PENNSYLVANIA CAPTURED THE attention of many of us this year via the superb crime drama Mare of Easttown on HBO, but there’s another incredible television show set in the state that we should be watching. I’m talking about Philly D.A., on PBS. An eight-episode documentary series focused on activist-attorney Larry Krasner’s unusual election to the role of Philadelphia’s district attorney and his desire to drastically reform the office, Philly D.A. is gripping and revelatory in how it explores the intricacies of his efforts. In the social justice sphere, we have big ideas of how government systems and traditions can be altered and abandoned, but most of us never get the chance to implement them. Philly D.A. depicts a staff doing just that and shows how difficult it is.
We see assistant DAs and staff members who have worked in the office for years, for several administrations, and have households and families—we see them be fired because they’re believed to be too entrenched in how things were done in the past. We see surviving loved ones of murdered citizens wonder why, after many years of the DA’s office recommending the death penalty, Krasner does not see it as a good solution. We see judges and other officials express their fear that, in the pursuit of innovation, all aspects of a functioning system are being tampered with, negatively affecting the city’s safety.
It’s complex. It’s painful. And somehow these filmmakers capture it all, even getting access to a city judge who’s critical of Krasner, watching as the judge receives a terse letter from the D.A. himself.
Philly D.A. is like an earlier HBO drama, The Wire, in how thoroughly it depicts the way a city operates, but—not to be ludicrous—it’s also like the Batman movie The Dark Knight. Several shots of Philly D.A. look as though someone dimmed the sun, streetlights, or ceiling lights, creating a darkness reminiscent of the DC Comics film’s cinematography. Not to mention the thunderous music that makes you half expect the Caped Crusader to jump into the frame with his own radical approach of justice. It brings to mind The Dark Knight’s focus on another district attorney’s grand hopes for change, with the city’s police wondering whether to call him Harvey Dent or Two-Face.
But, as fascinating as Philly D.A. is, the stakes are much higher than entertainment. Right before a divisive press conference, a member of the new DA administration—a mother whose child was murdered and who, after that loss, received inadequate help from the office she now works in—muses on their efforts: “Some of this stuff just becomes a circus. But it’s people’s lives.”
Da’Shawn Mosley (dashawn-mosley.com) is a former Sojourners associate editor and lives in the Washington, D.C. metro area.
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