I am – Hercules!!

Greet again Showtime’s fascinating, suspenseful, plot-packed and character-driven “Brotherhood,” the tale of two Irish-American Rhode Island brothers – a mobster and a politician – who like to play rough, sometimes with each other. It returns for its second season Sunday night and solidifies for me its status as one of the most engrossing hourlongs in production on any channel.

Mobster Michael Caffee (Britisher Jason Isaacs) is now coping with brain damage – memory loss and seizures and problems with spatial recognition – and can’t even figure out who gave him the parking-lot beat-down that’s dislodged his grey matter. Menacing crime boss Freddie Cork closed down Michael’s liquor store and doesn’t trust him with business.

Politician Tommy Caffee (Australian Jason Clarke) has his own problems, trying to deal with his unfaithful, dope-addled wife (milfy, nakedness-prone American Annabeth Gish, above) as he navigates the campaign trail, and a daughter who – taking after her uncle Mike, one infers – has begun stabbing classmates with school supplies.

There’s also the Caffees’ childhood friend Declan Giffs (Ethan Embry, unrecognizable from his days playing bass for the Oneders), a cop whose ever-darkening association with the Caffees has driven him deep into the bottle.

Episode two expands the family with the introduction of colorful Caffee cousin Colin (bona fide Irishman Brian F. O’Byrne), who arrives from Ireland with an agenda of his own.

For those wholly unaware of the show, here’s what the critics wrote last summer:

The Hollywood Reporter said:

Let's get it out the way right now, the blurb that will be quoted after this review is run: "If you see nothing else this summer, watch 'Brotherhood.'" While I never consciously try to arrange a review so that quotes can easily be lifted, "Brotherhood" deserves every boost it can get. It's that good. No, it's better. This new Showtime series has it all: fine acting, superb cinematography, nimble directing and a fascinating world full of ethical ambiguities and constantly shifting moral ground. ...

Variety said:

... this character-driven family story is captivating on a multitude of levels. This is the jewel Showtime has sought for years. ... the most duplicitous character is Tommy's wife, Eileen (Annabeth Gish), a dutiful mother who slips out for pot 'n' sex rendezvous with a postal worker. Gish has a steady toughness that's engaging, and she pivots from that center to varying degrees of soft and hard. As her husband's political life begins to take a few twists and turns, Eileen's reactions should be as interesting to watch as his maneuvering in an increasing complicated world.

TV Guide said:

... richly plotted and totally absorbing, one of summer TV's best surprises. ... I've seen all 11 hours of Brotherhood, and I found myself hungry for 11 more. ...

Newsweek said:

... "Brotherhood" revels in exposing hypocrisy, from pious politicians to ruthless mama's boys, and much of the show's fun comes from watching them twist their perverted moral codes to fit their appetites. None of this is exactly new-"The Sopranos" covers much the same ground, and with more psychological depth. But "Brotherhood" may be the darker show. Everyone in Providence is corrupted, even Tommy's doting wife, Eileen (Annabeth Gish), becomes a lonely, philandering drug addict. That bleakness sometimes feels oppressive. After a while, you really want someone to root for, not to mention a sense that the world isn't so dreadful. ...

The Washington Post said:

... About the most that can be said for "Brotherhood," Showtime's new serialized drama, is that it's a first-rate secondhand "Sopranos." ... The best things about the show are the location shooting in and around Providence -- a highly photographable area that until recently has been little seen in other movies and TV shows -- and Clarke's charismatic, multilayered performance as the "good" brother, Tommy, tireless in his attempts to upgrade the city and its image. …

The New York Times said:

... HBO, which recently brought "Six Feet Under" and "Oz" to a close and will soon let go of "The Sopranos," no longer has a monopoly on great television. "Entourage" and "Deadwood" are superb, but the rival premium cable channel is catching up: "Huff" and "Sleeper Cell" are exceptionally good. So is "Brotherhood," which has its premiere on Sunday. ... "Brotherhood" revels in the kind of politics that are rarely seen on television shows: brass knuckle, not grass roots. ...

The Los Angeles Times said:

... It has a novelistic scope and pace, a fine sense of place, characters that are compelling without being ostentatiously extreme and whose reality the script does not betray for an easy effect or to make cultural or political points about things that have nothing to do with their lives. In a time when willful eccentricity, self-conscious style and pop-cultural knowingness dominate TV drama, it is refreshingly straightforward and unaffected, radical by virtue of being old-fashioned. In its emphasis on character over plot it reminds me of movies from the pre-Spielberg '70s, and is in so many ways what I want from television that I feel almost like phoning each of you personally to deliver the news. ...

The series’ quality is undiminished, at least in the first few episodes of its second season; if you’ve been craving something along the lines of “The Wire” and “The Sopranos,” while also mixed crime with politics absorbingly, I implore you to give "Brotherhood" a look. Grisly rewards await within.

10 p.m. Sunday. Showtime.

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