Last time that happened was when we watched The Bureau, a French espionage drama.
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Presumed Innocent is carried throughout its eight episodes by five main characters who individually and as a combination serve up a powerful performance which creates an addiction almost as potent as Rusty Sabich's obsession with his fellow prosecutor Carolyn Polhemus: our binge viewing on the home straight explained. When Polhemus is found gagged and bludgeoned to death Sabic, played by Gyllenhaal, takes the call at home, his facial expression darkening before excusing himself and making his way to the crime scene where a cop sitting outside suggests to him that it is better not to go in.
He proceeds despite the advice and examines the scene, being contaminated in the process. The trajectory his life now takes is set. As the murdered woman's lover, he quickly falls under suspicion. As chief deputy prosecutor for Chicago the media interest is intense.
Politics in the Prosecutor's office are turbulent. Raymond Horgan played by Bill Camp has just lost the election for the city's attorney general to Nico Della Guardia. Nothing short of undiluted brilliance comes out of the efforts O-T Fagbenle put into the character but Horgan remains the most likeable of them all. Della Guardia appoints Tommy Molte to lead the investigation into the murder. A loner with a lonely life, a cat for company, and televised baseball for pleasure, he doesn't like Sabich. The collision course is well mapped out. Peter Sarsgaard is flawless in the role of Sabich's nemesis.
The drama is reminiscent of The Undoing featuring Nicole Kidman and Hugh Grant, which too served up hi-octane crime drama and ultimately changed my ungenerous perception of Grant.
Ruth Negga plays Rusty Sabich's long suffering wife. As he seems to go off the rails, as the trial pressure mounts, the question torments the viewer: Why are you still there Barbara?
My wife watches these dramas with such a close eye that I never lose the thread of the plot. She can explain instantly what is happening. Luckily she is much too focussed to give a running commentary at the same time, and only responds when I have one of those WTF is happening moments.
Some great series can be ruined by a damp squib conclusion such as Line of Duty. Not here - in this one the viewer gets a loud bang for their buck.
A riveting legal thriller based on the book which led to the film of the same name, Presumed Innocent makes the unlikeable gradually become likeable, because of their flaws and eccentricities not despite them, while proffering to the viewer a salutary lesson: presume nothing about innocence.
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