Of course being a show about the mob you know Chazz Palminteri and Paul Sorvino are in it, but main kudos go out to Vincent D'Onofrio and Giancarlo Esposito.
At first I thought Esposito was playing his character a little too expressively and bombastically in order to differentiate the role as much as possible from his infamous portrayal of the calm and supremely menacing Gus Fring, but like many of the other portrayals in this show, the characters are based on real historical people and indeed the real Adam Clayton Powell Jr, as seen in footage on YouTube, was as over the top, if not more so, as Giancarlo plays him.
Even though we're dealing with historical people, the show makes heavy use of artistic license, and even rewrites history in a few cases, like for instance the guy that owns the record store in season 1 is killed in the show but in real life he lived on to old age. I like this. With all the violence and shifting alliances between the Italian mafia and Bumpy's black hoodlums, it gives it all a very Game of Thrones feel or you never know who's going to get whacked at any given moment.
The costuming, the set design, the vintage cars, are all spot on. The show uses modern rap and R&B but it's as an overlay and decidedly an artistic approach, likely designed to make this very period piece (at times feeling down-right historical docu-drama) more appealing to younger audiences. Though not a big fan of rap of course, the songs they've chosen have lyrics that directly relate to the action and lifestyle of the characters in the show and feel very relatable. I wouldn't be surprised if it's original music written for the show specifically.
This show was originally broadcast, for its first two seasons, on Epix, and for the last season MGM +. I haven't scrolled forward yet as I'm still halfway through the second season but I have a sneaky suspicion that I won't be able to see the third season on Hulu as I'm watching it now. It'll probably suggest I subscribe to MGM +. But then again, I don't know. Hulu is not holding back on the ads, so they may be making enough from these commercials to warrant playing the whole thing.
And oh these commercials! Prescription drug commercial after prescription drug commercial, every 10 minutes sometimes it seems. In a way it's a little ironic. I mean the show is all about gangsters dealing drugs but the biggest pusher of them all, is Hulu!