Previewing Breakout Kings

Who would be better at catching someone who has broken out of prison better than someone who has actually done so themselves? Not that any correctional facility would let a criminal that has already escape leave it premises to do such a thing. Luckily television is restrained by such this as reality so we can get a show like Breakout Kings that has such a premise.

The show features two federal marshals who are tasked at apprehend a convicted murder who has broke out from prison. Laz Alonso (Leprechaun: Back 2 the Hood) is the straight laced former desk jockey eager to show he has the chops to be out in the field. While Domenick Lombardo (The Wire) is the shoot from the hip fed with a drastic idea of utilizing convicts that he previously hunted down after their successful breakouts from their respective prisons.

The crooks include Jimmi Simpson (Herbie: Fully Loaded), the mastermind of the group, a former professor that deals in psychoanalysis. Malcolm Goodwin (Leatherheads) is the street smarts. They are rounded out with some muscle and a former beauty queen turned con artist but do not get too attached to the characters because one doesn’t even make it to the end of the Pilot while the other doesn’t show up in the second episode (A&E send along the first and third episodes so I do not know if it is explained why the character is not asked back on the team.

Showing up starting the second episode is Serinda Swan (Smallville’s Zatanna) as an expert tracker who learned the skill from her bounty hunter father and has extra motivation to help out because she has a daughter at home and her baby daddy doesn’t always get her to visitation time. The carrot at the end of the stick is for every escape they help capture is an extra month they get knock off their sentence at country club prison, but if one of them cuts and runs, they all get their jail time doubled at a maximum security prison.

Rounding out the cast, and bringing up the cop to con ratio to even, is Brooke Nevin (The Comebacks) the information guru who is find sitting behind a desk, and not so much anywhere else, which of course Simpson loves to psychoanalyze. Also be on a look out for Billy Riggins who show up in the third episode as the convict of the week.

Breakout Kings is really two shows, the marshals are your typically cop drama with Alonso and Lombardo (who is holding onto a big secret) playing up the good cop / bad cop dichotomy and Nevin dealing with deep issues of her own. While the crooks bring the comic relief reminiscent of conmen and women of Leverage and are never ones to turn down a good quip or good natured shot at their coworkers. That changes a little when Swan gets added to the cast as she is more serious that her handlers. But Simpson is clearly the breakout star (no pun intended, okay, maybe a little intended) of the show. His attention to detail and mommy issues (the cons get a cell phone while on the job which he uses to check in with his to humorous consequences) is the perfect mix of Sheldon Cooper and Howard Wolowitz but with a gambling problem.

Breakout Kings airs Sundays at 10:00 on A&E. You can download a sneak peak (and presumably future episodes) of Breakout Kings on iTunes.