On TNTs New Soap Utopia Among the Manicurists
"Happy new year," reads the sign outside the Nail Artisan of Manatee County. Our gels last till Black History Month. The salon, run by bighearted Desna Niecy Nash, carries that tone through each stroke of varnish. Its employees, even as they might wish for a more upscale shop, take pride in the quality of their work, to which they bring wit and flair. On Claws, TNT's new soap, set on Florida's Gulf Coast, this beauty shop is the ultimate refuge. It's a necessary one as, unsurprisingly, men begin to cause problems. Desna, who launders money for the local mob, is having an affair with one of its junior capos Jack Kesyas is one of her junior beauticians, the haughty Virginia Karrueche Tran, who lives on vending-machine pork rinds and contempt. Despite this vexed love triangle, the salon's entanglement with the mob forces cooperation between the two women. It's a pairing of convenience that nevertheless shows how powerful it can be when women team up. Kesy's Roller isn't much of an adversary. But playing his boss, Uncle Daddy, Dean Norris brings real menace to a cartoonish role. Uncle Daddy wears big chains and slurs drunkenly in a Creole accent. His violent impulses seem, at first, like slapstick. But soon his malevolent power oozes off the screen like a dripping bottle of Revlon ColorStay.