cons cowboys and cagayan

Cons, Cowboys and Cagayan: The three c's that comprise my sembreak. Well, admittedly theres been more to it than that (I'm not a complete lump you know)... not a whole lot though... (complete was the operative word in that last aside... basically I'm still a lump)

I have a feeling that this is going to be a long thing since I loved all three and I'm prone to raving, so Ill cut this into a three post post just so it not so overwhelming.

CONS
For Cons we have the television series Hustle. I know its mean to say but I was definitely pleasantly surprised by the British series. (everyones a little bit racist tooodaaaaayyy...) Obviously you expect very little from the title or at least I did... but then again I seem to have very bad title judgment since I wrote of prison break and heroes based on their titles (and granted even on their initial premise...) well basically I don't have series intuition but I've actually seen this one and there can be no denying that its "bloody brilliant"

Its a series about 5 grifters (otherwise known as con-artists) doing long-cons,led by Mikey Bricks.

point of interest: there are short cons and long cons. short cons are generally one man jobs where you quickly cheat someone out of small amounts of cash or a single item in particular (like gumming up an atm slot and collecting the money that got jammed at the end of the day or dressing up as a bellboy and taking the keys to a pretty car). Long cons on the other hand are far more complicated, involving elaborate schemes, proportionately larger sums of money and a team is usually required for this. Now just so you know, your basic team is composed of at least four members with particular roles
1 the roper- this is the guy who finds the mark (i.e. victim) wins their confidence and introduces him into the con. The roper also serves as the initial go between for the mark and the inside man
2 the inside man- is the guy who sets up the con, gives the premise of this amazing one shot (usually under the table or technically illegal) deal. The inside man is also the guy who ultimately gets the money from the mark. The set up is he explains it, you try for a small amount, they give you what you supposedly earn from the initial try otherwise known as a "convincer". After that you go again for a bigger amount and somewhere along the way you lose it all.
3 the fixer- Of course for the inside man to be convincing he needs props (fake I.D. sometimes a fake office you get the idea) the fixer is the guy who makes it happen for you, he "fixes" you up with whatever you might need for that particular con.
4 the banker- handles all the finances (capital for the con which goes towards helping the fixer get whats needed) allocating the convincer and counting out cuts or shares of the earnings. the banker and the fixer often play cameo roles in the con as needed.

Anyway, Mickey's rather famous in the con world and has yet to be caught on a con (he was in jail for a while and the series starts when he gets out but he was convicted on completely unrelated charges... something about a baseball bat if I recall correctly). From here he gathers in the rest of his crew starting with Albert Stroller, his old mentor who comes into play as the "roper."Albert is followed by Stacey Monroe, the team's "banker" and Ash Morgan, their "fixer" Last but not least, though he definitely wasn't part of the original line up, we have Danny Blue, a brilliant up and coming grifter who clashes with Mickey in an "its all good" sort of way and definitely adds flavor to the little mix. he also acts as an inside man/ cameo role.

Interesting enough though possibly not for those of you who have a particularly noisy and or indignant conscience. But then again, even if these people are technically the bad guys they do have their own code of honor of sorts. The first rule of the con is that you cant cheat an honest man and they only gun after the people who have more money than they need and are generally evil bastards in one way or another. If they find that they've misjudged a mark they abort. this happens once or twice in the first season. This among other things endears them to you and generally the series does a great job of getting you to sympathize with the characters.

Hilarious and brilliant (kudos to the writers whose names I'm sorry to say I've forgotten... If it makes them feel any better I don't remember the real names of the stars either so there you have it..) and more often than not rather wacky, I love the series to bits though I haven;t yet managed to pull an all nighter to finish of the season in one go (hahaha that's a good thing on 2 counts)

cowboys to come...