The Conundrum of a New <em>Perry Mason</em>

There comes late in HBO’s new eight-part reconception of the legal drama when Matthew Rhys’s character feels almost like the Mason of old, the most beloved defense attorney in American television. Early episodes featured a virtual master class in mopery, in which Rhys’s Mason—not yet an attorney—slumped his way through different levels of professional and personal dejection, with egg on his tie and a hangdog expression. But then, thanks to a confluence of circumstances and the ingenuity of his plucky associate, Della Street (Juliet Rylance), he finds himself in court, cross-examining a corrupt cop. Mason’s hair is neatly brilliantined; his face is shaved; his courtroom patter is impeccable. He shreds the witness to pieces. And then the scene—a fantasy, it turns out—is punctured by a district attorney who’s actually helping Mason, now a newbie lawyer, prepare for a cross-examination the following day. “No one ever confesses on the stand,” the DA says, rolling his eyes at Mason’s rueful naïveté.