Stream It Or Skip It: ‘American Rust’ On Showtime, Where Jeff Daniels Plays A Rust Belt Police Chief Who Compromises His Ethics To Protect Someone He Loves

It’s always interesting when shows with similar setting come out within months of each other. Mare of Easttown, which took place in Delaware County, PA, captured America’s attention not only with fairly accurate Delco accents and mentions of Wawa, but it had a compelling lead and reasonably interesting mystery at its center. American Rust takes place on the other side of the Keystone State, closer to the West Virginia border, but it still depicts a struggling working class town and a cop who has to figure out where his ethics lie in this ever-shifting environment. Oh, and it has two pretty compelling leads. Read on for more.

AMERICAN RUST: STREAM IT OR SKIP IT?

Opening Shot: Del Harris (Jeff Daniels) stares at three bottles of pills. Then takes one out and crushes it with a mortar and pestle.

The Gist: After crushing his pill, then weighing it, taking off some until he gets to 52%, Dell brushes the powder into his coffee to take it. Another pill he consumes whole. Then he grabs a rife and leaves his cabin to go hunting.

Grace Poe (Maura Tierney) works as a seamstress under less than ideal working conditions. Her son Billy (Alex Neustaedter) sits outside their trailer, drinking PBR. Isaac English (David Alvarez) manages to get his cantankerous father Henry (Bill Camp) into a recliner and gets him to take a sleeping pill. That’s when Isaac takes the cash his dad has stowed away and goes to get Billy. They were planning on leaving Buell, PA, the small Rust Belt town where they grew up. On the walk out of town, they pass by the mill; Billy sees Pete Novick (Jim True-Frost), the cop that arrested him six months earlier, and goes to have a “talk” with him.

As Del is watching Grace leave work, he gets a call from his deputy, Steve Park (Rob Yang), that there’s a body at the mill. Del goes himself to look into it, even though it’s his day off. He finds the body, but before we can see who it is, we flash back six months. Del, taking meds to help with his PTSD from his First Gulf War days, is taking slightly more of the ground up pill; his pharmacist, Jackson Berg (Dallas Roberts), has been helping him titrate off the anti-depression meds, but advises him to also reduce his use of amphetamines to keep a balance.

Grace and Billy are being evicted from their trailer because Grace’s estranged husband Virgil (Mark Pellegrino) is too busy sleeping with random women to pay the mortgage. Billy is adrift, having turned down a Division I football scholarship; he assists the coach at his old high school. He’s friends with the bookish Isaac, because Billy used to date Isaac’s sister Lee (Julia Mayorga), who is now married and living in New York. Isaac, who never quite got over losing his mother when he was younger, hates his fate so much that he walks out onto the river and falls through the thin ice; Billy has to pull him out.

When the trailer goes up for auction, Virgil and his buddies drive prospective buyers away with their hunting rifles; Dell allows it because it’s technically legal, but also because he’s been recently seeing Grace. One night, when he brings her some sparkling wine from the Finger Lakes, he gets called away to the local watering hole, where Billy has gotten into a fight instigated by a rival high school’s alumnus.

But Billy smacked the kid in the head with a 2-by-4, and Del comes upon the scene with a drunk Novick’s foot on Billy’s back, gun drawn. Del fires Novick on the spot and takes Billy in himself. He manages to get Del six months probation, but things with Grace have likely changed for the worse.

What Shows Will It Remind You Of? American Rust gives off a very strong Mare Of Easttown vibe, although this show takes place in southwestern Pennsylvania instead of southeastern PA like Mare does (believe us, they’re completely different regions). But the ethical dilemmas that Del faces are more akin to another recent star-driven Showtime project, Your Honor.

Our Take: Here’s the question we kept asking ourselves when we were watching the first episode of American Rust: Would the show be nearly as compelling without Daniels and Tierney as the leads? Both actors bring so much to any role they play, they give depth and presence to characters who may not seem to have so much of it on the page, and they do the same thing here with Del and Grace, respectively. The rest of the show? We’re not sure about that yet.

Perhaps because the aforementioned Mare of Easttown did such a fine job painting a picture of a small, working class Pennsylvania town where people are struggling emotionally as well as financially, other shows might have to strive to reach that standard. Dan Futterman, who created the series based on Philipp Meyer’s novel, paints a picture of Buell that’s almost but not quite as compelling, because the scenes without Daniels and Tierney in them suffer somewhat by their absence.

What hooked us was Del and Grace’s burgeoning relationship; two people who have suffered through various traumas and difficulties in their lives but have somehow found a little hope and strength in each other. The idea of the two of them being together despite Del’s PTSD and Grace’s shitty relationship history is only enhanced by the chemistry that two accomplished actors can generate through sheer will.

In the six months since Billy was arrested, a wedge has been driven between the two of them, but it’s readily apparent that Del isn’t through with the relationship yet. That’s going to color his actions going forward, an that’s going to be the most fascinating part of the series. Billy is about to get into some serious trouble, and Del will be the one protecting him. But to what end, and how far will Del push it?

We’re intrigued by what’s going on with the English family, but there needs to be more of the in-person dynamic between Isaac and Lee for us to figure out whether this story is connected to the Del/Grace/Billy story or not. That is where we start to waver on the show, where we doubt whether the show could be as compelling if Daniels and Tierney weren’t in it. Let’s hope we’re proven wrong as the series continues.

Sex and Skin: None, at least not in the first episode.

Parting Shot: Back to the present, Del finds the body, but also sees Billy’s varsity jacket nearby, so he hides it before the state police show up. We then see the hidden jacket, with Del’s fingerprint on it.

Sleeper Star: Even in brief scenes, we’re enamored with Bill Camp’s deep voice and cantankerous manner. We hope we’ll see more of it during the season.

Most Pilot-y Line: When Billy calls Lee to tell her to check in on her brother, she talks about how living in New York is amazing, sometimes. “I had a feeling that, maybe people aren’t supposed to live like this. Maybe it’s a mistake.” That’s definitely a patented Philosophical Prestige Show Live ™ if we’ve ever heard one.

Our Call: STREAM IT. Jeff Daniels deeply emotional performance, plus Maura Tierney’s equally fine turn are more than enough to make American Rust compelling. But the potential for a more nuanced and complete story than the first episode shows is there, even if it might take a while to fill in the blanks.

Joel Keller (@joelkeller) writes about food, entertainment, parenting and tech, but he doesn’t kid himself: he’s a TV junkie. His writing has appeared in the New York Times, Slate, Salon, RollingStone.com, VanityFair.com, Fast Company and elsewhere.

Stream American Rust On SHO.com