FXs Exploration of the Crack Epidemic Falters
When a character has a name like Franklin Saint, you know he's headed for a fall. That's what happens on FX's new drama Snowfall. Franklin Damson Idris has more potential than opportunity unwilling to go to college and leave his mom Michael Hyatt behind in South Central Los Angeles, he quickly puts a clever mind to work distributing a crime boss's stock of drugs throughout his neighborhood. That the whole story takes place in 1983 provides for musical and cultural references as overworked as the irony of Franklin's name. As Franklin, Idris makes every beat in his journey from earnest kid to master of his own hellscape feel like a choice, carefully made, by a mind that's not quite mature yet. And yet he shares the show with story lines about a CIA agent Carter Hudson involved with the Nicaraguan contras and a would-be queenpin Emily Rios. The show's sprawl touches every corner of Los Angeles and places yet more distant. But because the plot moves with breathless haste, each story gets only glancing consideration. A show seeking to tell a story as monumental as the introduction and impact of crack cocaine on American cities owes its viewers more consideration.