post Civil War | laurieanichols

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1865, New York, post Civil War, postaday2013, T.v

One of my favorite t.v shows is Copper on BBC America. Funny enough it is a show based on the New York of 1865 after the bitter Civil War. We see African-American free men, newly arrived Irish immigrants, already considered old money living side by side with new money, Tammany Hall politics and the role that police have in New York. We are witness to this world through the eyes of Detective Kevin Corcoran who is an Irish immigrant who fought in the Civil War as did many of the other characters and we are privy to the painful sacrifices those troops made for their country.

We also see the grand divide between money and the other denizens of the city, a vast gap in income inequality between Gramercy Park and Five Points, a slum neighborhood. We are also introduced to political and police corruption with Detective Kevin Corcoran and his colleagues fighting against it through whatever meager means possible.

I started watching it since its first episode last year August 2012 and I was excited when the BBC picked it up for a second season and now that next week is this season’s last episode, I am hoping that the BBC will do the right thing and pick it up for a third season, I am keeping my fingers crossed.

There are so many great stories to tell and the characters are well written, I especially like the friendships between Detective Kevin Corcoran and Detective Francis Maguire another Irish immigrant copper as well as Detective Kevin and his good friend Major Robert Morehouse from the wealthy side of New York. Detective Kevin also has important relationships with Doctor Matthew Freeman, an intelligent African-American physician and Eva Heissen who happens to be a successful madam in her own brothel, a very popular establishment in the Five Points section of New York.

If you have access to Netflicks, I highly recommend giving Copper Season one a look see because the acting is great, the writing gripping and the set designs pretty amazing. You get the sense of being in New York circa 1865.

I love my Copper.:)