Perry Mason · Season 1 · Max
Perry Mason Season 1
Perry Mason Season 1 is a WORTH-IT, BollyMeter 7.6/10. 8 episodes on Max from 21 June 2020.
Updated
What BollyAI Thinks
Perry Mason's 2020 reboot transplanted the courtroom procedural to Depression-era Los Angeles and spent its first season more interested in the world it was building than in the case driving it. Matthew Rhys played Mason as a traumatised, mud-caked private investigator - closer to noir antihero than TV lawyer - and the performance held the season together through its plotting difficulties. At 75 percent on Rotten Tomatoes (84 reviews), the season landed with measured approval: the production design, John Lithgow's supporting work, and the 1930s period detail all registered positively. The storytelling was genuinely messy - a child murder case, city corruption, a revivalist church conspiracy, and Mason's own backstory competed for attention without always integrating. The season improved sharply in its final two episodes once the courtroom arrived.
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Standout Episodes
The hours worth arguing about - premieres, finales, and the turning points. BollyAI reads the room episode by episode.
- E1Chapter One7.8
The premiere establishes 1932 Los Angeles in precise, rain-soaked detail. A murdered infant is the inciting case; Mason is introduced at his lowest point. The atmosphere is thick but the pace is deliberate.
The moment: The infant crime scene - the show announces its moral seriousness in a single, unflinching image.
- E8Chapter Eight8.2
The season finale delivers the courtroom confrontation the preceding seven episodes were building toward. Rhys's courtroom work justifies the long runway the show took to get here.
The moment: Mason's closing argument - the moment the character finds his voice as a lawyer rather than a brawler.