With season five, the show seems to be taking some steps forward—maturing, resetting some relationships and setting up some difficult moral choices for these characters as the season rolls on. Snowfall just feels different this time around, as it shifts gears and focuses not on getting power, but how one might hold on to it when the whole landscape is changing.

Snowfall is full of great acting from top to bottom, with family politics, big money crime, violent disputes, and power shifting intrigue to spare.

None of this can end well, it would seem, but it’s a dark, enjoyable, sharply etched ride in the meantime.