The latest episode of the Boiled Leather Audio Podcast takes a look back at the year in television, as Stefan and I review my picks for the ten best shows of 2023. Listen here or wherever you get your podcasts!

9. The Idol (HBO/Max)

Fuck what you heard. The Idol, 2023’s most hated show, is far and away the TV I’ve thought, and argued, about the most this year. Hype and backlash cycles notwithstanding, Sam Levinson and Abel “The Weeknd” Tesfaye created a sleazy, lurid, funny, fucked-up, incredibly straightforward satire of the starlet factory à la Paul Verhoeven. Unlike, say, Succession, which spoofs the ultra-wealthy without simultaneously trying to feel like Dallas or Empire, The Idol sends up the sex-and-drugs world of pop star Jocelyn (Lily-Rose Depp in the year’s most underappreciated performance) and her grifter svengali Tedros Tedros (Tesfaye in the year’s second most underappreciated performance) while also embodying it. 

The two leads act out their intense and at times humiliating material without a net, but they’re buoyed by a Greek chorus of comedic performances by the likes of Hank Azaria, Rachel Sennott, Eli Roth, Jane Adams, and Da’Vine Joy Randolph (who turns on a dime to deliver genuinely affecting material whenever called for). All of these terrific actors perform in front of a backdrop of lush retro synths and strings courtesy of Tesfaye, Levinson, and composer and super-producer Mike Dean, appearing as himself. In a sane world this would have just been Pop Starship Troopers — gnarly, nasty, sexy, fun, appreciated by those who get it and basically ignored by everyone else. It couldn’t sustain the discourse around it, and shouldn’t have had to, when its meaning was so plain to see, and enjoy

I wrote about the ten best television shows of 2023 for Decider. I’m enormously proud of this list. The variety I’ve seen across TV critics’ best-of lists this year can be nothing but good for both TV and criticism, and I’m glad to have contributed in my own way. Anyway, I believe in all these shows and think they’re worth your time.

As a pretty much miserable guy who’s sincerely angry about injustice, Perry Mason is a hero for our time.

I reviewed the season finale of Perry Mason for the New York Times.

Della is doubly marginalized, in that she’s both a woman and queer. Even as she’s fighting not to be dismissed by men, she’s still keeping a major part of her life a secret.

Yes. It’s strange: When I take on a character, there are certain things I decide about how I want to play them, and then there’s a whole other element where the character arrives with you in ways you didn’t expect. That dichotomy, that conflict — Della of needing to be seen and also needing to hide — is a fascinating element of her that I really only became aware of maybe four or five episodes into season one.

I kept thinking, “Why am I being quiet in this scene? Why am I pushing to be seen, and in the next moment, I’m trying to hide?” Then you become aware of those two things. With only three percent of lawyers in L.A. at that time being women, while being discovered as a gay woman would have meant arrest, loss of her profession, disgrace … Della’s pushing and pushing to be seen, then constantly on the back foot, hiding and being careful not to draw too much attention to herself.

It’s not something that feels very natural to me. She and I are very different. I’m quite a free spirit, very much myself, and don’t mind being sort of out there, yet she’s constantly walking this tightrope. That whole dichotomy gave Della her own life, really. It creates a conflict within her which I love exploring.

I interviewed Perry Mason‘s Juliet Rylance for Vulture!!! Ahem, I mean, I interviewed Perry Mason‘s Juliet Rylance for Vulture.

Perry’s not especially charismatic, as was Raymond Burr’s interpretation of the character back in the day. God knows he’s not very pleasant to be around, either. But he is unimpeachably dedicated to justice, which he’s determined to serve by any means necessary. No wonder this show is such a delight to watch! We all need a little Perry right this now.

I reviewed this week’s episode of Perry Mason for the New York Times.

I can’t remember the last time I shouted at the screen as much as I did during this episode of “Perry Mason.” I’m not kidding: I was hooting and hollering for what seemed like half the duration of this week’s installment. It didn’t work out as well as I’d hoped in the end, of course. But in the meantime? What a rush!

I reviewed the sixth episode of Perry Mason season two for the New York Times.

I’m a broken record on this point, I realize, but good gravy, the lighting in this show. This time we can credit the director, Marialy Rivas, and the director of photography, Eliot Rockett, for the way Perry’s cigarette smoke obscures his face as light streams through his blinds; for the near-blinding morning light that similarly illuminates Milligan’s office when Pete pays his fateful visit; for the cold blue-gray glow of the small hours when Paul staggers in from the beatdown Perkins forces him to deliver, a smart, stark divergence from the lighting scheme of pretty much every other scene.

I reviewed the fifth episode of Perry Mason season two for the New York Times.

Life, like a murder case, has its ups and downs. First, the down: Perry, Paul and Della have learned that the brothers Mateo and Rafael Gallardo have been lying and did indeed murder Brooks McCutcheon. Now, the up: Perry, Paul and Della all hooked up. Call it a glass-half-full situation.

I reviewed the fourth episode of Perry Mason season two for the New York Times.

After another hour spent in Perry’s company, I get the sense that injustice and tragedy are, to him, almost like a physical malady from which he suffers. There are times when he can simply take no more and springs into action, as he did with Emily’s case in the first place, and as he is doing with the Gallardo brothers now. It’s this almost impulsive zeal that leads him to stand up against the oil tycoon Lydell McCutcheon, whose goons strong-arm Perry into a meeting that devolves into threats. (Elsewhere in the episode, McCutcheon maims a man who comes looking to collect on a debt owed him by his dead son, Brooks, so we know he is willing to make good on those threats.)

But Perry is also capable of ignoring this kind of pain until it’s too late, then wallowing in it, even exacerbating it. Yes, he is the kind of guy who can deftly, gently shame the new case’s slightly pretentious presiding judge (Tom Amandes) into having the Gallardos placed in protective custody after they report finding broken glass in their jailhouse chow. But he is also the kind of guy who’ll deliberately drive his motorcycle at unsafe speeds rather than admit to Della that he may have contributed to his former client’s sense of suicidal isolation and despair.

Perhaps the sad tale of his service in the Great War — he was discharged after mercy-killing his own wounded men in the trenches — says everything you need to know about Perry. He’ll fly in the face of authority and society at large to do what he feels is right, but as that judge points out to him, he almost never does so in a way that will lead to a happy ending for anyone.

I reviewed the third episode of Perry Mason Season 2 for the New York Times.

You can take Perry Mason out of criminal defense lawyering, but you can’t take the criminal defense lawyer out of Perry Mason. That Perry discovers this with no evident chagrin is a testament to the truth of it. You don’t gain a sourpuss like his without a keen sense of the injustice of the world; on the evidence of last season, he has the legal know-how to do something about it, and he’s not about to forget it.

I reviewed this week’s Perry Mason for the New York Times.

Working off a script by Amiel and Berger, the director Fernando Coimbra — with Blanchard’s invaluable help — crafts a convincing and familiar 1930s Los Angeles atmosphere for this motley crew of strivers and sad sacks to inhabit; it truly is hard to notice the creative handoff that has occurred between seasons. We’re back in business with Perry, and so far, business is good.

I reviewed tonight’s season premiere of Perry Mason for the New York Times, where I’ll be covering the show all season.

Looking back on this refreshingly ambiguous season of whodunit television, I think I’ll revisit Perry’s reunion with Sister Alice quite a bit. Before he gives up on the case entirely, before he takes out the stitch he saved from baby Charlie’s eyes and blows it into the Pacific Ocean, he tells Alice about her mother’s new ministry and wonders who removed Charlie’s body.

But however much she has questioned her own gifts, Alice is still a woman of faith. What comfort has digging for proof of the truth ever given Perry, she asks? In the end, both of them, with their diametrically opposed views of how the world works, will be alone. (She’s more right than she realizes; Perry has officially called off his relationship with Lupe, though he has finally admitted that her asking price for his family farm was a fair one and given her the land.)

Which leaves Perry with one final question: “Did you really think you could bring Charlie back?”

“I did, didn’t I?” Alice replies. As far as her mother and Charlie’s mother are concerned, the answer is, for all intents and purposes, yes. It’s not true, of course. But maybe it’s right.

I reviewed the season finale of the excellent Perry Mason reboot for the New York Times.

What follows is admirably ambiguous. Bloodied from the chaos at the grave site, Sister Alice watches her mother proclaim Alice’s success in resurrecting the baby — and runs away, by herself, blood streaming from her broken nose, silk garments catching the wind behind her. Is she smiling in the episode’s final shot? Is it a smile of triumph or, more likely, one of bitter recognition of her mother’s skulduggery in producing a fake miracle in lieu of a real one?

I reviewed tonight’s episode of Perry Mason for the New York Times.

One of the gifts this episode gives us is a side of Matthew Rhys we’ve rarely seen before: absolute fury. Perry explodes in anger at Emily after the courtroom revelation that she took her baby to a motel assignation with her lover — and Charlie’s eventual co-kidnapper — George Gannon, a fact she failed to divulge to him as her lawyer. He loses it again after Emily’s jailhouse matron perjures herself by claiming Emily admitted to the crime while behind bars: First, he imitates his dead mentor E.B. Jonathan (read: Matthew Rhys doing his best John Lithgow), excoriating himself for thinking he could catch the killer while working as a defense attorney. Then he vents his rage at E.B. for killing himself instead of upholding his duty to his client.

I reviewed tonight’s episode of Perry Mason for the New York Times. What a pleasant surprise this show has been.

It begins with the death of a lawyer and ends with the anointing of a new one. In between, this episode of “Perry Mason” covers a good deal of ground with nearly all of its characters, from the fed-up Black cop, Paul Drake, to the true-believer evangelist, Sister Alice, to the dogged legal secretary, Della Street, to the title character. It’s the hour when “Perry Mason” stops being an origin story and starts becoming the first proper Perry Mason case.

I reviewed this week’s episode of Perry Mason for the New York Times.

“Cops investigating cops? That’s a trip for biscuits,” E.B. says at one point.

Which leads me to my final point about this episode: E.B. Jonathan’s way with words. Aging, he tells Perry at one point, is a matter of finding “a nose hair half the length of your arm, half your friends in the cemetery and a million strangers on the street.” Truth, he says, “won’t move wind chimes.” George Gannon’s faked suicide note? “Donkey dust.”

I reviewed the fourth episode of Perry Mason for the New York Times.

It’s a bold choice to end the episode this way. But on this show, bold choices abound. There always seems to be some new weirdness around the corner, something stranger or sharper or gorier or more romantic or more unpleasant than what is strictly called for by the standards of a whodunit.

I reviewed tonight’s episode of Perry Mason for the New York Times.

The flashbacks occur at intervals throughout the episode. They take us to the trenches of World War I — still without its even more savage sequel by the time “Perry Mason” takes place — where our title character is an American military officer, leading his men in a charge over the top. In the chaos of the no man’s land, the charge breaks down. Those who’ve survived German machine guns and flame throwers now must contend with a huge wave of enemy troops mounting a counterattack … and the lethal poison gas clearing their way.

As Perry flees, ordering his men before him, he sees that some are too badly wounded and maimed to move. Unwilling to let them suffer or leave them at the mercy of the gas, he takes his handgun and shoots them to death himself, one after another. When one of them begs — whether for death or a reprieve from it isn’t entirely clear — Mason murmurs, “Forgive me,” and pulls the trigger.

If it accomplished nothing else, this week’s episode of “Perry Mason” established why the private detective seems so perpetually ground down. With memories like that playing in your head every time you take a cigarette break, wouldn’t you look and feel exhausted? Moreover, it accounts for his dishonorable discharge from the military — and, according to his wealthy backer Herman Baggerly, his bloody nickname: “The Butcher of Monfalcone.”

Even for a private eye, a career for which an unsavory reputation kind of comes with the territory, it’s a lot of weight to bear.

I reviewed the second episode of Perry Mason for the New York Times.

Corruption, torture, murder, full-frontal nudity, foul mouths, a dead baby: “Perry Mason” boasts the full complement of HBO’s genre-revisionist techniques. But Rhys is the glue holding it all together. I can’t recall the last time I saw a lead performance this embodied, for lack of a better word; Rhys’s every glance, expression and gesture seems made of weariness the way Abraham Lincoln’s cabin was made out of logs. Credit must also go to the costume department, led by Emma Potter, who dress him exclusively in clothes that look as if they were pulled out of the hamper into which they were tossed three days earlier. When we discover that Mason bribes the mortician in order to steal clothes worn by people who have died in them, Yeah, that sounds about right is the only appropriate response.

And Rhys’s performance as Perry isn’t just empty, woe-is-me sad-sackery. Perhaps it’s his alluded-to experiences in the Great War bleeding through, but he comes across like a man who is the way he is because the awfulness of the world really, really gets to him. (“Worst thing you’ve ever seen,” the mortician tells him about the dead baby. “What do you know what I’ve seen?” comes the reply.) When Perry examines the baby’s mutilated corpse, delicately extracting a thread used to stitch the infant’s eyes open, the camera lingers on his face as he chokes back horror and sorrow. A slight tremor of the lower lip is the only physical catharsis his body allows him.

It’s that shot, more than anything else, that sold me on this version of the character and his journey through Los Angeles’s 1930s underbelly. Any show that kills a child owes it to its audience to take that killing seriously; this sounds like a truism, but such killings can provide cheap pathos and shock value in unscrupulous hands. Despite its Hollywood glitz and Perry’s Murphy’s Law antics, “Perry Mason” is, at first blush, a show that understands the gravity of what it has chosen to present to both its protagonist and its audience.

I’ll be covering the new Perry Mason show for the New York Times, starting with my review of the series premiere.