#MUSTLOVEMUSTLOVEDOGS

tvsnark:

Three episodes and I find myself liking Girls more and more. Likely because…

1. It continues to get funnier.

Last week’s STD checkup scene and this week’s wine bar conversation with Hannah’s ex-boyfriend were great. The style kind of reminds me of Franny and Zooey’s bathtub scene, only because I find myself laughing at it the same way. The comedy builds, not to the point of hysteria or heavy-breathing-induced-laughter, but more of a ever-widening smile and the occasional gaff. And that kind of mumbled-laughter on a Monday morning is nice. (I highly recommend it with frosted mini wheats).
But the show has had those smirk-able moments with Hannah since the pilot. What I am now noticing and loving more are the little funny-because-its-true bits they are sneaking in: the girls watching Game Show Network and listing their baggage, or the little girl asking her stoned father why he is eating her school snacks at night when he doesn’t go to night school. These asides aren’t remarkable, they are just highly relate-able, and not just to brooklyn-ites or twenty-somethings, or white upper class girls.  When a show starts to sneak in these real moments, it becomes believable, and earns any awkward scene or character that might follow. (And that Robin-dance scene just earned my viewership for at least two seasons).

2. The internet hates on Girls so much for all the wrong reasons that it makes me sad.

I understand the content of the show begs for a polarized audience, and I admit that I was and still am SO JELLO of Lena Dunham and her success. I just can’t stand how collectively wrong the interwebs are in their criticism. The claims about racism was so unwarranted, and the critical backlash against it so silly, that I found myself pitying Lena Dunham. The first three episodes had enough controversy for a Fox News Spin-Off. So much that Lena was literally begging for people to tweet about  (and this one too). Instead, the only continued and outraged trending topic was a growing number or articulate and polite posts about the show’s all white cast. I didn’t want praise, and I know that the PTA moms already blocked HBO on their cable boxes, I was just hoping I could read a criticism of Girls I could agree with.

3.  It’s portrayal of computers and technology it real-atable.

Forgive me for not being a 20-something-female who can relate to all the boyfriend issues and  pillow talk. The show’s use of computer and social media is interesting and one of the most relatable aspects of the show for me (outside the ugh-what-am-I-doing-with my life-why-can’t-I-publish-a-memoiresque-collection-of-essays-why-can’t-I-find-a-job stuff). Lena typing her thoughts out on google’s search bar in episode two, and emoting through editing unposted tweets in episode three had me telling Hannah “You Get Me” out loud. I have never seen this kind of scene in a TV show, and I don’t think it is revolutionary, I just find it relatable and somewhat interesting. Usually tweets and facebook are a comedic bit, but here it is a device, another way to see her character, and a moment where I found myself actually liking the shows ever so hate-able Hannah Horvarth. (And like I said, the Robin dance scene that follows it sealed the deal for me, I actually bobbed my head.)

BUT let’s get real for just a moment. Girls is cute and getting better, but I will never tolerate bad acting, and Miss Allison Williams, your talking-through-tears scene over Hannah’s HPV was train wreck awful. I understand that the dialogue was supposed to be comedic, but when you are delivering the lines like your father delivers the news, the only thing funny about it is the family resemblance of that seriously stern brow and chin.

tvsnark:

If You Love House of Lies So Much, Why Don Cheadle Marry It?

House of Lies just wrapped up its premiere season on Showtime and has the green light to produce a second. I happened to have watched the show due to my growing interest in how these HBOwtime comedies work. I marathoned the first half back in March. The show had so much potential to start. It was a episodic dramedy about a sex addicted, single dad, Marty, who leads a team of management consultants on weekly trips across Corporate America, screwing CEOS and hoes alike. And with the sassy Kristen Bell co-starring, what is there not to like?

(For the sake of full disclosure, I had a somewhat distant father who worked as a management consultant when I was a kid, and it is likely I kept watching this show if only to laugh at how different this portrayal of consulting was from the nerd that is my dad. I am also convinced a large portion of House of Lies viewership are kids who had to report to their 2nd Grade class that their dad was a “consultant” and made “models, but not the trains or Legos, the ones on Egg-cell.” )

Fast forward a month later, I found myself finishing the show with a second weekend marathon only because I was curious as to how this show kept NOT working, a TitanicTrainwreckOfATVShow that I just could not look away from. AND THEN, at the end of season one, much to my dismay, I found that I wanted more. I wanted it to work.

Let me try to explain:

There is so much that House of Lies gets right, it is hard to imagine that it won’t turn a corner. First, there is a lot to love about Marty’s house. Marty lives with his gender bending diva of a son, Roscoe, and retired psychiatrist father, Jeremiah; three generations of males under one roof.  The trio’s storyline is unique enough and chemistry strong enough to leave each family brunch begging for a second serving. Hints at a (grand)matri(sui)cide, and Jeremiah’s mysterious medical condition give the feeling that the house is far from the patriarchy you would expect. By the end of the season, I found myself wishing Marty would get fired so we could watch him robed, flipping french toast with Roscoe all day. At the least I was hoping for one of those artsy supporting-cast-centered-episodes that hbowtime dramedies love so much, but no luck.

The highlight is of course the tour-de-asshole acting by Don Cheadle, playing a manic and master manipulator who has no soul and a smile just crazy enough to make you love him. And the writer’s wisely made sure everyone on the show is an asshole, so that when we realize Marty loves his son, we like just enough to root for him.

The show takes a solid, all be it graphic approach to its required boobage per episode. Cheadle’s character is a sex addict and makes no delay in showing some ass cheek in his opening scene. (I kind of love and hate this aspect of paid cable television. I sit down to enjoy an episode with my morning cereal and before I even know it is THAT kind of show, I find myself choking back a frosted mini wheat trying to turn the volume down on its opening fireworks.) The show’s diverse and often disturbing encounters are bookended by the BROuhaha of Doug and Clyde. The team’s nerdy duo competes in an episodic array of pissing contests and one night stands that are cute, then annoying, and somehow cute again by seasons end. (Clyde, played by Ben Schwartz is so charming when he says va-jay-jay. It’s like a high school lunch table, makes me crave chicken patties and hot fries.)

As an added perk, the show’s style is kind of fun. The show employs frequent voice over, freeze frames that allow Marty to directly address the audience.  He fills us in on the deep dark lingo and secrets of management consulting. Yes, the dramatic pauses and monologues are at times cliche and overdone.  And yes, it is surprising to see a narrative heavy show where Kristen Bell’s voice remains strictly in dialogue, but allowing Cheadle the added face time and a secondary more honest voice makes the show interesting and fun. (Plus, when you get to the freeze frame in the last episode, it will earn everything that came before and make you a believer).

These, and a solid stretch of episodes towards the end of the season had me rooting for this show to find their inner Tim Gunn and have a make it work moment.


So why wasn’t it working?

Well, the biggest downfall for me is that the show is at the same time, too serial and too episodic. The structure of every episode is nearly the same: the team takes off from an airport, lands in the pile of shit that is their client, lies their way through a boardroom, and comes home only to drag shit right through their front door. And each week the shit gets shittier, the lies larger, and somehow they make it all better, only to surprise drag more shit through their front door. Between business trips, the show tries to develop so many serial elements that they all become episodic. Roscoe gets into some trouble at school, the team will face a sexual problem and a business problem, The Ex Wife will stop by to screw Marty one way or the other (often both), Jeannie will juggle her job and fiance and drop one, and one of these assholes will get personal for just a moment. And like that Kodak Fun Saver from your 8th Grade Field Trip, none of it will get developed. (I know. I know. I’m trying to stop with the myspace-worthy metaphors. (I know.))

The show is so episodic that it feels like a 1980s sitcom. And yes, this is a comedy, but it’s an HBOwtime comedy. These methods work for network shows like Modern Family and The Office because the characters are nice people. In season 5, the same jokes are still cute and funny because, half the viewers only tune in for sweeps when aww, look, they had a baby. HBOwtime comedies aren’t 24 episode seasons with a third of their air time cut away by commercials about Tide with Bleach and Cialis. HBOwtime comedies can’t be bright and shiny and cute, and if they are, they have to be ironic like Enlightened. And so, when the big joke of the entire show is that everyone is an asshole, there will be nothing likeable about the show two seasons in when everyone is still an asshole. It just won’t work.

It is so hard to watch this show fail because if the writers had just learned to filter their themes and keep one thread going, the show might actually get somewhere. I am not saying every character in this show needs to come to a realization and start a twelve step, I just want one or two to show some change, and follow it through for a couple episodes, even if just for the penultimate episode and finale, before they relapse next season.

Let’s Review:

Ultimately, the show’s greatest strength, why I so desperately want it to work, and deep down know it won’t, is THIS CAST. The pedigree between co-stars Don Cheadle and Kristen Bell is enough to win any AKC Member’s vote for #BestInShow. Add an incredible B-line cast with Parks and Rec’s Ben Schwartz, Ally McBeal’s Greg Germann, The Wire’s Glynn Turman, and The West Wing’s Richard Schiff, and this cast could make a script from ABC’s Man Up! look good. And so when THIS CAST can’t make House of Lies look good, because there is too much going on and too little getting developed, I feel that it just won’t work.
The show had so much potential. But halfway through the season, the only thing close to character development was a pair of Daddy issues for Don and Kristen. Getting dragged thought another airport and boardroom and pile-o-poo was boring. (With the exception of the appearance of an actual pile of shit that is why I keep cursing about assholes and shit in this “article.)” And like I said, I was watching with the hope that the writers might edit it down and see a storyline through. But in the end, the only serial plot that develops is the one we all see coming, the karmatic pile of shit that Marty has earned by screwing over client after client. And when we find out his fate (no cliffhangers here), it is SOOO predictable and hypocritical of everything that the show has done consistently that you will be furious.

So why do I also want to green light this show into a season 2? (My own daddy issues? yes, likely… BUT MORE SO) BECAUSE this ending was so perfectly hypocritical and predictable that it can only mean the writers might actually have done something right. And I am curious to see if it was intentional.

But in all seriousness and spoilers aside, House of Lies is a lot of sex, and a little bit funny.