Patrick Dempsey stars as Angelo Doyle, a suburban salesman and widowed father who secretly works as a hitman, in Fox’s new thriller ‘Memory of a Killer’. By day, Angelo wears a dorky quarter-zip vest, drives a station wagon, and helps his pregnant daughter Maria (Odeya Rush). But when it’s time for his real job, he dons an Italian custom-tailored suit, swaps his car for a Porsche, and drives to New York City to kill people for money.
Angelo’s double life is complicated by the fact that his handler Dutch (Michael Imperioli), a chef with underworld connections, knows nothing about Angelo’s family. Dutch is aware of Angelo’s brother Michael (Richard Clarkin), who has advanced dementia, but only because he predates the split. When Angelo begins showing early signs of the same illness, the rigid divide between his two worlds starts to crumble.
The series, developed by Ed Whitmore and Tracey Malone, is inspired by the 2003 Belgian film ‘De Zaak Alzheimer’ and adapted from a novel. However, the first two episodes provided to critics are disjointed and bland. Dempsey convincingly plays Angelo’s upbeat, repressed grief but struggles with the mafia-connected killer persona, especially opposite Imperioli. The show fails to find realism or lean into fantasy, playing Angelo’s cognitive decline disappointingly straight.
Angelo’s targets are generic organised crime tropes, and the crime elements feel half-baked. Gina Torres appears as an FBI agent investigating a shooting that brings violence to Angelo’s home turf, but she isn’t enough to elevate the show. The drama is a flat take on its inherited premise, leaving Angelo’s backstory and illness unexplored in the early episodes.
