The Gray House

History buffs who want an earnest, heavy spy story about real women, not a slick thriller, will settle in here. A Fourth of July party stops when a wagon of enslaved captives rolls past, and the show never looks away from the violence that follows. Mary-Louise Parker and Daisy Head play mother and daughter with warmth, and Paul Anderson makes Stokely Reeves a villain worth watching.

It is an ensemble with many side characters, so the first episodes spend time introducing people.