Parish

“Parish” benefits greatly from a keen sense of pacing. The filmmakers know exactly how much time to devote to various subplots before returning to the main story lines that have Gray at the center. .... The supporting cast is excellent, but this is Giancarlo Esposito’s vehicle, and he’s in command throughout.

Parish is a rather generic crime drama with shallowly-sketched characters. But Esposito makes it watchable, purely because we love seeing how he portrays his character’s barely-controlled rage.

Parish should be off to the races, but, sadly, too often it stalls out.

Mr. Esposito is his usual soulful self; Bonnie Mbuli makes a good impression as Shamiso, the Horse's wise and wily older sister. One can imagine that "Parish" had its problems as a production, but much of what's wrong here is about a lack of grace. Cut-away moments that illustrate Gray's lingering grief are too many and too much; the arty sequences are often enough art-free; and there's a sense of tires spinning as Gray gets sucked into an ornately felonious set of circumstances.

Parish is essentially two shows in one. The fresher, more compelling of the pair follows Horse and his siblings, brash brother Zenzo Tongai (Ivan Mbakop) and shrewd sister Shamiso Tongai (Bonnie Mbuli), as they make power plays in a New Orleans criminal underworld. .... Less captivating but more central to the plot is Gray’s “one last job” arc.

The supporting cast here isn’t horrible, and gets richer in the last episode in a way that’s clearly designed to set up the next season—it’s more the mediocre writing that seems to be literally fighting with Esposito. The fact that he makes this clichéd character and the show around him interesting as often as he does is just another testament to his skill set. You’ll just wish it was in service of a show that had a better idea of what to do with its star.

Parish fumbles all its themes, barely scratching the surface of them, and delivers a show that feels generic, soulless, and ultimately forgettable.