Rating summary

Movie		4.0
Video		4.5
Audio		4.0
Extras		1.0
Overall		3.5

Copper: Season Two Blu-ray Movie Review

The Tyranny of Tammany

Reviewed by Michael Reuben January 17, 2014

After the critical and popular success of its first season, BBC America's Copper roared back with an expanded thirteen-episode second season that premiered on June 23, 2013. But something was different. Creators Tom Fontana and Will Rokos decided to expand the series' canvas beyond the rough-and-tumble origins of New York's Finest amidst the crowded immigrant streets of the Lower Manhattan neighborhood known as Five Points. Even the Civil War, never far from the characters' minds in Season One, which culminated with a Confederate plot to burn New York to the ground, receded into the background in Season Two. Fontana and Rokos were looking toward the future. They wanted to examine the social, economic and political forces that were already organizing to reshape the city into something like its present form and, in the process, erase Five Points from the map.

Copper's creators can be admired for the boldness of their ambition, but it took them too far away from the show's core strengths, as substantial time was devoted to major new characters and story lines, while those that had won the show its original audience were given short shrift (or, worse, repurposed for Copper's new aspirations). By mid-season, the fan base was abandoning the show, uncertain of where it was headed or what it was about. Those who stayed to the end saw some, but not all, of the new storylines resolved in the twelfth episode, only to be treated to a coda in the final installment that was stylistically and tonally at odds with everything that had gone before. The last episode ended with what was obviously intended as a foundation for a third season, but by then it was too late. Poor ratings prompted BBCA to cancel the series just three days before the season finale aired on June 23, 2013.

Despite the change in focus, much of Copper's second season deals with events that occurred in Season One. The following discussion assumes that the reader is familiar with Season One; anyone who is new to Copper should stop here and turn to the Season One review to avoid spoilers.

Season Two finds Det. Kevin "Corky" Corcoran (Tom Weston-Jones) attempting to mend his marriage with his still-recovering wife, Ellen (Alex Paxton-Beesley), whose disappearance he had finally solved in the first season. It is unclear whether they can ever be the couple they were, now that Corcoran knows it was Ellen who was responsible for the death of their daughter. That, more than her affair with his best friend, stands as a barrier between them. It doesn't help that young Annie Reilly (Kiara Glasco) now resides with the Corcorans. While Annie is no substitute for Corcoran's daughter, she is an ongoing reminder of the little girl who isn't there. Annie and Ellen Corcoran fight constantly.

The woman who used to be Corcoran's main love interest, whorehouse proprietor Eva Heissen (Franka Potente), is still running a thriving business at her establishment, the Paradise, but she said her goodbyes to Corcoran when Ellen was found. Eva's role in Season Two is much reduced, in part because Corcoran is no longer a regular at the Paradise, and in part because there simply isn't enough room for her among the new story lines.

Corcoran's best friend, former Det. Francis Maguire (Kevin Ryan), begins Season Two in jail awaiting trial for the murders he committed to cover up his affair with Ellen. But unknown forces have plans for McGuire. Over the course of the season, his life takes several surprising turns, and he appears in various guises. McGuire has always been a mysterious character. Even locked in a cell, he remains unpredictable.

Corcoran's former Union Army commander, millionaire Robert Morehouse (Kyle Schmid), is basking in the glow of New York society's adulation for foiling the planned attack on the city by Confederate agents. He is also planning his wedding to Elizabeth Haverford (Anastasia Griffith), and the couple is getting a head start on marital bliss. But the mood changes when word arrives that the chief Confederate conspirator, Robert Cobb Kennedy (Aaron Poole), has been captured and will be returned to New York to stand trial. Morehouse does not know that his bride-to-be helped finance Kennedy's plot, and Elizabeth is terrified that Kennedy will name her to the authorities, who would immediately charge her with treason. Kennedy, of course, would rather threaten Elizabeth with exposure in exchange for aiding his escape. This game of deception and blackmail plays out over much of the season, and it is complicated by the increasing dependence of both Robert and Elizabeth on the opium derivatives to which Robert became accustomed after he lost his leg in battle.

Dr. Matthew Freeman and his wife, Sara (Ato Essandoh and Tessa Thompson), find themselves pulled back into Five Points from their country home, as the doctor's services become essential to the survival of the local inhabitants, especially the struggling population of escaped and newly freed slaves. During the course of the season, they are joined by Sara's mother, Hattie (Alfre Woodard), who is overjoyed to be reunited with her daughter and son-in-law but must endure the grief of learning that her two sons, Sara's brothers, died during the Draft Riots. Hattie's experience of Five Points is a reminder of the neighborhood's contradictions; it provides her first experience of living in freedom, but it is also a place of filth, anger and madness, as well as violence that may erupt at any moment.

Looming over all these stories, however, is a larger and more powerful presence, one that was always there in Season One but never mentioned. It is Tammany Hall, the well-oiled and often corrupt political machine that dominated New York City well into the 20th Century. In Season Two, Tammany is embodied by General Brendan Donovan, the appointed ward boss in charge of Five Points. Himself a former copper, Donovan now runs Corcoran's precinct house, even though Captain Sullivan (Ron White) is nominally in charge. Corcoran and his frequent companion, Detective Andrew O'Brien (Dylan Taylor), report to Donovan more often than to their captain. His influence reaches everywhere. He dictates which brothels stay open and which are closed, which landlords are harassed and which are left in peace, which criminals may operate and which are brutally hunted down. An eloquent speaker, Donovan talks of his grand plans to establish the social legitimacy of the Irish citizens he represents, but one can't help but notice the degree to which all of his machinations end up advancing his personal interests and lining his own pockets.

Donovan and other Tammany representatives, notably William Eustis (William Baldwin), end up drawing so much of Copper's second season into their orbit that the show could almost be renamed "Ward Boss". Corcoran remains the central character, but very little of his effort is devoted to the challenges of policing Five Points. Even the cases he does investigate turn out to have some connection to the machinations of Tammany Hall. The inevitable effect of giving Tammany such a central role is to push a maverick like Corcoran to the sidelines, because Tammany's victory is a historical fact. It remained the dominant political force in New York City until Fiorello LaGuardia was elected mayor in 1933.

Perhaps that is why, in the season's final episode, Copper leaves the city behind to follow its three former Union comrades-in-arms—Corcoran, Freeman and Morehouse—on a return visit to the battlefields where their friendship was forged. The pretext for the trip is a far-fetched contrivance, especially given the epidemic that has consumed Dr. Freeman's attention night and day for many preceding episodes, but clearly series co-creator Rokos, who wrote the episode, wanted to explore Civil War themes one last time before history moved on. Besides, the Tammany stories had so consumed the series that awareness of the war's ongoing bloodshed had virtually disappeared from the show, whereas in Season One it was never far from the characters' minds.

Season Two of Copper concludes with something of a cliffhanger, but we can only guess what Fontana and Rokos had in store for a third season.

Copper: Season Two Blu-ray Movie, Video Quality 

Copper changed both cinematographers and visual style for Season Two. Pierre Gill (The Colony) shot most of the episodes, and the imagery was considerably less dark, as if the production team were responding to complaints by BBCA viewers that the show was too hard to follow in broadcast format (a point noted in my Season One review). The image is still dark, but faces are more clearly illuminated, and contrast levels have been enhanced in the original photography. Copper was easier to watch on TV, but its visuals lost some of the distinctive character that set the show apart from the many other period dramas produced by the BBC and American cable networks. It didn't help that the production design, costumes and makeup were subtly (and not so subtly) changed to clean up the main characters, so that their enhanced visibility would not damage their good looks. When it comes to historical drama, vanity is too often the enemy of authenticity.

Still, these changes represent artistic decisions by the creative team, not any fault in the image on BBC Home Video's 1080p, AVC-encoded Blu-rays, which is every bit the equal of the image for Season One. The digitally originated picture remains finely detailed, noiseless and almost filmlike in its texture. Colors are muted and dull in Five Points, but they can become vivid and saturated when specific scenes demand it, e.g., the bedrooms in Eva's Paradise, the Morehouse home and especially the green forests of the journey south in the final episode. Scenes relating to the wedding between Robert and Elizabeth provide opportunities for a wide array of rich colors, which only serves to highlight the dinginess of the grime and corruption just a few miles south.

By spreading the thirteen episodes over three discs, BBC has ensured sufficient space and average bitrates (which vary from episode to episode, but are all around 25 Mbps) to avoid any compression issues.

Copper: Season Two Blu-ray Movie, Audio Quality 

Unlike Season One, which was limited to a Dolby Digital 5.1 track, Season Two offers lossless DTS-HD MA 5.1 sound. The result improves on what was already a satisfying audio accompaniment to Copper's recreation of Five Points. The focus of the series may have shifted thematically in Season Two, but the sound designers remained committed to their original mission of creating a layered mix intended to reproduce the texture of life in a crowded immigrant district. The uptown district where the Morehouse family resides has a gentler sound, where the genteel clip-clop of horse-drawn carriages can usually be heard outside.

There are several sequences involving major exchanges of gunfire in Copper's second season, and the discharges of the 19th Century weapons are loud and powerful. A visit to a Chinese opium den provides an eerie environment of sighs and troubled sleep, and various scenes in the jail cells are full of clanging doors and the constant noise of other inmates. Brian Keane's folk-flavored score provides a steady reminder that Copper is about the rise of New York's Irish, whether on the NYPD or in Tammany Hall.

Copper: Season Two Blu-ray Movie, Special Features and Extras 

Probably because of the show's cancellation, the extras for Season Two are limited to promotional spots created prior to the season's airing. They are entertaining, but nothing compared to the historical material provided with Season One.

• Set Tours (1080p; 1.78:1)
• Eva's Paradise (2:55)
• Doctor Freeman's Office (2:07)
• General Donovan's Office (3:14)



• Insiders (1080i; 1.78:1)
• Sex, Drugs, Violence (1:04)
• The Hats of Copper (2:27)
• Facial Hair (1:20)



• Character Profiles (1080i; 1.78:1)
• MaGuire's Luck of the Irish (1:04)
• General Donovan (1:43)



• Introductory Trailers: Each disc contains introductory trailers, which can be skipped with the chapter forward button and are not otherwise available once the disc loads.
• Disc 1: Orphan Black; BBC America
• Disc 2: Doctor Who; A Young Doctor's Notebook
• Disc 3: Luther, Season 3; Tauch Earth Journeys

Copper: Season Two Blu-ray Movie, Overall Score and Recommendation 

Let us hold a proper Irish wake for Copper. It lived an adventurous life and died too young, but that was the fate of many a Five Points inhabitant. For fans who gave up on Season Two, I recommend a second look. The story lines work better when you don't have to wait a week in between episodes. Even if some of them remain unresolved in the end, a number are conclusively wound up, and there are episodes in Season Two where Copper still crackles with its former intensity. Episode 5 ("A Morning Song") depicts an assault on police headquarters itself by a vicious gang known as the Druids. In Episode 12 ("Beautiful Dreamer"), Corcoran is forced to become a fugitive, pursued by both his fellow coppers and a deadly gang of mercenaries. Copper never again reached the heights of Season One, but it still had potential. Although light on extras, Season Two's image and sound quality are excellent; the set is recommended on that basis.