The Phantom channel surfs in his best attention deficit disorder way while stumping on his basement treadmill. Has for years, and has found Amazon prime, Netflix, and all the other groups loaded with a vast wasteland of dramas, action films and TV series.
There is the occasional nugget, or a ride through old Sopranos episodes, and the series like "The Expanse" which grabs his attention but then grows old and he finds he simply does not want to click on the next episode.
But then: an unheralded, modest TV series, made in 2005, set in Vancouver and wow!
It's well named: "Intelligence." Because it is.
Not since "The Wire" has the Phantom been so riveted.
The characters are completely seductive. Jimmy Reardon runs his family owned crime operation, mostly sustained by marijuana sales with side enterprises in a strip club and various other shipping scams. He is a harried man, just trying to be reasonable and he does his utmost to avoid using violence and is always trying to see the other side, to negotiate and to give the other guy a fair deal.
He has a drug addicted wife who is so manipulative and hideous she makes Iago look like Mary Poppins.
His brother is dumb as a stick and his cross to bear, but his red headed sister is a rock and sees through people as if possessed of X ray vision.
On the cop side is Mary, who is tough as nails and who cleaves to her own code, in a clear eyed way. She is a Canadian version of The Wire's Cedric Daniels, tough, uncompromising and ambitious. Of course, there has to be a real nasty piece of work among the cops, and Ted fills that role, not as nuanced as Rawls of The Wire, but every bit as serpentine.
This series lasted only two seasons, but how it managed to not be noticed is beyond the Phantom. It has none of the social commentary and institutional examination of "The Wire" but for characters, intensity, dark vision, it can be mentioned in the same breath as that monumental show.
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