What I'm Watching: Boss

Boss: Season 2, Episode 1 “Louder than Words” (B+)

Last fall’s dark drama is back for its second season, and it’s just as gloomy and excellent as ever. It’s best summarized by the intonation of Tom’s greatest and meanest line from the hour: “Don’t interrupt me with attempts at relevance.” A close runner-up in terms of cruelty was Meredith’s whispered sentiment to her father, immediately after demeaning his caretaker: “He’s sick, daddy. You may outlive him after all.” Ezra being out of the picture affects many aspects of the show, with Tom hallucinating him, Kitty visiting his grave, and Sam continuing to probe into what he, quite correctly, thinks Tom has done. It’s not a surprise that Sam’s new position isn’t going entirely smoothly, mainly because he’s not concerned with making friends and instead just wants to keep his investigative journalistic integrity. Tom has new enemies to fear, not that he’d admit as much, with Walsh and Mona both dead set on taking him down. I was pleasantly surprised to see Jonathan Groff as a positive new addition to the cast, the slightly too enthusiastic Dean. I think he’ll make a fine replacement for Tom, so long as he can stand the occasional angry outburst from Tom. Darius is proving himself to be faithful to Emma, somewhat unwisely, petitioning Tom to get her out of jail and then arranging for protection for her on the inside. The closing moments of the episode seem to indicate a new direction for the show, and it may just have eliminated the one person who knows exactly what Tom’s suffering from and could have done some real damage.