop’s son turned gun- and drug-runner, becomes acquainted with honest-to-god Genovese family boss Gigante (Tony Amendola). Dubbed “the Oddfather” by the always-colorful New York press, Gigante was often found wandering the streets of Greenwich Village in his bathrobe muttering to himself — a ruse meant to keep law enforcement off his back that worked for nearly three decades.
By the time Jimmy meets him, that’s all over with: He’s been convicted and imprisoned, and so he’s now just an old Italian American gentleman who enjoys playing boccie in the prison yard and dislikes being disrespected by anyone, ever. Despite his Irish surname, Jimmy manages to get on the Chin’s good side with three-quarter Italian ancestry, good manners, and not-half-bad boccie playing. (He learned the game from his Irish grandfather, but the Chin doesn’t hold that against him.) If Jimmy really were just the humble Wisconsin gunrunner that his cover story makes him out to be, he just found the best rabbi in perhaps the entire American carceral system.
I reviewed this week’s episode of Black Bird for Vulture.
Tags: black bird, reviews, TV, TV reviews, vulture