The Steps (2010)

The Steps is a noir mystery web series about Charlie Madison, a lowlife private investigator from Los Angeles who attempts to live under an assumed identity in middle America to escape his criminal past, and ends up in even hotter water than he was before he left. A key player in the blackmailing enterprise of Dante Pelinsano (based on the infamous "P.I. to the Stars" Anthony Pellicano), Charlie has to split Hollywood when the Assistant D.A. who put Dante in prison seems to determined to take him down as well. His attempt to lay low in the quiet, mid-sized city of Chattanooga, Tennessee would be a lot easier if he weren't a recovering alcoholic who, left to his own devices, quickly sinks into a self-destructive drunken depression. Forced to socialize with the locals at recovery meetings, and desperate for a little income, Charlie takes a wiretapping job that seems harmless enough, but soon has him in the crosshairs of 2 separate murder investigations. The noose tightens, the authorities from both cities close in, his personal relationships fray at the edges, and whether or not Charlie can pull himself out of his desperate tailspin becomes the question at the heart of this popular web thriller.