PASADENA, Calif. — If you want to call "Brotherhood" the Irish 'Sopranos," the creator of the new Showtime series doesn't mind. It's not like he isn't aware that there are certain similarities.
"You can't do crime (drama) without running into ('Sopranos' creator) David Chase, and he's a genius," said Blake Masters. "To be mentioned in the same sentence, thank you."
At the same time, he's quick to (accurately) point out that there are major differences between the two shows. "Brotherhood" (Sunday, 11 p.m., Showtime) isn't about the Mafia in New Jersey, it's about two brothers in Providence, R.I. — one a state legislator and the other a murderous thug.
"We're really a very, very different tonal show than 'The Sopranos,' " Masters said. "There's also a whole political element. We are just as much 'All the King's Men' as we are 'The Godfather,' something that 'Sopranos' doesn't do.
And while the HBO show is "about an upper middle-class gangster," the Showtime series is about "the reality of lower middle-class life in the Northeast where the industrial economy died 30 years ago and these people are left behind."
"Brotherhood" revolves around state Rep. Tommy Caffee (Jason Clarke) and his brother, Michael (Jason Isaacs), who's been missing for seven years and returns to their Providence neighborhood determined to rebuild his criminal influence. Their mother, Rose (Fionula Flanagan), is thrilled to have Michael back; Tommy isn't so sure.
Like "The Sopranos," "Brotherhood" is extremely, graphically violent. Even the "good" guys do bad things, while the bad guys sometimes do good things.
"One of the things we discovered is Tommy Caffee is most fun when he's being bad, and Michael Caffee is most interesting when, for inexplicable reasons, he's good," Masters said. "So that you never know what's right and what's wrong. It's a series that refuses to define black and white. One of the things we maintain from the pilot is everything happens in shades of gray."
There are certain similarities to the real-life Bolger brothers of Boston — Billy became the president of the state senate; his brother, Whitey, is a mobster who's still on the run.
"I was interested in the dynamic of two brothers, and I've always been interested in ward politics. . . . You can't grow up in New England and not know the story of the senator and Jimmy Bolger, but that's kind of a done story," said Masters, who said "Brotherhood" was inspired more by the biblical story of the prodigal son and what might have happened in "The Godfather" if Michael Corleone had become a politician and Sonny had run the crime family.
It's more than just the story of two brothers, though. Tommy's wife, Eileen (Annabeth Gish), is having an affair and has drug and alcohol problems. FBI agent Declan Giggs (Ethan Embry), who grew up with the Caffee brothers and dated their younger sister, Mart Rose (Fiona Erickson), has seriously divided loyalties. Local crime boss Freddie Cork (Kevin Chapman) is as vicious as anybody you've ever seen on "The Sopranos."
And the political machinations Tommy gets involved in are as underhanded as anything the criminals devise.
The 11-episode season is engrossing. And, again, nothing short of gross, with horrific violence and language that easily merits the TV-MA (equivalent to an R) rating.
E-mail: pierce@desnews.com