#The notorious big and tupac series#
#The notorious big and tupac tv#

Motivated by a massive lawsuit pending against the police department from Christopher Wallace’s mom, Kading is tasked with solving the unsolvable case in order to save the city $400 million. You’re as frustrated as he is, which can’t be said for the 2006 arc focusing on Det. Simpson plays Detective Russell Poole, a homicide cop who gets too deeply invested in the case, but the actor slowly rolls out Poole’s mannerisms slowly and specifically, making his obsession look and feel legitimate. Involving a lot of big names who don’t look as much like their real-life counterparts as Marcc Rose does Tupac (who also played Shakur in “Straight Outta Compton”), it’s the storyline that’s most easy to engage with, followed closely by the LAPD’s initial 1997 investigation into their murders. First, there’s the story of Biggie and Tupac. Telling three stories at once, “Unsolved” makes it easy to pick favorites.

(I take it back: The “Westworld” star always works in nuance, so there’s one aspect of “Unsolved” - his character - given delicate shading.) Fans may even walk away with more catharsis toward the rappers’ deaths than before, but “Unsolved” isn’t brilliant investigative journalism or even must-see TV: It’s a bluntly told story that falls back on cliches as often as it falls prey to expository redundancies, even if it offers an ending that real life hasn’t. There are enough elements of pure entertainment to hold viewers’ interest, be it the basic thrill of seeing Biggie (Wavyy Jonez) and Tupac (Marcc Rose) plow through famous and infamous moments in music history or the elevated artistry of Jimmi Simpson’s performance.

#The notorious big and tupac series#

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#The notorious big and tupac tv#

It would take a lot of moxie to launch a franchise based around big questions without any answers - kind of like making an entire TV show based around a mystery that will never be solved - and USA’s big prestige play clearly aims to be the network’s “American Crime Story.” Like NBC’s “Law & Order True Crime: The Menendez Murders” before it (both channels, for what it’s worth, are owned by NBC Universal), “The Murders of Tupac and The Notorious B.I.G.” is meant to be the first entry in a new, ongoing, anthology franchise that will reap the awards and ratings FX’s hit did just a few years ago (but not with its most recent season). It plays out like a mystery, and by the end of the seventh episode (out of 10 total), “The Murders of Tupac and The Notorious B.I.G.” takes a stand behind one theory.įor cable TV, perhaps that should be expected. Nor is “Unsolved” a human story meant to honor the victims or the men seeking justice for their deaths. The new USA anthology series serves as a detailed, time-jumping, and exploratory journey into multiple, years-long investigations, but it isn’t a nuanced take on the criminal justice system (or nuanced at all, for that matter). For a show called (branded, really) “Unsolved,” the first season certainly drives toward a definitive ending.