First let me say that billy bob was built for this role. Picking him was the obvious choice because there is almost no one that can play a washed up brilliant drunk the way he can.

Now as for the actual series. We have Billy, who's a retired defense attorney thrown back in law after he gets tossed a case about a guy on a boat that blew up. At first it just sounds like a regular case, and then it quickly becomes apparent that there's a lot wrong with it. The long and short of it is that this series is layered perfectly, you never see what's coming because they scripted it in a way in which you don't get to see around the bends.

10/10 great acting, great directing, and an amazing script.

Binged-watched this one in 3 days and it was an absolute pleasure. It's not that the story itself is so thrillingly addictive, but mainly that almost all of the main characters are so fascinating, well crafted and brilliantly performed that you just keep wanting to go back and discover more about them. All of them deeply flawed, and yet vividly human and (for the most part) to at least some extent likable. Furthermore, the sheer amount of fully fleshed out, round and interesting characters that the show manages to create and build in just one 8-episode season is seriously impressive - there must be around 10 main supporting characters and by the end none of them feel under- served.

It helps of course that the cast is one of the most talented and charismatic ones put together for any show this year, with special mentions going to Thornton, Maria Bello and Nina Arianda, though literally everyone (down to even minor characters like the judge) is at the very least very good, if not excellent. It also helps that the show is masterfully written and beautifully shot, has a very strong visual identity and takes great advantage of LA as its location, particularly with the driving scenes and time- lapse shots.

Don't be fooled by people calling it a legal drama, it might have a lot of lawyers and a few courtroom scenes but the way it's shot and paced, the amount of detective work involved, the score and the atmosphere the show maintains make it feel much more like classy film noir than any legal drama I've ever watched.

Spoiler. The first Season knocked it out of the park, but Season 2 is substandard. The worst part is the coincidence of an innocent kid going to the crime scene, with the intention of gunning down those who were gunned down by somebody else (on the same night, at the same exact time, on video) was too hard to handle. It was probably the most contrived plot setup I have ever seen. Thornton is great, but I hope the rest of the writing will not continue on this level of absurdity.