Breakout Kings New A&E TV Shows

Review of Breakout Kings New TV Shows

Breakout Kings is a 2011 new A&E TV series about an ex-cop, Ray Zancanelli (Domenick Lombardozzi), who stole money so that his 16 year-old daughter could get a car without the help of her step-father.  After getting caught,  he is given the option to start a task force of Federal Marshals who capture prisoners who have broken out of prison (hence the name, Breakout Kings) because, having been the one who caught a lot of escapees while he was a cop, he had the idea to develop this task force.
A federal marshal CPA, Charlie Duchamp (Laz Alonso), is the head of the task force- Breakout Kings.  All we know about him is that he is married, is taking pills for something (addiction or condition, we don’t know yet), and he is a very by-the-book leader.  Racist issues are dealt with right away in the first episode of Breakout Kings as one of the criminals throws out some racist comments to our African American marshal in charge.

Breakout Kings on A&E

Expanded review of Breakout Kings

There are 3 criminals also on the task force (all had been captured by Ray) who are working based on a deal that shaves one month off of their sentences for every criminal they assist in apprehending and they were moved to a minimum security facility from their current maximum security facility.  Our 3 criminals on the Breakout Kings consist of a child prodigy behavior specialist, Dr. Lloyd Lowry (Jimmi Simpson), with a severe gambling problem, a female con-artist, Philly (Serinda Swan), who was crowned Miss Idaho?? two years after she started conning people,  and Shea Daniels (Malcolm Goodwin), an “entrepreneur,”  self title meaning I can get you whatever you need for a price.
We also have a female assistant, Julianne Simms (Brooke Nevin), on the Breakout Kings roster who has a genetic social phobia.  The ex-cop is very protective of her, though we don’t know why, yet.
Breakout Kings is like a crime drama but the twist is that there are criminals on both sides so you never know if the “good” criminals are going to cooperate or try to escape or what they will do next.  As you can imagine with this diverse cast, there is also a lot of personality conflicts and surprisingly more conflict between the non-criminals than with the criminals.  There is a power struggle developing between the ex-cop with his gung-ho attitude and the by-the-book marshal in charge of the Breakout Kings.  If you missed the pilot of Breakout Kings, you can watch it online at aetv.com/breakout-kings.
I like Breakout Kings because it is similar to one of my other favorite shows “Leverage” where there is a lot of gray areas as you are dealing with criminals who are trying to do good by putting away the bad guys.  I am definitely going to keep Breakout Kings on my list and see what develops.