It's really simple. Not all conservatives are bad people. Sometimes, they are just deluded, and always wrong, about everything. Many if not most of them, however, are pure evil incarnate. In the world of Outlaw, you can't become a conservative leader without being evil. If you are not outright evil, then you are at least amoral, or at the very best, ambivalent.
Then there is Cyrus Garza who, as portrayed by Jimmy Smits, is a George W. Bush appointee to the Supreme Court. When he is not spending his time upholding conservative legal precedent-for no other reason than the curious belief that no former Supreme Court decision should ever be overturned (how this squares with the many established liberal legal precedents is fairly unclear)-he spends his days and nights drinking, gambling (while getting kicked out of casinos for cheating, and running up massive debts), and womanizing. This will in all likelihood eventually be revealed as a means of
The turning point comes when he decides to chuck his Supreme Court position and re-enter the legal profession to fight for the little guy. In doing so, he has earned the ire of his highly placed former conservative supporters and backers, who are already thoroughly pissed at him for, in the series premiere episode, his vote to allow a retrial of a Black Criminal who has been convicted of murder and sentenced to death
Why does this piss them off so much? Apparently, conservatives are so ideologically attached to the death penalty, they don't care if a condemned man is or is not innocent. He has been found guilty, and so must die. Period, end of story. Smits character is a turncoat, and now, the conservative movement is out to destroy him. After all, if Cyrus Garza has the temerity to rule that a Black Man should be granted a retrial, who's to say he might not one day vote to overturn the death penalty all together? They should be glad that he left the Court, but remember-in addition to evil, conservatives are fairly stupid.
But you would think even they would not be so stupid as to miss the disturbing signs of Garza's nascent liberal leanings. His late father was a liberal attorney, who loved him and nurtured him, while reminding him daily what a schumck he was. It even turns out that Garza has a Black Friend, also a liberal attorney, who was responsible for involving him in the case of the condemned felon previously mentioned. The Black Friend also has a Black Teenage Daughter who hates conservatives and openly calls Garza a Fascist-to his face. He has a vaguely Gothish, somewhat whorish assistant who makes life difficult for his squeaky clean conservative assistant. He even has a younger, liberal admirer who blurts out her feelings of love to him.
The only thing that has kept Garza hanging on to his conservative credentials by the skin of his teeth is his amoral lifestyle. But even here, the handwriting is on the wall. After all, if he were really a conservative, he would be an accomplished hypocrite and expert at hiding his personal flaws, like all true conservatives.
Of course, the entire premise of the series is nonsense. For just one example, even the most ardent supporters of the death penalty would be loathe to see an innocent man sentenced to die, as this gives the anti-death penalty movement their most legitimate complaint. They should be at the forefront in demanding fairness for all defendants, and in demanding not only fair trials, but in seeing unjust verdicts overturned whenever one turns up.
This series unfortunately was not intended as a thoughtful exposition of competing American political philosophies, it was meant pure and simply as liberal propaganda.
Jimmy Smits probably has a year or two left on his NBC contract. What better way to burn it out than to give him a vehicle on a Friday night at ten pm, a night and time when the television viewer demographic is dominated by those middle aged and elderly voters, many of whom might be on the fence politically and who might well be swayed by a popular television actor portraying a character in the midst of finding his soul by turning from his past indiscretions and fighting for what is right.
Which is, to be sure, all that is left. I watched this show hoping for the best, but fearing the worse. My fears were well founded. The only surprise this show might offer is if, at some point, Garza's father does not turn out to have been murdered by his, and now his son's, conservative enemies.
There are some things in life you just can't make up. Then there are things like this you just shouldn't bother to watch.
