Back in 2023, despite being only a moderately well-received series that wrapped up several years prior, USA’s Suits suddenly became the most streamed show in America. The surge came shortly after the series was added to Netflix, and some attributed its popularity on the streamer to the fact that it offered low-effort entertainment, ideal for playing in the background while you fold laundry or catch up on emails.
With The Rainmaker, the cable network seems to be trying to recreate that formula with a courtroom soap opera featuring an unlikely lawyer and his fast-talking buddy, filled with preposterous plot twists and unbelievable coincidences. Adapted from John Grisham’s 1995 novel of the same name, The Rainmaker follows said attorney, Rudy Baylor (Milo Callaghan), who’s hired straight out of law school by the most prestigious firm in town alongside his hotshot girlfriend, Sarah Plankmore (Madison Iseman).
On Rudy’s very first day, things go awry when he blunders into an argument with the company’s legendary attorney, Leo F. Drummond (John Slattery), and quickly finds himself out of a job and short on options. Desperate, he winds up in the employment of a tiny, ambulance-chasing firm housed in an old taco restaurant and led by Jocelyn “Bruiser” Stone (Lana Parrilla). As chance would have it, his very first case is a medical malpractice suit that puts him in direct opposition to both Leo and Sarah.
The Rainmaker is at its most compelling when in procedural mode. Most of the five episodes made available for review involve Rudy tracking down clues to help his case, with the help of his new partner, Deck Schiffler (P.J. Byrne), an indefatigably optimistic and morally unscrupulous paralegal who’s failed the bar seven times. It’s the sort of role that Byrne has played many times before, and to great effect: a scrappy, oddly self-confident underdog who talks a mile a minute and never gives up a fight. Watching an increasingly irate Schiffler yell down the phone at a series of florists is the undeniable high point of the show’s first few episodes.
Callaghan, playing the straight man to the more antic Schiffler, bears a striking resemblance to a young Matt Damon, who played the character in the book’s 1997 film adaptation. As such, it’s hard not to recall Damon’s Good Will Hunting character when Rudy is reeling off legal precedents to dazzle his peers, even if Callaghan never finds the same layers of complexity and charisma underneath the brainy bravado that Damon brought to the Gus Van Sant film.
Ultimately, Rudy mostly functions as a mechanism to tie the show’s many plot threads together. On top of his own tragic backstory—revealed in somewhat cloying flashbacks—and the high-profile case he’s fighting, Rudy also finds himself in the middle of a domestic abuse drama involving his neighbor, another one involving his mother, and a criminal conspiracy entangling his previous and current employers. There also may or may not be a serial killer on his tail.
It’s remarkable that all of these things are happening simultaneously to the same guy, and few of The Rainmaker’s storylines stand up to much scrutiny, but there’s plenty to enjoy if you don’t cross-examine it all too rigorously. As the central case builds, Rudy and Sarah’s firms face off in a number of legal skirmishes and, while it’s kind of silly that all of the attorneys involved are either sworn enemies or sleeping with each other (or both), it at least makes for some soapy fun.
Still, there’s a lingering sense that the series could be offering a lot more than it does. In an early scene, Leo summons Sarah into a restaurant and begins knocking food onto the floor, then watches as the petrified new hire frantically and apologetically tidies up at his feet. It’s a squirm-inducing moment that hints at a power dynamic that never evolves beyond this point—at least in the first half of the season.
A debonair attorney with a silver tongue and a sinister charm, Leo is the sort of role that Slattery can play on cruise control. In fact, that’s what he does here. Whenever Leo gets to barking about things like “leaving blood on the courtroom floor” or being “the punishment of God,” there’s a noticeable lack of fire behind it. Which sums up The Rainmaker in a nutshell: It’s a likeable enough soap opera that’s only worth half of your attention.
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