American Rust: Season 1

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Mixed or average reviews based on 22 Critic Reviews

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USER SCORE

Generally favorable reviews based on 7 Ratings

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6.7

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6.7	Your Score
6.7	User Score Generally favorable reviews based on 7 Ratings

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Season Details & Credits

SHOWTIME | Season Premiere Date: September 12, 2021

Summary: Del Harris (Jeff Daniels), the chief of police in a small Pennsylvania Rust Belt town is tested on how far would he go to protect the son (Alex Neustaedter) of a woman (Maura Tierney) he loves from murder charges in this drama series based on Philipp Meyer's novel of the same name.

Genre(s): Drama, Business

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Season 1 Episodes

tbd
S1:E9. Denmark
Air Date: November 7, 2021
tbd
S1:E8. St. Sebastian
Air Date: October 31, 2021
tbd
S1:E7. Blue Mountains
Air Date: October 24, 2021

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Metascore

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Critic Reviews

Glenn Garvin

Sep 14, 2021

In short, you've seen American Rust so many times you can recite most of the lines before they're spoken. And yet… and yet… there's just too much talent stacked up in the cast of American Rust to turn away from it. Read full review

Richard Roeper

Sep 10, 2021

There are times when “American Rust” gets things just right. ... Too often, though, we’re mired in wheel-spinning storylines. The great Canadian poet Neil Young once told us rust never sleeps, but “American Rust” takes too many naps. Read full review

The Guardian Stuart Jeffries

Nov 29, 2021

Thanks to some good, understated dialogue – bucks the general mood , ie that this show was not so much written as collaged from odds and ends of other police procedurals. It’s also because Daniels and Tierney remind me so much of David Harbour and Winona Ryder in Stranger Things. Even so, it isn’t great. Read full review

Zack Handlen

Sep 3, 2021

Everything in this is predictable, up to and including the inciting incident. ... American Rust likely has a story worth telling, and a setting worth exploring, but this version fails to make much of a case for either. Read full review

The Telegraph Anita Singh

Nov 29, 2021

Mare of Easttown got there first, and did it way better. Read full review

The Daily Beast Nick Schager

Sep 13, 2021

Daniels’ scenes aside, there’s simply nothing particularly distinctive, exciting or surprising about American Rust, which hews to a formal and narrative template that’s as creaky and gone-to-seed as the trailer homes, pick-up trucks, and steel mills to which it pays such evocative attention. Read full review

Peter Travers

Sep 10, 2021

This gender-flipped Mare of Easttown benefits from a solid Jeff Daniels as a police chief stalking a killer in a dying, Pennsylvania steel town, but even this terrific actor is not enough to save a dry, dreary, humorless series that stalls when it most needs to accelerate. Read full review

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6.7

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twisted_words

Sep 14, 2021

This brooding, family-oriented crime drama is full of complicated characters trying to make the right choices in a world where the good options have dried up. For those of us watching in foreign lands, this isn't a retread of shows we've seen before, which seems to be the main criticism fromThis brooding, family-oriented crime drama is full of complicated characters trying to make the right choices in a world where the good options have dried up. For those of us watching in foreign lands, this isn't a retread of shows we've seen before, which seems to be the main criticism from US viewers. Buell is a grim place, and yet there's a stark beauty in watching these ground down folk strive to make something for themselves while being pulled down by the tide of hopelessness that is drowning this town. Perhaps this story is too real for some, and viewers wonder what opportunity American Rust has to present a positive outcome - can these characters shake the rust off their lives and begin to live again? In a post-2020 world, where we are all trying to put ourselves back together, this is a story that is worth telling -- an unflinching examination of a search for the smallest bit of light in a very dark place.… Expand

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Seasons & Episodes

48

Series Overview
Season 1

48
- Season 1 Overview
  Air Date: September 12, 2021
- tbd
  S1:E9. Denmark
  Air Date: November 7, 2021
- tbd
  S1:E8. St. Sebastian
  Air Date: October 31, 2021
- tbd
  S1:E7. Blue Mountains
  Air Date: October 24, 2021
- tbd
  S1:E6. Debt Collection
  Air Date: October 17, 2021
- tbd
  S1:E5. Jojo Ameri-Go
  Air Date: October 10, 2021
- tbd
  S1:E4. My Name is Billy
  Air Date: October 3, 2021