The Jason Momoa Crime Thriller Series On Streaming That’s Way Overlooked
Before he was protecting the seven seas as Aquaman, Jason Momoa ran an illegal prescription drug ring in The Red Road. The series gave Momoa a chance to show off his dramatic acting chops before the DCEU swallowed him whole for the better part of a decade. The Red Road is available to stream a number of ways, all of which are accessible through JustWatch.
The series aired for two seasons from February 27, 2014, to May 7, 2015, on SundanceTV. The Red Road was only Sundance’s second scripted television series and Jason Momoa’s sixth overall. Along with Momoa, the show starred native New Zealander Martin Henderson as Police Officer Harold Jensen, Julianne Nicholson as his wife Jean, as well as Momoa’s then-real-life romantic partner and former Cosby Show alum, Lisa Bonet.
The series got its name from the Native American phrase “walk the red road,” which essentially represents an indigenous person’s commitment to living their best life and attempting to be a force for positive change.
We do know is that The Red Road‘s cancellation certainly wasn’t due to bad reviews.
The Jason Momoa-led series revolved around a Police Officer from a small town in New Jersey forced to make a deal with Philip Kopus (Momoa), a drug dealer and all-around nasty customer from the nearby indigenous community, known as the Ramapough Lenape Nation or the Ramapough Mountain people as it’s known to some.
The Red Road was created by Aaron Guzikowski, writer of the 2013 film Prisoners and creator of the hit Max series Raised by Wolves. The working title for the series was originally The Descendants, and while there’s no real information online as to why the name was changed, one possibility is that the creators wanted to distance their work from the famous hardcore punk band The Descendents.
It’s also possible that SundanceTV didn’t want any confusion as to whether the show was a television adaptation of the 2011 George Clooney film The Descendants with Jason Momoa swapped in for Clooney.
The series was filmed entirely in Atlanta, with Georgia filling in for New Jersey where The Red Road is set. The show was unceremoniously dumped after two seasons for reasons unknown. Sundance, like most modern streamers, didn’t disclose its viewer numbers, so it’s impossible to tell if the series was doing poorly or not.
The series got its name from the Native American phrase “walk the red road,” which essentially represents an indigenous person’s commitment to living their best life and attempting to be a force for positive change.
The sudden cancelation left the Jason Momoa series with several unresolved plotlines, which led to fans starting a petition to renew the series titled: “sundance-TV-the-fans-red-roadies-of-the-red-road-want-you-to-renew-this-amazing-show-for-another-season”.
One thing we do know is that The Red Road‘s cancellation certainly wasn’t due to bad reviews. With a 67 percent critic score on Rotten Tomatoes, the show was far from hated, with the critical consensus on the site being, “The Red Road suffers from uneven writing, but its talented cast and creepy story hint at undeveloped promise.
Meanwhile, the audience score for the series is even higher at 87 percent, proving that most people who watched it loved it.
Jason Momoa After The Red Road
The show’s cancelation, while a bummer, didn’t put too much of a dent in Jason Momoa’s output. The very next year after The Red Road ended, the actor was in no less than three movies. Momoa kicked off 2016 with a cameo in the—some would argue unfairly—maligned DCEU offering Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice.
After making his first brief appearance as Aquaman in BVS, Jason Momoa next showed up in the Bad Batch—not to be confused with the Star Wars series of the same name—as well as the thriller Sugar Mountain. As The Red Road has faded somewhat from the public consciousness, Momoa’s star has continued to rise, making a revival of the show unlikely.
Of course, with Warner Bros. and DC Studios specifically imploding in real-time, there’s a good chance that Aquaman and the Lost Kingdom will be Jason Momoa’s last time playing the Atlantean superhero. Especially if the sequel fails to bring in even a fraction of its predecessor’s nearly $1.5 billion box office haul—which, if the lack of buzz around Aquaman 2 is any indication, it won’t.
Following an exit from the DCEU, Momoa’s schedule would conceivably open up, giving hope once again to the possibility of The Red Road‘s return. Just in case a revival does happen, now would be the perfect time to hop on over to JustWatch and stream The Red Road. Even if the series doesn’t return, the two seasons that do exist are definitely worth a watch.
