It’s been a long while since the USA Network last premiered an original drama. (Five years, to be precise, since the one-and-done “Briarpatch.”) A lot has happened since — so much that, in the time between being ordered to series and making it to air, an attempt to revive the channel’s heyday has been left marooned by circumstances beyond its control. “The Rainmaker,” a John Grisham adaptation that follows in the footsteps of the 1997 Francis Ford Coppola film, seems designed to bring back the “blue sky” 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.
A pocket history of USA goes something like this: the blue sky-era of breezy procedurals and its attendant slogan, “Characters Welcome,” reigned from the premiere of “Monk” in 2002 through the runs of such staples as “Psych,” “Suits,” “White Collar” and “Royal Pains,” 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 “Mr. Robot” in 2015 and continuing through less acclaimed, though equally grim, series like “The Sinner” and “Queen of the South.” Finally, USA succumbed to the contraction that followed this feeding frenzy and vastly scaled back its original programming — until June of last year, when the announcement of “The Rainmaker” marked the first move in a reported pivot back to the blue sky strategy after “Suits” became a juggernaut on Netflix.
Just five months later, a rather large wrench was thrown into the gears of this master plan: USA’s 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. “The Rainmaker” did complete production of its 10-episode first season, and will be followed by a take on the “Anna Pigeon” novels sometime next year. But spinoff companies like Versant and the future Discovery Global are generally associated with managed decline, not the major investment required to bring an entire slate into being.
Context aside, “The Rainmaker” doesn’t feel much like a flagship show. Starting with the title card sequence, a word cloud of generic legal terms like “indictment” and “plaintiff” that could’ve been auto-generated by an app, there’s 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’t come from family money; out of desperation, Rudy joins the office of Jocelyn “Bruiser” Stone (Lana Parilla), where he won’t 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.
It’s remarkable how much the older generation of lawyers ends up outshining their mentees. Bruiser is a collection of clichés, operating out of a converted fast food restaurant in a Saul Goodman-esque setup and prone to declarations like “I only need three things: Kentucky bourbon, a bloody steak and a man who won’t spend the night.” But she’s at least fun to watch, which can’t be said of the blank slate that is Rudy. “The Rainmaker” 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’s abusive marriage. None of it works. Rudy is enough of an underdog to make it clear we should root for him, but that’s not the same as wanting to.
Such a bland do-gooder can’t hold a candle to Slattery’s Leo, a man who happily self-identifies as a bully. The former Roger Sterling of “Mad Men” is extremely at home as a seasoned professional slinging out zingers; he’s also overqualified and underutilized, disappearing from the scene for long stretches at a time. Though he’s by far the biggest name in the cast, even Slattery doesn’t have the star power to carry all of “The Rainmaker” on his back. As a sketchy nurse with a pivotal role in Leo’s case against a local hospital, comic actor Dan Fogler is another bright spot, though he seems to be imported from another show.
“The Rainmaker” 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, “Suits LA” failed to capitalize on the surprising afterlife of the original, and was swiftly canceled as a result. “The Rainmaker” seems no more likely to recapture the rush of a great, glossy legal drama. (It wouldn’t 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’t bring blue skies back by sheer force of will.
“The Rainmaker” 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.
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