With "The Sopranos," that means that no matter what Tony or Carmela does, we're constantly reminded that they're seriously screwed-up people. David Chase doesn't say, "Here's a wonderful, soulful person who gets trapped into doing bad things," he says, "Here's an incredibly messed-up, rationalizing, selfish person who sometimes shows glimpses of remorse or other redemptive qualities." And Tony and Carmela are two of the more sympathetic characters on the show. Characters like Christopher and AJ and Paulie range from self-serving and shortsighted to seriously mean and flatly ignorant. Those who criticize the show's casual violence aren't tuned in to how often we're reminded that these characters are tweaked to the point of having lost a grip on their humanity. That doesn't necessarily mean that they pay for their unethical behavior, of course. Heavy-handed morality isn't necessary; we just need some hint that these characters are limited, and that they can't be regarded as heroic.
"Brotherhood" also manages to tackle an unethical world without compromising its soul. The drama takes one decent, well-intentioned brother, Tommy Caffee, and throws him into the world of politics, where he's destined to become morally corrupt no matter how hard he tries to rationalize his questionable choices. Then there's his brother Michael, a thug who's trying, albeit in a half-assed way, to behave like a normal human being. Both brothers are proud and foolish and limited, each in his own way, and their story unfolds with wisdom and subtlety. The creators of this world have the finesse to gracefully demonstrate their protagonists' and antagonists' shortcomings and blind spots without sacrificing our interest in the story.
Yet, while "The Sopranos" and "Brotherhood" make it look easy, "The Black Donnellys" makes it excruciatingly clear just how difficult it is to tell a soulful story about criminals. The first big problem is that we're supposed to believe that a bunch of pretty boys are actually Irish-American mobsters. When these manicured, fresh-faced beauties swagger around with guns, talking about gambling debts and stolen trucks, they look like what they are: a bunch of stylishly coiffed children playing cops and robbers with their little friends.
What's worse, we're actually supposed to think these guys are cool, even when they blow people away without thinking it over. It's as if someone took the guys from "Entourage," stripped them of their money, armed them, then threw them onto the streets of New York to fend for themselves. Actually, "The Black Donnellys" would be a lot better if that were the case, because at least the guys from "Entourage" are believable as a bunch of wisecracking average Joes; they wouldn't come across as wide-eyed innocents playing tough. When the Donnelly brothers get into fistfights or steal a truck full of stolen shirts, we're supposed to think they're just doing what those nutty Irish boys sometimes do, laughing and whooping it up and having a good time all along.
But the kids aren't all right, that much is obvious to the viewer, even if it's not obvious to the show's creators, who also wrote last year's soulless Oscar winner, "Crash." Jimmy (Tom Guiry) is a violent screw-up, but we're supposed to believe that he's only a mess because he's a junkie (as compared to, say, Christopher of "The Sopranos," who's always a selfish idiot first and a junkie and a murderer second). Brother Sean (Michael Stahl-David) is an adorable ladies' man and Kevin (Billy Lush) has a bad habit of gambling, but they're otherwise great guys, according to the show's twisted lore. Worst of all, Tommy (Jonathan Tucker) is a sweet guy who just wants to draw (aw!), only his irresponsible brothers keep doing dumb things, like kidnapping a guy for ransom money and keeping him tied up in the basement of a bar that Jimmy owns. (Like most bar owners, he won his in a bet.)
[Spoiler alert: The next few paragraphs reveal some details of this Wednesday's episode.] Due to a series of colossally stupid moves by Jimmy, Tommy is forced to put down his pencils and drawing paper and he and his brother Kevin kill four or five people in cold blood. Next, he and Kevin set about trying to cover their tracks. Along the way, they discover the kidnapped guy in a dumpster, and realize that brother Jimmy shot him in the head earlier. How annoying and inconvenient! Yes, instead of exhibiting some remorse over the dead guy (whom Kevin drank beers and played cards with, while the guy was tied up, a few hours earlier), instead of lamenting how they both became murderers overnight, the brothers bicker and wisecrack. The mood is light and cheery as the pretty boys fret over what to do with the bloody body so that Jimmy doesn't get caught. Cue the peppy, upbeat strains of "Handle Me With Care" by the Traveling Wilburys.
Not only is this scene a clumsy copy of the absurd darkness of "The Sopranos," but it doesn't work. Kevin and Tommy come across as heartless losers, the music is out of place, as is the joviality and the comedy, and the whole thing feels deeply wrong. Yes, it's true that both brothers start to feel sick eventually, but that's only after they're forced to bash the guy's head in to fit his body into an oil drum. Instead of marveling at how messed-up the guys are, we're asked to feel sympathy for them, since they've been forced to go to such lengths to protect their junkie brother.
"I think that if you know someone's good, you know it in your belly," the Donnelly brothers' mom says in one scene. "And you trust that if they had to do something, they had no other choice." Sadly, all we can see is all of the other choices these kids had; they just happened to make the wrong one.
And that would be fine, if we had the sense that the writers agreed with us. But unlike either "The Sopranos" or "Brotherhood," "The Black Donnellys" attempts to make crime seem sort of romantic and cool. Unfortunately, it takes a lot more than a few witty one-liners and some songs by Snow Patrol to sell us that truckload of poorly ripped-off, utterly soulless goods.
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