★★★★★

I’m only part way through the first season of Brotherhood, but I have to give it five stars. Besides being well written, it has a phenom cast with seemingly limitless acting capability. You can watch this series on Paramount+. I don’t know if other streaming services have it. What I love best about this series is the “all my friends are here” feeling it gives me. Just about every one of the main characters is an actor I love from somewhere else.

Jason Isaacs

Jason Isaacs is one of those actors that can make acting seem effortless. He also has a massive filmography. You probably remember him from Harry Potter.

Or perhaps his role in Star Trek: Discovery?

The dude can act. He is great as the mobbed up brother of an Irish politician in Rhode Island.

Jason Clarke

Seems that he can do about anything. You know him from his roles in White House Down, and Zero Dark Thirty most likely. He is other Jason’s brother trying to portray a squeaky clean Irish politician while using leverage and back door deals to get things done.

Annabeth Gish

Fell in love with this girl in The West Wing. She didn’t have a lot of screen time but there was something about her eyes and mannerisms that drew me in to her acting abilities. I own a DVD set of The West Wing and have watched it many times. I may have to re-watch The X-Files to find the 26 episodes she was in.

What computer geek couldn’t love Halt and Catch Fire? Let me rephrase that: What computer geek who actually went to college and entered the IT field before the IBM PC was released couldn’t love Halt and Catch Fire? Despite what Wikipedia says (unreliable on its best day) there were and still are computers with Halt & Catch Fire instructions. These throw the processor into such a tight loop that it exceeds all cooling capabilities inside of the unit. Sometimes the CPU just smokes while it fries and other times it really will catch fire. One of the most recent such chips was the Intel Itanium. If you use an instruction that forced it to run at its rated clock speed it would literally turn the CPU into a crispy critter.

Kevin Chapman

I was so happy to see him in this. I own the complete Person of Interest series and have watched it many times.

That’s him on the far left. If you haven’t watched Person of Interest yet you really should, it has an amazing cast.

Brotherhood so far

Seems to be a classic corrupt politicians story. One brother a black sheep in the Irish mob, the other just a corrupt politician trying to hide just how corrupt he was. Annabeth, the politician’s wife and mother of three kids likes smoking pot and having sex while the kids are off to school. Since hubby is not around during the day she does her high school sex & pot buddy, not because she wants out of the marriage, she just likes pot and sex in the afternoon.

Once Upon a Time in America

You might want to watch Once Upon a Time in America first. Brotherhood has a feel much like that, at least so far. It definitely has the same level of acting! If you take away the all powerful computers Brotherhood also has the feel of Person of Interest. Not the main story line, but the Carl Elias story line.

For more movie rental ideas please see list one and list two.