‘Blood and Oil’ Review: Don Johnson Is The New J.R. Ewing
A new example of an old genre — the big, lusty saga of men and women making their fortunes through wiliness and brute strength — Blood & Oil is ABC’s bid to cross Revenge with Dallas and come up with a grimy-but-glamorous soap opera. Its marquee star is Don Johnson, who’s worth his weight in gold or oil — he anchors the show as North Dakota tycoon Hap Briggs, droppin’ his “g”s and tellin’ Chace Crawford’s up-and-comin’ oil speculator Billy LeFever that the young man has “a pair-a brass ones.”
The former Gossip Girl star plays a nervy but poor young man with a newly-pregnant wife (Rebecca Rittenhouse); the couple have come to oil-rich Rocks Springs, North Dakota, to make their fortunes. Johnson’s Hap is the top dog in this boom-town, and he’s got a lazy, spoiled, ne’r-do-well son named Wick (Scott Michael Foster) whom he’d just as soon disown. Recognizing Billy’s pluck — anyone named “LeFever” must have the fever of ambition, right? — Hap spells it out for the viewers. “Wish my boy was little bit more like you,” Hap tells Billy, and so you know Billy and Wick are gonna be mortal enemies.
Blood & Oil was co-created by Rodes Fishburne and Josh Pate; the latter has been behind a couple of my favorite cult series, Good Vs Evil (1999-2000) and Fastlane (2002-2003), so I hope this new show sticks around longer than either of those two smart one-season-wonders.
Blood & Oil bows to the conventions of its forebears, chiefly Dallas. You can bet the first hour climaxes with some of the main characters rolling around in oil, punchin’ and brawlin’. But the show could develop its own mythology of contemporary wildcatting and, with any luck, Don Johnson could end up with another signature TV role to follow his Sonny Crockett and Nash Bridges. Here’s hopin’.
Blood & Oil airs Sundays at 9 p.m. on ABC.
