Claws S04 1080p AMZN WEB-DL DDP5.1 H.264-NTb

Claws is an hour-long scripted dramedy set in a Southern Florida nail salon, which is being executive-produced by Rashida Jones and Will McCormack.

Genre: Drama, Comedy
Stars: Jack Kesy, Carrie Preston, Jason Antoon, Jenn Lyon, Karrueche Tran, Harold Perrineau, Niecy Nash, Judy Reyes

Claws review - Breaking Bad meets Steel Magnolias in flashy nail salon saga

A female-fronted show, from producer Rashida Jones, mixes manicures with money laundering and allows its characters to be convincing antiheroes

@jhnevins
Fri 9 Jun 2017 12.00 BST

"e;Nothing in this world is quite as useless as a useless man,"e; says Niecy Nash's Desna in the pilot episode of the raunchy new drama Claws, which follows five women working at a south Florida salon called Nail Artisans of Manatee County. With a diverse cast helmed almost exclusively by women, Claws is a paean to sisterhood, its ribald characters engaged in organized crime and awash in nail porn. And while the show's pacing and dialogue can at times feel shambolic, it eases into itself and makes for a sexy, offbeat addition to your TV queue - the edgier, more criminal Steel Magnolias.

Nash, a small-screen veteran from Reno 911! and, more recently, HBO's delightful Getting On, is the salon's fun, gritty matriarch, dipping out of manicures for afternoon trysts with her mobster boy-toy Roller. There's also Virginia, Polly, Jen and Quiet Ann, the ladies who form Desna's tight-knit "e;crew"e;.

Like 2016's best film Moonlight, Claws, written and produced by Eliot Laurence (and co-produced by Rashida Jones), does an admirable job exploring the lives of the disenfranchised in working-class Florida, hop-scotching from the salon to the strip club to Suncoast Rejuvenation, the oxycodone clinic through which Desna and Co launder money. There's also a lot of visual splendor to take in, like the coastal mansions with Big Little Lies-esque vistas and the close-ups of manicured fingernails that appear to be serious occupational hazards.

Uncle Daddy, played by Breaking Bad's Dean Norris, is the bisexual crook who runs the Dixie Mafia and the strip club, and while the women at the show's center have dreams that go well beyond petty crime (Desna, for instance, wants to open a new salon but lacks the funds), they often find themselves at the whims of the nefarious men with whom they're embroiled.

While the pilot episode of Claws can feel overwhelming, from the constant thump of its hip-hop soundtrack to the confusing development of the show's interwoven threads, it's most resoundingly successful when zeroing in on Desna or Carrie Preston's Polly, women whose pathos is buried beneath their spunky southern charm and vibrantly painted cuticles. Quiet Ann, played by Judy Reyes, is a delight, too. A butch lesbian with a rolodex of "e;straight"e; female lovers, she wields a baseball bat outside the salon and mans the closet door when Desna sneaks out for a midday romp. She also gets a fantastic Spanish dance number as the ladies revel in stacks of cash. Rounding out the quintet are Jen and Virginia, played by Jenn Lyon and Karreuche Tran, respectively; the former is a mother and recovering addict, the latter a young, sultry new employee desperate to ingratiate herself with the salon's girl squad.

The tone of Claws is just slightly lighter than, say, Netflix's Orange is the New Black, but just beneath the surface there's a subtle desperation, like when a junky patient breathes a great, big sigh of relief at the renewal of her script, or when Desna, who lives with and cares for her autistic brother, retreats to the bathroom for an elusive moment alone, away from the chaos of her day-to-day as embezzling manicurist and devoted friend.

Episode one ends with a literal bang that leaves you wanting more, although until its last five minutes I wasn't sure Claws had earned a second go-round. But it's worth sticking with, not least for the interesting ways it develops its female antiheroes and captures something singular about life on the cusps of criminality. As the series tells it, it's not always gangs and gun fights, but more often a slow and tedious burn in the south Florida sun, with a bit of high-octane violence to boot. Thanks to Nash's Desna and the troublemaking miscreants of Manatee County, this new dramedy is worth sinking your claws into.

General
Complete name: Claws.S04E01.Chapter.One.Betrayal.1080p.AMZN.WEB-DL.DDP5.1.H.264-NTb.mkv
Format : Matroska
Duration : 45 min 18 s

Video
Format/Info : Advanced Video Codec: Bit rate : 10 000 kb/s
Width : 1 920 pixels
Height : 1 080 pixels
Frame rate : 23.976 (24000/1001) FPS

Audio
Format/Info : Enhanced Audio Coding 3
Bit rate : 640 kb/s
Channel(s) : 6 channels
Language : English

Subtitles : English, English SDH

Screens