Matthew Rhys and an ‘IT: Welcome to Derry’ Star Lead This Underrated HBO Crime Drama
Matthew Rhys had already established himself as a formidable television actor before taking on one of his most unconventional roles: a troubled, morally complicated version of Perry Mason.
HBO’s Perry Mason took a character audiences had known for decades and stripped away the familiar courtroom formula. Set in 1932 Los Angeles, the series imagined Mason before he became the legendary defense attorney, portraying him instead as a struggling private investigator haunted by his experiences in World War I. HBO itself describes the series as an origin story for the famous defense lawyer.
The result was a grim period crime drama that used Mason’s transformation to explore trauma, corruption, inequality and the limits of the justice system. Alongside Rhys, IT: Welcome to Derry star Chris Chalk delivered one of the show’s most memorable performances as Paul Drake, Mason’s longtime ally and an investigator whose own complicated relationship with the law gives the series another perspective on justice.
Unfortunately, Perry Mason ended after only two seasons. HBO canceled the series in June 2023, shortly after its second-season finale aired in April.
For a show that had clearly found its footing by its second season, the cancellation came before the story had a chance to develop much further.
HBO Found a New Way to Tell the Perry Mason Story
Rebooting Perry Mason could easily have felt unnecessary.
The character had already appeared in Erle Stanley Gardner’s novels, numerous television adaptations and the long-running series starring Raymond Burr. The familiar version of Mason was defined by his courtroom victories and his ability to unravel seemingly impossible cases.
HBO went in a very different direction.
Rather than beginning with the established defense attorney, the series explored Mason before he had become a lawyer. He was a private investigator working in 1932 Los Angeles, taking whatever jobs he could find and operating with few of the moral boundaries associated with the traditional version of the character.
That decision gave the writers room to build a character who was far less polished and considerably more damaged.
The series also abandoned the traditional case-of-the-week structure. Instead of resolving a new mystery in every episode, each season followed a major investigation across multiple episodes. That approach allowed Perry Mason to spend considerably more time examining the people affected by a crime, the institutions surrounding the investigation and the social conditions of the period.
The setting was especially important. Because the story took place in the early 1930s, the series could place its mysteries against a period of enormous economic and social upheaval.
That historical setting helped turn what might have been a straightforward detective reboot into something closer to a psychological crime drama.
Matthew Rhys Made Mason Difficult to Like, Then Easy to Understand
When the series begins, Perry Mason is hardly the idealistic champion of justice audiences might expect.
He is cynical, financially unstable and willing to take questionable assignments. His early work includes photographing a celebrity involved in an affair, illustrating just how far he is from the courtroom hero he will eventually become.
Matthew Rhys makes that version of Mason compelling without trying to make him immediately sympathetic.
Rhys had already demonstrated his ability to carry a complex television drama through The Americans, but Perry Mason gave him a very different kind of protagonist. Mason is aggressive and often self-destructive, yet the series gradually reveals the experiences that shaped him.
His military service during World War I left him carrying psychological trauma that the society around him had little understanding of. He is also dealing with the collapse of his marriage and the uncertainty of a country struggling through a period of profound economic instability.
Those details make Mason’s isolation more understandable. He is a man who has been damaged by circumstances he cannot fully process, living in a society that has little language or infrastructure for addressing what he is experiencing.
That background also helps explain why he approaches the law from such an unconventional angle. Mason does not initially appear interested in justice as an abstract principle. He is interested in solving problems, surviving and, eventually, finding some sense of redemption.
Chris Chalk Gives the Series Another Essential Perspective
One of the biggest strengths of Perry Mason is that Rhys never has to carry the series alone.
Chris Chalk is particularly effective as Paul Drake, a detective whose relationship with Mason becomes increasingly important. The series reimagines Drake as a Black police officer, giving the character a very different relationship with law enforcement from the one Mason has.
Drake understands the barriers faced by people of color when dealing with the authorities, and that experience influences how he approaches both his work and his partnership with Mason.
The contrast between the two men becomes one of the show’s most interesting elements. Mason can afford to be openly antagonistic toward the institutions around him in ways that Drake cannot. Their differing experiences give the series an opportunity to examine the law from two very different positions.
Chalk’s performance is one of the reasons the supporting cast works so well. Paul Drake could have existed simply as an informant or assistant, but the series gives him his own motivations and conflicts.
That makes his relationship with Mason feel like a genuine partnership rather than a conventional detective-sidekick arrangement.
John Lithgow Adds Another Layer to Mason’s Story
John Lithgow also stands out as E.B. Jonathan, the attorney who frequently employs Mason.
E.B. represents an older generation of the legal profession, but he is more than simply Mason’s employer. He becomes something of a mentor and one of the few people capable of recognizing what Mason is carrying beneath his abrasive exterior.
Lithgow’s performance earned an Emmy nomination, and the relationship between E.B. and Mason gives the series some of its quieter emotional moments.
E.B. understands that Mason has been forced to carry burdens that he was never properly equipped to handle. That relationship becomes particularly meaningful because Mason spends much of the series surrounded by people who either want something from him or distrust him.
The supporting cast therefore becomes central to what makes Perry Mason work. Rather than surrounding Rhys with characters who merely move the mystery forward, the show gradually builds an ensemble with their own relationships to the legal system.
Season 2 Showed How Much Better the Series Could Become
The first season of Perry Mason established the show’s bleak atmosphere and unconventional take on the character, but its second season demonstrated how much the series could evolve.
The story moved toward racial prejudice within the courtroom and the legal system, giving the characters conflicts that extended beyond the central murder investigation. Season 2 begins months after the Dodson case and follows Mason, Della Street and Paul Drake as they become involved in another dangerous case after the murder of a powerful oil heir.
The change in focus also allowed the series to become more empathetic.
Where the first season could feel deliberately cold and abrasive, the second gave greater attention to the emotional lives of its characters. Katherine Waterston and Shea Whigham were among the new additions to the cast, helping expand an already strong ensemble.
That growth is particularly important because Perry Mason was no longer simply trying to establish a darker version of a familiar character. By its second season, it had become interested in the people and institutions surrounding him.
The courtroom itself could not simply deliver a definitive answer to every problem.
One of the show’s recurring ideas is that a legal verdict does not necessarily resolve the damage caused by a crime. People can walk away from court with a legal outcome while still carrying the consequences of what happened.
‘Perry Mason’ Used Its Darker Tone for More Than Shock Value
The HBO series was never afraid of disturbing material.
Its first episode contains an exceptionally violent sequence that immediately established how different this version of Perry Mason would be from the classic television adaptations. But the series eventually showed that its darkness served a larger purpose.
It was interested in what happens after violence, particularly to the people left behind.
The show also examined the ways religious figures and public personalities could manipulate tragic events for their own purposes. Those elements allowed Perry Mason to explore the sensationalism associated with crime stories in the 1930s while questioning the distance between public spectacle and genuine justice.
That approach could have easily turned the series into a conventional grim-and-gritty reboot. Instead, its strongest moments came when it used the period setting to examine why people behave as they do.
Mason himself is a good example.
He is far from an uncomplicated hero, but the series makes a convincing case that his intentions are ultimately better than his methods. He wants justice, yet he is frequently willing to bend rules and cross boundaries to achieve it.
That contradiction is what makes him interesting.
HBO Canceled the Series After Two Seasons
Despite the progress made in Season 2, Perry Mason did not receive a third season.
HBO canceled the series on June 6, 2023, after two seasons. The second season had concluded on April 24. HBO said at the time that it was grateful for the work of Rhys and the cast and crew, while confirming that it would not continue with another season.
The decision ended a series that had increasingly begun to distinguish itself from the familiar Perry Mason formula.
The cancellation was especially frustrating because the show had demonstrated noticeable growth between its first and second seasons. Season 2 expanded the characters, deepened the show’s themes and gave Mason, Drake and Della Street more room to develop.
There was also clearly more story available. Following the second-season finale, co-showrunner Michael Begler said he had already been thinking about a third season and believed there was more to explore with the characters.
Instead, the series ended after two seasons.
Why ‘Perry Mason’ Is Still Worth Revisiting
The appeal of HBO’s Perry Mason lies in how dramatically it reinterprets a familiar character without losing the basic idea that made Perry Mason endure.
This Mason is not the polished courtroom mastermind audiences may remember from earlier adaptations. He begins as a troubled private investigator, and his eventual path toward becoming a lawyer is shaped by trauma, financial hardship, personal failure and his growing determination to pursue justice.
Matthew Rhys gives the character enough rough edges to make his transformation believable, while Chris Chalk provides an equally compelling counterpoint through Paul Drake.
Their partnership is one of the show’s strongest elements, particularly because Drake’s experiences with the law are fundamentally different from Mason’s. John Lithgow’s E.B. Jonathan adds another dimension by connecting Mason to a more traditional legal world.
Together, they make Perry Mason feel less like another attempt to revive an old property and more like a period crime drama that happens to feature a familiar name.
The series is now a two-season story, but those two seasons offer a fascinating look at a character before he became the Perry Mason that popular culture remembers.
For viewers discovering Matthew Rhys through his more recent work, or for those who know Chris Chalk from IT: Welcome to Derry, Perry Mason offers an opportunity to see both actors in a very different setting. The HBO drama may have ended earlier than its creators intended, but its two-season run remains one of the more distinctive reinventions of a classic television character.
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The series premiered on HBO in June 2020 and ran for two seasons before its cancellation in 2023.