{"id":70471,"date":"2025-08-15T15:08:07","date_gmt":"2025-08-15T15:08:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/70471\/"},"modified":"2025-08-15T15:08:07","modified_gmt":"2025-08-15T15:08:07","slug":"the-rainmaker-review-usa-legal-drama-drags","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/70471\/","title":{"rendered":"‘The Rainmaker’ Review: USA Legal Drama Drags"},"content":{"rendered":"

\n\tIt\u2019s been a long while\u00a0since the USA Network last premiered an original drama. (Five years, to be precise, since the one-and-done \u201cBriarpatch.\u201d<\/a>) A lot has happened since \u2014\u00a0so much that, in the time between being ordered to series and making it to air, an attempt to revive the channel\u2019s heyday has been left marooned by circumstances beyond its control. \u201cThe Rainmaker<\/a>,\u201d a John Grisham adaptation that follows in the footsteps of the 1997 Francis Ford Coppola film, seems designed to bring back the \u201cblue sky\u201d brand that defined the network in the 2000s. Based on its first five episodes, the legal drama is unlikely to succeed, either on its own terms or in light of recent developments.<\/p>\n

\n\tA pocket history of USA goes something like this: the blue sky-era of breezy procedurals and its attendant slogan, \u201cCharacters Welcome,\u201d reigned from the premiere of \u201cMonk\u201d in 2002 through the runs of such staples as \u201cPsych,\u201d \u201cSuits,\u201d \u201cWhite Collar\u201d and \u201cRoyal Pains,\u201d hits that propelled USA to be the No. 1 network on basic cable. Then the channel embraced the spirit of Peak TV and chased prestige, starting with \u201cMr. Robot\u201d in 2015 and continuing through less acclaimed, though equally grim, series like \u201cThe Sinner\u201d and \u201cQueen of the South.\u201d Finally, USA succumbed to the contraction that followed this feeding frenzy and vastly scaled back its original programming \u2014\u00a0until June of last year, when the announcement<\/a> of \u201cThe Rainmaker\u201d marked the first move in a reported<\/a> pivot back to the blue sky strategy after \u201cSuits\u201d became a juggernaut on Netflix.<\/p>\n

\n\tJust five months later, a rather large wrench was thrown into the gears of this master plan: USA\u2019s parent company, Comcast, announced that it would spin USA and other linear channels off from the rest of its entertainment assets into a separate company, now called Versant. \u201cThe Rainmaker\u201d did complete production of its 10-episode first season, and will be followed by a take on the \u201cAnna Pigeon\u201d novels<\/a> sometime next year. But spinoff companies like Versant and the future Discovery Global<\/a> are generally associated with managed decline, not the major investment required to bring an entire slate into being.<\/p>\n

\n\tContext aside, \u201cThe Rainmaker\u201d doesn\u2019t feel much like a flagship show. Starting with the title card sequence, a word cloud of generic legal terms like \u201cindictment\u201d and \u201cplaintiff\u201d that could\u2019ve been auto-generated by an app, there\u2019s a lack of energy to this David-and-Goliath setup, a co-creation of Jason Richman and showrunner Michael Seitzman. Law school graduate Rudy Baylor (Milo Callaghan) and his girlfriend Sarah Plankmore (Madison Iseman) both land entry-level associate gigs at the white shoe law firm Tinley Britt, but Rudy quickly gets fired after running afoul of senior partner Leo Drummond (John Slattery). Unlike Sarah, Rudy doesn\u2019t come from family money; out of desperation, Rudy joins the office of Jocelyn \u201cBruiser\u201d Stone (Lana Parilla), where he won\u2019t make salary but does work on eat-what-you-kill commission. Naturally, the case Rudy brings in pits him against both Leo and Sarah in the courtroom.<\/p>\n

\n\tIt\u2019s remarkable how much the older generation of lawyers ends up outshining their mentees. Bruiser is a collection of clich\u00e9s, operating out of a converted fast food restaurant in a Saul Goodman-esque setup and prone to declarations like \u201cI only need three things: Kentucky bourbon, a bloody steak and a man who won\u2019t spend the night.\u201d But she\u2019s at least fun to watch, which can\u2019t be said of the blank slate that is Rudy. \u201cThe Rainmaker\u201d labors mightily to give its protagonist some dimension, from a backstory about a death in his family to a subplot about intervening in his neighbor\u2019s abusive marriage. None of it works. Rudy is enough of an underdog to make it clear we should root for him, but that\u2019s not the same as wanting to.<\/p>\n

\n\tSuch a bland do-gooder can\u2019t hold a candle to Slattery\u2019s Leo, a man who happily self-identifies as a bully. The former Roger Sterling of \u201cMad Men\u201d is extremely at home as a seasoned professional slinging out zingers; he\u2019s also overqualified and underutilized, disappearing from the scene for long stretches at a time. Though he\u2019s by far the biggest name in the cast, even Slattery doesn\u2019t have the star power to carry all of \u201cThe Rainmaker\u201d on his back. As a sketchy nurse with a pivotal role in Leo\u2019s case against a local hospital, comic actor Dan Fogler is another bright spot, though he seems to be imported from another show.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cThe Rainmaker\u201d is co-produced by the television arm of horror studio Blumhouse. The show is a change of pace for Blumhouse in terms of genre, give or take a few Fogler scenes, but maintains its reputation for modest budgets in cheap-looking sets and an unglamorous South Carolina setting. Earlier this year, \u201cSuits LA\u201d failed to capitalize<\/a> on the surprising afterlife of the original, and was swiftly canceled as a result. \u201cThe Rainmaker\u201d seems no more likely to recapture the rush of a great, glossy legal drama. (It wouldn\u2019t be correct to call it a procedural, since the entire season focuses mostly on one case, though perhaps the show would be better if it had a brisker pace.) No one can control the weather, and USA can\u2019t bring blue skies back by sheer force of will.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cThe Rainmaker\u201d will premiere on USA on Aug. 15 at 10 p.m. ET\/PT and on Peacock on Aug. 22, with remaining episodes airing weekly on Fridays and streaming on Peacock one week later.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"It\u2019s been a long while\u00a0since the USA Network last premiered an original drama. (Five years, to be precise,…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":70472,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[29],"tags":[64,63,134,55500,427],"class_list":{"0":"post-70471","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-tv","8":"tag-au","9":"tag-australia","10":"tag-entertainment","11":"tag-the-rainmaker","12":"tag-tv"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/70471","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=70471"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/70471\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/70472"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=70471"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=70471"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=70471"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}