Graceland (Season 1)

You ever wonder what a show would be like if you took a crime show like The Wire but not as intelligent, threw in a lot more action, and gave the show a style like that of the OC. Of course, that sounds terrible!

However, Graceland is in fact actually an incredibly interesting crime drama worth talking about. The sad thing is, I started watching the first season of The Wire, got caught up with other stuff, started watching this, and breezed through this faster than you can imagine. Call me a horrible person but my god this was a lot easier to get through than the first season of The Wire. I'm still working on it, I'm still interested, but damn I gotta get HBO Now or something because there is nothing like watching a show, especially a crime drama on a platform like Netflix. And they hit the jackpot with Graceland.

I'm gonna be honest, the first half of the first episode of this series is really boring. I mentioned the OC earlier because you might get the two confused.

The story plays out following the trail of Mike Warren (played by Aaron Tveit). He's a top of his class grad at Quantico and he's being assigned to Los Angeles to take part in a special team that bands together a conglomeration three different federal law enforcement agencies that take down organized criminal activities in the Los Angeles area. They do this by going undercover and getting in deep with criminals in the area.

Now they try and make this assignment sound like it was something slammed on Mike and I guess I get where they're coming from as he did put his preference as working in DC. But from what this job looks like, it looks awesome.

These guys are living on the beach, they're doing undercover work... about half the time. And they love every minute of it. Why is this not everyone's first choice?

And the cast of this show is actually pretty solid. Yeah they're all a little bit OC for my taste, but they actually cover it up pretty well and make the show at least a little bit gritty.

You've got the ring leader, Mike's Training officer, Paul Briggs (played by Daniel Sunjata). Briggs has a reputation of being a great FBI agent. He is cunning, incredibly intelligent. And of course has his secrets.

There is Johnny (played by Manny Montana) who plays the goofball. You've got Charlie (played by Vanessa Ferlito). All of which are FBI agents. Then you have Jakes (played Brandon Jay McLaren) who is Immigration and Customs Enforcement. Then you have Paige (played by Serinda Swan) who is DEA. There are a couple others who come in and out of the house but those are you main cast and a lot of the tension plays between them.

From the very beginning, Graceland is very much a family like story. Every member has his or her own role that they play in the house and they clash and mesh with the others pretty darn well.

The show could seem very generic despite the novel idea of the house being one that they seized from drug dealers and converted into a place for federal agents to work out of, something that does actually happen apparently. Speaking of which, I'm really glad this show didn't try to sell it to me that this show was based on true events. Cause I don't think it is, its just a situation that does actually happen.

 No the intrigue of this show comes from the relationship between Mike Warren and Paul Griggs.

See the twist behind it all is that Mike is sent to Graceland in order to investigate Griggs and the possibility that he might be dirty.

This obviously creates an interesting dynamic between the rookie FBI agent and his possibly corrupt training officer.

There's a little bit of a Training Day vibe to the whole relationship. Its obviously not to the level of Ethan Hawke and Denzil Washington but it is pretty well done.

All the while there are undercover operations going on that are incredibly entertaining and of course make for some good television.

Is Graceland the next True Detective? Obviously no. Its airing on USA, its obviously going to pull some of its punches and its got to have some appeal to a different audience. Believe it or not, there are people who prefer this kind of television over something like True Detective or something that you would find on HBO.

I disagree but I can't tell them they are necessarily wrong.

What I can say is that Graceland is actually a really fun ride. Its only 12 episodes for the first season so you can get through it pretty quickly.

Again, the relationships between the characters are pretty fun.

At times the show does seem a little bit soap opera-y. I suppose that does kind of happen when you have a show set in Los Angeles. However, lots of that goes out the window when they get into the criminal investigations. Them going under cover is a lot of fun.

Now I don't want to give too much of the ending away as I am going to continue to watch the second season on Netflix. When I do the review for that season I can give my thoughts on the end of this season and how it connects and by that point I will have a better idea of where exactly the show is going and how exactly the ending plays out. Let's just say the answer to the question whether or not Briggs is dirty or not and the motives and everything of everyone weren't exactly satisfying and didn't exactly give me a sense of closure, but I think they wanted to extend the season on so we'll see.

Hopefully I'll be finishing that season real quick.

Overall, Graceland is a fun ride. Its something you can watch pretty casually and not get super lost, or you can binge watch it like I did and enjoy a lot of it.

But those are my thoughts on the first season of Graceland. Have you seen it? What did you think? Comment and Discuss below! You can also follow me on Twitter @cmhaugen24 to shoot me a message and give me your thoughts. You can also follow me to get updates on more movie (and TV) news and reviews.

I'll leave you with this. While I was watching this I was playing Grand Theft Auto 5. I'll give you the honest trailer for GTA 5. Enjoy!