...and have been a huge Jimmy Smits since his LA Law days.

Anyone watching "Cane," a new series on CBS? This is a pretty good drama with strong parallels to the GF Trilogy:

The Duque family are Cuban emigres in South Florida who run a high-end rum business. The patriarch, Pancho Duque (Hector Elizondo) has cancer and turns the business over to his son-in-law, Alex Vega (Jimmy Smits). Alex, looking to the future, wants to sell the family's cane output to make ethanol. This move is resented by Pancho's passed-over son Frank (Nestor Carbonell), who falls into a honey-trap sprung by the daughter of a ruthless rival cane-baron (Polly Walker, who played Octavian's mother on "Rome"). Pancho's mother (Rita Moreno) hovers in the background.

Alex seems like a solid, family-oriented guy. But like Michael Corleone, he takes illegitimate short-cuts to maintain his family's "legitimacy." After the rival family hires a Cuban thug to menace the family by showing up at various public functions in proximity to them, Alex arranges for one of his workers to whack him. He gets away with it. But then his younger brother opens a nightclub with backing from a shady Russian drug dealer. The Russkies use his club to sell X. When the brother protests, the Russkies beat him to a pulp and sic a pit bull on him. Alex, to avenge the family, goes to a Cuban padrino and tells him, "I need your services." The padrino arranges for the Russkies to be whacked. Then Alex says, "I am in your debt." The padrino replies, "Now we do each other favors." You can see where this is going--and what it's modeled on.

"Cane" is a product for commercial broadcast TV, and it has the usual script shortcuts and lack of subtleties. The number of commercials would make you pray for a DVR if you didn't have one. But the cast is excellent, the acting is very solid, the production is lavish, and the script moves right along.

Although I don't like how the Joe Samuels son just disappeared after the first episode and they make no further mention about him.