In the post-pandemic wake of the USA legal drama Suits getting new life and attention on streaming, a bevy of TV networks have attempted to jump on the bandwagon. Just making a legal drama isn’t enough, of course. What these networks are doing is crafting legal procedurals that manage to thread the needle between creating compelling case-of-the-week drama with a somewhat more lighthearted approach to its character-building. Netflix (where Suits found that resurgence of popularity) has adapted some of Michael Connelly’s books into its version of The Lincoln Lawyer, which has been renewed for a fourth season. Prime Video hung its hook on another of Connelly’s long-running characters, Los Angeles detective Harry Bosch, with its two separate Boschshows, and NBC tried and recently failed to just make a straight-up Suits spin-off. But Suits LA got almost as much attention for how quickly it fizzled as for its very existence.
The USA Network, where Suits began during the days of the channel’s old tagline “Characters Welcome,” has gone even a bit more old school than pulling from the works of legal writers like Connelly or Scott Turow. (The latter had his famous Presumed Innocent adapted into an Apple TV+ show, with the first season led by Jake Gyllenhaal and the second set to star Rachel Brosnahan. That and the aforementioned Lincoln Lawyer redo were overseen by ’80s-era legal-TV icon David E. Kelley.) USA has largely changed its programming M.O.; at the moment, they have just one scripted TV series, and it premiered only two weeks ago. And yet, it feels like the network’s attempt to creatively have its cake and eat it too. That show is a modernized adaptation of John Grisham’s The Rainmaker, which has been performing its own balancing act between being a throwback to the laid-back USA procedurals of the mid-2000s and being darker and edgier like many other peak TV productions. Unfortunately, in trying to recapture lightning in a bottle, USA is only showing how difficult that can be.
The essential conflict within this new take on Grisham’s 1995 novel is between the haves and have-nots. The young hero is Rudy Baylor (Milo Callaghan), a hotshot young lawyer (in the mold of many of Grisham’s protagonists) who has, along with his girlfriend Sarah (Madison Iseman), just started as a first-year associate at Tinley Britt, a well-to-do law firm with the tough-as-nails managing partner Leo Drummond (John Slattery). In fact, Drummond is so tough that when Rudy has the tenacity to push back on a faux pop quiz of legalese questions in front of a large group of freshmen associates, he’s summarily dismissed. But he quickly gets back up on his feet and is hired by the fancy-sounding J. Lyman Stone and Associates, a firm run out of a defunct restaurant by Jocelyn Stone (Lana Parrilla) and her compatriot Deck Shifflet (P.J. Byrne). They are, in short, ambulance chasers, but young Rudy has enough of a good heart that he’s compelled to take on a wrongful death suit levied by Dot (Karen Bryson), whose addict son died in the care of a major hospital. Conveniently, that hospital’s legal representation is Tinley Britt, which leads to inevitable face-offs in court between Rudy’s old and new employers.
The show, at least so far, is following the general outline of Grisham’s novel, which means that there’s an obvious way in which this series is unlike shows such as Suits or Burn Notice or Royal Pains. There’s no case-of-the-week element but rather a single serialized case that will presumably encompass the entire season. You don’t have to be familiar with Grisham’s novel (or the 1997 film adaptation directed by Francis Ford Coppola and starring a pre-Good Will Hunting Matt Damon) to understand that Rudy is on the right side of justice in standing up for Dot and her dead son Donny Ray, who may have a checkered past but whose demise was clearly a lot more suspicious than initial report suggests.
In some ways, the dichotomy that this show is trying to navigate is best exemplified by the supporting character Melvin Pritcher, who wasn’t part of the book (or any of Grisham’s novels). As played by Dan Fogler, Melvin is the first person we see, barely escaping a fire meant to destroy his small house that apparently kills his mother. In a different world, it would be easy to see Fogler playing Shifflet, a character as delightfully shady as his name suggests. (Byrne is clearly enjoying the chance to be the most outlandish of the lawyers in this series.) But Melvin Pritcher, who coincidentally works as a nurse at the same hospital where Donny Ray died, is inexplicably much more than meets the eye. He seems like a friendly, unassuming, if slightly awkward fellow until (spoiler alert) the first episode climaxes with him mercilessly killing an older woman for having inadvertently spied on him in the middle of some shady deeds. Melvin is a microcosm of what this show wants: to present itself as a natural creative descendant of shows like Suits, whose relaxed tones are what lend them a certain charm, but then to shock its audience out of procedural complacency with twists that badly want to be as edgy as something on HBO or Showtime. (So far, the sprinkling of profanity is the closest The Rainmaker gets to feeling truly mature.)
Part of the problem for The Rainmaker is less the attempt to be both episodic and more complex, to appeal to audiences who may not want to be terribly challenged while also compelling those looking for more grownup fare, and more the feeling that it’s arrived too late to the party. Just as John Grisham’s works have been catnip to Hollywood studios (more so in the 1990s), a few of his books have been turned into TV series, like The Client and The Firm. But while Grisham’s novels managed to become mammoth successes initially for capturing readers’ imaginations in crafting a modern take on the legal thriller, there are so many other options from which audiences can choose on TV now that a 30-years-later take on The Rainmaker feels almost quaint, no matter how hard the writers try to gussy things up. It’s not that the structural changes to the story (like Rudy working for Tinley Britt before he shifts to Stone and Associates, or Stone now being a female character) are bad or feel misguided. It’s that those very changes, along with the inclusion of a character like Melvin Pritcher, seem like creative concessions to move beyond the so-called “blue sky” style of storytelling that USA succeeded with before.
Netflix, aside from making old-school legal dramas, has co-opted the “blue sky” style, though largely by stepping beyond traditional criminal or law procedurals in favor of low-key and long-running romantic dramas like Virgin River. What the USA shows of old got right so quickly wasn’t just the details of how criminal cases are settled in or out of the courtroom, or how ex-federal agents escape being burned; they correctly homed in on building likable characters who could be placed in any number of situations. The Rainmaker is boosted far less by memorable characters and more by actors whose presences are welcome enough to almost make you forget they’re elevating forgettable material. Through three episodes, it’s the most well-known performers, like Slattery, Fogler, and Parrilla, who make the biggest impression simply for being more recognizable. Leo Drummond, for one, isn’t terribly intriguing to watch as he schemes, but it’s fun to see the former Roger Sterling dress down the next generation of actors. Their big, brassy performances are the most enjoyable aspect of the series, but it only proves that, on this show, actors, not characters, are welcome.
In hindsight, and considering the second life that Suits got on Netflix, you can’t help but wonder why the USA Network ever moved on from the “Characters Welcome” ethos, as many of its old series have had TV-movie extensions (like Psych) or sequels or just the possibility of sequels. (USA earlier this year announced it was developing a sequel series to Royal Pains.) The vast amount of new TV isn’t any less staggering, but there would be a welcome appeal to USA going back to its previous roots. On the surface, adapting one of the most famous of John Grisham’s novels to start that return makes perfect sense. (And releasing a legal thriller in the dog days of summer is unquestionably a smart idea, hearkening to the notion of the good old-fashioned beach read.) But just as NBC realized earlier this year that the very existence of a new Suits show doesn’t guarantee a win, USA may come to learn that dressing up a known story in a familiar genre doesn’t automatically make its presence any more welcome.
