Discover The Best Movies and TV Shows Like Rake - Top Recommendations

Clever, self-destructive, and irresistibly charming, Cleaver Greene is a brilliant criminal defense barrister in Sydney whose personal life is an absolute disaster. Driven by a fierce, albeit unorthodox, dedication to justice and an addiction to self-sabotage, Cleaver routinely takes on society’s most reviled outcasts—cannibals, neo-Nazis, and corrupt politicians—not out of pure altruism, but because he is drawn to hopeless causes and needs the fees to fuel his mounting gambling debts and tax evasion.Cleaver’s chaotic existence revolves around his loyal, exasperated best friend and former university rival, David Potter, a straight-laced politician whose public career Cleaver frequently jeopardizes. Cleaver is also hopelessly entangled with his ex-wife, Wendy, a therapist who cannot seem to detach from him, and Missy, a philosophical high-end call girl who acts as both his confidante and anchor to reality. Despite his intellectual brilliance in the courtroom, where he uses sharp legal maneuvers and theatrical deception to win unwinnable cases, Cleaver’s private life is a black hole of unpaid debts, substance abuse, and dangerous liaisons with shady figures, including sleazy bookmakers and cartel bosses.Throughout the series, Cleaver navigates a relentless onslaught of escalating crises. He survives tax evasion prosecutions, fakes his own death to escape creditors, becomes accidentally embroiled in high-level government conspiracies, and runs for political office himself on an absurd platform of radical honesty. Every professional victory is usually offset by a catastrophic personal failure, often leaving him beaten, bankrupt, and sleeping on David’s couch. Yet, through every trial, Cleaver maintains his razor-sharp wit and philosophical detachment from societal norms.As the narrative progresses, the lines between Cleaver’s personal and professional chaos blur entirely. He defends a string of increasingly bizarre clients while trying to repair his fractured relationships with Wendy and his teenage son, Finbar. Despite his best efforts to grow up, Cleaver’s irrepressible nature always wins out, leading him back into the arms of trouble. Ultimately, *Rake* portrays a deeply flawed man who fights passionately for the dignity of the broken-hearted and the damned, even as he systematically demolishes his own life. The series concludes with Cleaver facing the ultimate reckoning of his debts and decisions, standing resiliently amidst the wreckage of his own making, forever defiant, hopelessly broke, and entirely unrepentant.