Bryan Cranston — who’s been in many movies since his starring role on Breaking Bad, but very few worth mentioning — is returning to television, at least as a guest star and executive producer. A just-released trailer for the upcoming Amazon series, Sneaky Pete, sees the actor once again being scary, which is always fun, even if said scariness is couched in a narrative that appears less chilling than Breaking Bad.
The series, premiering on January 13 on Amazon, stars Giovanni Ribisi as a conman — who is not named Pete. Pete, rather, is his cellmate in prison. But once Ribisi’s character — actually named Marius — gets out of prison, being a conman, he sneakily becomes the titular Pete in order to dodge the ruthless crime boss he once stole from. (Yes, Cranston gets to be ruthless!)
In the process of his identity theft, Fake Pete falls in with the estranged family of Real Pete, who believe Fake Pete’s lies about being Real Pete. As you might expect, Fake Pete begins to get attached to his Fake Family, who it turns out have some Real Problems of their own. Another enticing aspect about this show is that the matriarch of the family is played by Margo Martindale, who is consistently excellent, nand has garnered a handful of Emmys for her roles on Justified and The Americans.
The series’ pilot — directed by Seth Gordon and written by David Shore — was made available last year as part of Amazon’s pilot season, where it was afterwards ordered to series.
Watch the trailer: