Meet Julia George (Piper Perabo), the executive producer of Louise Herrick Live, she is smart, beautiful and freakishly intimidating. And then meet her best friend, Jake Gregorian (Daniel Sunjata), one of Hollywood's hottest lawyers, the wealthy hire him and he brings his "A" game to get them out of the dirtiest shenanigans. The two are the best in their business and when working together present an unstoppable force. Together they manipulate the stories so they would benefit their agenda and to quote Megan, Julia's assistant
She decides what the country cares about. She creates heroes and monsters, victims and villains.
Notorious is fast paced, entertaining, sexy and as different as a lawyer-murder show can be these days (we've seen most of it haven't we). Using the TV production perspective to tell a story and give us insight in how they arrange stories to be important and manipulate the stories is quite intriguing. Yet don't confuse this show with UnReal cause Notorious has certainly a bigger specter of tools and stories to play with, also the show isn't going for the big twists to create the story, they create the twists on the story at hand. Will they exploit this or just use it as a base for silly drama is yet to see. . .
The main plot of the episode is a hit and run case turned into a murder case involving one of Jake's wealthiest client's, Oscar Keaton (Kevin Zegers). Oscar is accused of the hit and run and Jake with Julia's help tries to play the cards in his client's favor. The case does get interesting quite fast when it is revealed that Jake was in a relationship with Oscar's wife, Sarah followed by them rekindling things after he shipped Oscar out of town, for his own protection of course. The revelation that Sarah was behind the wheel and that she manipulated Jake pushed the big red complicated button. But the show didn't stop here, very quickly Oscar finds Sarah dead and this is where all hell breaks loose. The set-up overall was intriguing, the show developed a mysterious vibe and all the hidden agendas including Sarah's fake passports were some good bait for me as a viewer.
I assume Sarah's complicated murder case will be at the center stage of the season, while we get some filler cases in each episode, pretty similar to how HTGAWM's first season looked.
The on- and off-screen cat and mouse game between Jake and Julia was fairly entertaining as their chemistry is off the charts, the lines were written well and executed smoothly from both sides. For the show to insert these little seeds of doubt into their relationship was a solid move and created space for some interesting developments in the future. The show introducing their "A" person who feeds Julia with scoop against Jake was really was an unexpected twist but I hope it won't be dragged out.
Another good thing the pilot did was taking time and space to develop the two leads separately. Julia's federal judge boyfriend, played by Marc Blucas, being involved with prostitutes gave the episode an interesting side story and questioned Julia's integrity. Piper did an excellent job by playing both sides of the character but seemingly always in control.
Another torn in Julia's complicated life and my personal highlight of the pilot was Louise Herrick (Kate Jennings Grant), the moderator and star of the show Julia runs. Louise is sexual, daring and a total loose cannon that Julia has no control over. All of this made Louise's character really valuable and enjoyable to watch.[Insert gif of her inviting Ryan Guzman's character into a threesome wearing only her underwear] This way the writers took power away from Julia and added some vulnerability to her professional image, which seemed rock solid, especially when she wanted to throw her boyfriend under the bus cause she didn't have a headline.
Meanwhile introducing the case of the peeing congressman and Jake's brother, Bradley Gregorian (J. August Richards), gave us a small insight into Jake's world. We saw him as a tough and smart lawyer and as a trusting brother even though nobody else seemed to trust Bradley. Still, they succeeded in humanizing Jake and showing that the darkness of his job is affecting him more than initially thought.
The show also introduced a variety of supporting character including the Jake's earlier mentioned jealous and neglected brother, Bradley and the brothers' legal assistant Ella, played by the wonderful Aimee Teegarden. Meanwhile, at Julia's office, we met her assistant Megan, a former prostitute as cutthroat as her mentor Julia. Also part of the team is newbie Ryan, played by Ryan Guzman, a charming and spoiled brat put PA by his father, Julia's boss. Besides wearing too tight shirts Ryan's character Ryan shared some neat scene with Ella and the chemistry was on point. Introducing these characters allowed the show to speed up the pace and set up some potentially interesting plot points to exploit in further episodes.
Overall I thought it was a strongISH pilot, with a clear direction, it had some redundant scenes after Sarah's death and I felt like Daniel overacted in some scenes but that didn't ruin the overall experience for me.
It's your time now! Share your thoughts on the series premiere of NOTORIOS in the comment section and tell me if the show made you wishing for more or switch the channel and search for another guilty pleasure for your Thursdays at 9pm time slot.
