Meet Tommy Donnelly

Lately, we have been focused on the campaign and the buzz around it but now we would like to take some time to reintroduce the Donnelly brothers. Yesterday, you were introduced to Kevin Donnelly portrayed by Billy Lush. Today we will introduce you to Tommy Donnelly.

Tommy Donnelly, the second oldest of the four Donnellys brothers, is portrayed by Jonathan Tucker . Tommy’s dream is to become an artist and he is the one brother who clearly has the talent and ability to be more than just another neighborhood thug. Unfortunately, Tommy is burdened by the fact that an impulsive decision made during his youth resulted in serious injury and a lasting disability for his older brother, Jimmy. Tommy’s guilt over his childhood mistake prevents him from escaping from Hell’s Kitchen and the crime and dangers that have become a way of life there. Instead, Tommy shoulders the burdens of those around him in vain effort to right the wrong that he has done.

Tommy bails out his brothers time and time again. Sometimes that means taking care of unpaid gambling debts and other times it means disposing of bodies. But Tommy’s responsibilities don’t end there. Tommy also looks out for his brothers’ tag-a-long friends and the other Irish families in the neighborhood and he makes a special effort to protect Jenny Reilly, his childhood sweetheart.

Throughout it all, Tommy demonstrates that he is a capable (though somewhat reluctant) leader adept at handling even the toughest problems. While this earns him the respect of both the Irish and Italians in the neighborhood (positioning him as the next leader of the Irish mafia), it creates a number of problems for Tommy personally. For instance, Tommy is forced to give up his dream of becoming an artist in order to look out for his brothers. In addition, Tommy’s relationships with his older brother and the woman he loves are seriously damaged as he becomes more and more involved in the life he tried to leave behind.

At the end of the day, Tommy’s intentions are good. His only goal is to make sure that the people around him are safe and happy. Unfortunately, Tommy is forced to do things that no one would want to do in order to protect those that he loves. As he encounters one impossible dilemma after another, Tommy is forced to choose the lesser of two evils in an often futile attempt to make the right choice and help someone else.

As Kevin, his younger brother, states, “Tommy, you got to stop helping people. It’s a bad thing.” While Tommy tries to do “right,” he quickly finds out that sometimes the “right” thing may turn out ‘wrong”.

Some Perspective From The Creators

A single web search for “The Black Donnellys” reveals the many websites, articles, and blogs devoted to discussions of The Black Donnellys. On these sites one can find both praise and criticism of the various artistic choices made by the show’s creators. Some viewers are drawn to TBD’s theme of “Family Above All” and understand that adherence to that principle requires their favorite characters to make choices and take actions that are hard to stomach. Other viewers can’t get past the fact that the Donnelly brothers make mistakes that would land real-life criminals in jail fast. And everybody has an opinion about the usefulness of the show’s narrator, Joey Ice Cream. But there’s more to come on Joey later. For now, we’d like to share some of insight we’ve gained over the course of The Black Donnellys’ 13 episodes and, more importantly, from reading comprehensive interviews with The Black Donnellys’ co-creators, Paul Haggis and Bobby Moresco.

While both Haggis and Moresco are well-known for their Oscar-winning screenplay for the film Crash and their work on the Academy Award-winning Million Dollar Baby, they previously worked together on the television series, EZ Streets , a 1996 CBS crime drama. In fact, The Black Donnellys began as a follow-up to EZ Streets and is loosely based on real-life events from Moresco’s childhood growing up in the neighborhood of Hell’s Kitchen in New York City. As a result, although The Black Donnellys is not biographical and takes place in a fictional neighborhood, each of the characters, situations, and personal dilemmas have elements of truth drawn from Moresco’s own experiences.

For instance, in a March 2007 interview with PBS’s Tavis Smiley, Moresco compared the Donnelly brothers to members of the Irish mob group the Westies, many of whom were Moresco’s family members and friends. Moresco explained that The Black Donnellys is about four Irish kids who end up in that world of the Irish mafia and “just don’t know how to exist there. They’re incapable of surviving except by counting on each other”.

Similarly, in a separate interview, Haggis described The Black Donnellys as a story “about the journey that [the Donnelly brothers] face and less about the crime involved.” He noted that he and Moresco liked the idea of a coming of age story in a world where crime is the easiest way to make a living and indicated that, in each episode, they tried to put the characters into situations that no one would want to be in and then have them make choices that no one would want to have to make. The result, according to Moresco, is not organized crime, but rather a world of disorganized crime where people you love can do “monstrous things.” Each week, the Donnelly brothers (and the television audience) learn that there is a moral price to pay for each choice made and each action taken in life. Indeed, as Moresco remarked, “[y]ou don’t know what that price is going to be, but you’re going to pay it.” Now that’s a lesson we’d all do well to learn.

For more information about Paul Haggis and Bobby Moresco, visit:

http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0353673/

http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0604263/

For full interviews with Paul Haggis and Bobby Moresco, visit:

http://entertainment1.sympatico.msn.ca/At+long+last+Paul+Haggis+Black+Donnellys+debuts/TV_Guide/Interviews/Features/Articles/250207_donnellys_JR.htm?isfa=1

http://www.thescifiworld.net/mediaworld/haggis-moresco-01.htm