But the king has a secret. Kane is diagnosed with Lewy body dementia—a degenerative neurological disorder that causes vivid hallucinations, memory loss, and loss of motor control. In the pilot’s stunning opening scene, a doctor delivers the news: "You have a year, maybe eighteen months. At the end of it, you won't know who you are."
Have you seen Boss ? Let me know your thoughts on Tom Kane’s final scene in the comments below. boss series starz
Kelsey Grammer delivered the performance of his career. It is a shame more people haven't seen it. Do yourself a favor: pour a glass of something strong (Kane prefers whiskey), turn down the lights, and watch a king fall. But the king has a secret
Tom Kane ruled through fear and manipulation. His dementia doesn't change his behavior because he was already a sociopath. The horror of the show is that the disease doesn't make him a monster—it just strips away the mask. At the end of it, you won't know who you are
The show is unapologetically Shakespearean. Think King Lear meets The Godfather . Kane’s estranged daughter (played with venomous brilliance by Hannah Ware) tries to destroy him. His wife (the legendary Connie Nielsen) turns into Lady Macbeth. His protégé (Martin Donovan as Ezra Stone) waits for the slip.
Boss argues that political systems don't create corruption—corruption is the system. There are no good guys. The closest thing to a moral compass is a ruthless investigative journalist played by the late, great James Vincent Meredith, and even he has to sell his soul to get a story. Starz gave the show a cinematic budget, and it shows. Cinematographer Kasper Tuxen shoots Chicago as a character: the brutalist concrete of the Richard J. Daley Center, the frozen wind tunnels of LaSalle Street, the opulent but sterile high-rises overlooking the lake. It is a city of grey and blue, of cold metal and cold hearts.
Gone were the tailored suits of Seattle and Boston. In their place was the raw, brutalist power of Chicago’s city hall. Grammer didn’t just play a character in Boss ; he underwent a metamorphosis into Mayor Tom Kane—a political titan whose body is failing but whose hunger for control is insatiable.