There’s a scene during the pilot for Quarry, Cinemax’s new pulpy action anthem of a fall series, where a man and woman have a complex conversation without a single word of dialogue being exchanged. It’s all in the looks on their faces, the movement of their bodies, and the events that led up to it. It is the last scene in this haunting comic strip opening of a show from director/exeuctive producer Greg Yaitanes and creators Graham Gordy and Michael D. Fuller.

Yaitanes brings his Banshee magic to the story of Mac(Logan Marshall-Green), a Vietnam vet who returns home to Memphis in 1972 under the fiery implications of wrong conduct overseas. Calling Mac haunted is like calling a couple fingers of Jack Daniels strong. The man has a caged animal inside his heart rattling around as he reconnects with his wife Joni(Jodi Belfour) and tries to stay on an even keel and adjust to society, part of which doesn’t want anything to do with him.

Fuller and Gordy do a superb job of transcribing the source material of Max Allan Collins(Road to Perdition), whose graphic novel the series is based off of, to the small screen in a way that is invigorating and puts a fresh spin on the crisis that surrounded Vietnam for Americans and their families in the 1970’s. Coming off a decade where a President and two National motivating world changing speakers were assassinated and a war that many didn’t understand took place, Quarry works off a juicy springboard to create a compelling action drama. (more…)