Esposito plays Gracian “Gray” Parish, a man with a dark past who has left most of it behind to run a car service in New Orleans. His life had already begun to go wrong when we meet him, after the shooting death of his son, which caused him problems at work and at home. The business is in trouble and his daughter Makayla (Arica Himmel) is moving away from Gray and his mother Rose (Paula Malcomson). Rose is convinced they will have to sell his expensive home, and Gray can't bear the thought of not only leaving behind everything he's worked for, but also the only place that will hold memories of his lost son. . That's why he accepts a job. It will be an easy driving job for a robbery at a lawyer's office. What can go wrong?
Of course, everything goes wrong, and Parish becomes entangled in the business of a family of Zimbabwean gangsters led by a power player who calls himself The Horse (Zackary Momoh) and his sister Shamiso (a charismatic Bonnie Mbuli). There is drama in the Tongai family, including a power struggle with The Horse's brother Zenzo (Ivan Mbakop), but much of this material is written in broad dialogue and cliches that allow the show to sink every time it strays away. of its main character.
There are more distractions. Bradley Whitford shows up to rock the scene with a vague Southern accent as Anton, a crime tycoon with a connection to Gray's dark past. Skeet Ulrich slinks around the periphery as an old friend of Gray's who is probably just as capable of getting him in and out of trouble. Amanda Brugel gets a tough, mysterious savior role as Sister Anne, a potential lifeline for Gray when things go wrong.
Since it's based on a show called “The Driver” and takes place in a high-stakes crime world, one would expect “Parish” to at least be action-packed, but that's not exactly true. There are big events at the end of episodes, like shootouts that change allegiances, but there's surprisingly little real tension in this show. Part of the problem is the many plot threads struggling for air, from Gray's grief to Tongai's human trafficking operation to Anton's political games.
