Home TV Reviews ‘Snowfall’ Season 6 Review: A Dynamic Damson Idris Leads an Inevitably Tragic Finale

Though the legacy of any series hinges upon how it will end, the conclusion awaiting the Saint family feels like it has been foretold.

Image via FX

The tragedy at the core of the spectacular FX series Snowfall is a distinctly American one. For all the ways we have been told that this is the land of the free, the story being told here has been steadily exploring how it is also one of exploitation. The creation of the late, great John Singleton, who passed away in 2019, Snowfall has seen him and his collaborators bring a great deal of care to an ensemble cast of complicated characters just as we saw their world being torn apart. None of these characters were real people exactly, but their struggle for survival amidst the destruction of the crack cocaine epidemic in 1980s Los Angeles is one that has played out like an unofficial history ringing painfully true in a thematic sense. Even as it has continued to expand this canvas over the course of the last five seasons, the portrait of the young Franklin Saint (Damson Idris) has always been what the series was most interested in. While there are plenty of dramas like this in a general sense, Snowfall fits in with some of the very best by building a character study amidst the spectacle. Sure, battles for power, territory, and wealth are now reaching a breaking point in the sixth and final season. However, the battle that matters most has been the one for Franklin Saint’s soul.

All his smarts have helped him to navigate crisis after crisis, but the cost to it all has been something Saint may never be able to get clean from. Since he began down this road, he has become an architect of an entire empire that has brought him immense wealth even as he has wrecked the lives of countless others. His story is then an American story, full of contradictions and cruelty that become entangled until there is no getting free. In the first two episodes of this concluding chapter, this is beginning to take shape. Saint had been trying to leave this life behind, already a fraught prospect considering all he has done, though that is growing increasingly unlikely. He is trying to take on everyone — from his own family, including Uncle Jerome (Amin Joseph) and Aunt Louie (Angela Lewis), to his former “friend” in the CIA Teddy McDonald (Carter Hudson) in order to get the money back that he lost. The tension to all this is the centerpiece of the narrative, but the real emotional core is about the dwindling hope there is for any of them to get out in one piece. There are glimpses of who Franklin was as a young kid, when we met him just selling a bit of weed after getting kicked out of school, but the path he has gone down may smother his former self for good.

Image via FX

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It is this perilous knife’s edge that Snowfall manages to dance along. There is a grim sense of inevitability that Franklin is going to fall off of the cliff into oblivion as he is only barely holding onto who he once was. It is a beautifully shot dance, full of rich full colors even in just a small restaurant where a closing scene to one of the episodes plays out. The music itself continues to enhance this, just as it has in past seasons, where we feel the energy and joy in every note that crashes into the brutality of the story being told. In particular, the fitting use of a song like 1973’s “Slippin’ Into Darkness” by the iconic group War rises to a crescendo at a perfect moment to create a realization that Franklin may soon be completely and utterly lost.

Such elements of the presentation offer a style and flair that has been central throughout the series. It has made everything feel dynamic even when the way in which the show cycles through locations can grow a bit repetitive. What makes this sixth and final season stand apart is how the conversations have a gravity to them that transcends beyond the characters into something closer to an emotional epic. All the attempts to escape what may be inescapable makes explicit that this is more than just a story of one group of people in one city; it is a story grounded in history that takes flight as a timeless tale of American decline.

Image via FX

One standout scene that is the show at its best comes following more complications, where Franklin discusses with his mother Cissy (Michael Hyatt) what it is that they need to do moving forward. He is obviously troubled by what just happened and the armor he has built around himself is slipping ever so slightly. Both Hyatt and Idris navigate the complexity of this with an emphasis on showing how beaten down each of their characters has become. The sight of Cissy trying to express care for her son while laying out cold truths about what they’re taking on is a painful one. Though they are part of an empire that could crumble at any moment and kill them both, she is trying to cling to some sort of connection before everything may soon be taken.

There is a growing poetry to these conversations that Franklin is beginning to have, as the show takes its ideas and leaves its characters to grapple with them. When his mother confronts him with the belief that America doesn’t care about him, it is a statement that is hard to refute considering all that has happened. What makes this all the more devastating is that they have managed to carve out a piece of the pie for themselves while discovering that this may not only not be enough but carries with it a heavy cost that can never be recovered. All the money the family has accumulated cannot right the wrongs of the world and may even make it worse. This is felt most when Franklin meets with an old friend of sorts at a wrestling match, where we first saw him joyously celebrating as a kid way back in the pilot episode, and grimly discusses a key revelation with the immense danger it could hold. He remarks that it is the type of thing that “poisons everyone who gets too close” which serves as a closing thesis statement for the show just as it establishes the stakes.

There is still much to come, but the way Snowfall’s story has set the stage for its final act is as sharp as it has ever been. While the particulars of the conflict matter less than the emotions and ideas underpinning them, the balance that is stuck ensures the series remains a strong one. Whenever the dust settles on this collapsing empire, both the one Franklin has built and America itself, the tragedy of Snowfall is shaping up to be as potent as the delicate craft on display from all involved.

Rating: A-

The first two episodes of Season 6 of Snowfall premiere February 22 on FX and stream the next day on Hulu, with the remaining eight episodes releasing weekly.