#81 Fun, Funny, Funds, Funerals
20/03/22 09:38
As a distraction from all sorts of things, I shall now attempt to compare and contrast The Marvelous Mrs Maisel with Dopesick.
We’ve just finished Season 4 of Mrs Maisel and it was indeed marvellous. Twitter seemed to be divided between fans who were enjoying it and those who thought it had jumped the shark – but it already did that in Season 2 with the random Paris/Catskills storylines. Now it’s back where it should be, focusing on Susie, who is the beating heart of the show, and the comedy business, which is its blood and guts. It’s a one-take wonder of laser-sharp banter, wonderful costumes, dazzling set pieces and superb performances. The peerless Jane Lynch is having far too much fun as Sophie Lennon, stealing every scene she’s in – a spin-off for her, please.
That’s not to say it doesn’t have its flaws – I don’t understand why the stand-up routines aren’t funnier? It always seems to lose some of its zing when Midge is actually on-stage. Not that her delivery isn’t great, just that her material is somehow weak or off-beat. Maybe that’s a 60s thing? I listened to some archive Lenny Bruce for a bit of context and found it completely baffling. Lenny is another issue for me – I’m in lust with Luke Kirby’s portrayal of the comedy legend, but didn’t approve – spoiler alert – of him and Midge being blue in the blue room. That relationship should have remained unconsummated - it’s like Mulder and Scully getting it on, just wrong.
Midge’s ex-husband Joel, after some inconsistent characterisation in previous series, is now settled in his role as a club owner with a secret Chinese girlfriend from a gangster family, again proving the series’ strength is when it centres on the business aspect of each storyline. I want The Button Club to do a roaring trade, Rose to become a successful matchmaker, Abe to thrive as a journalist, Midge to make it as a famous comic and, ultimately, Susie to triumph as an uber-agent. Everything else is incidental.
Let’s segue to the business at the heart of Dopesick. Perky period comedy drama is my jam, whereas small-town American misery-miniseries is more my mustard (Fun Fact: I’m allergic to it). But my husband laps up that shit, never happier than when he’s watching some redneck languish in a dilapidated clapboard shack. So, I agreed to swap Midge Maisel’s show corset for Betsey Mallum’s miner overalls and almost immediately regretted it.
Dopesick has Mare of Easttown energy – everyone is poor and miserable, enduring the kind of grinding existence that can only be alleviated by the vast consumption of opiates. But the narcotics they devour are fine because they’re prescribed, and according to their maker Purdue Pharma, are non-addictive and therefore entirely safe to pop like Smarties. The drug in question, OxyContin, is aggressively sold to America by Purdue and its many employees – the Sackler family, who own the company, are a pharmaceutical version of Succession’s Roys, but less sexy and fun. The brains behind OxyContin, Richard Sackler, is channelling Mark Rylance’s character Peter Isherwell in Don’t Look Up – his softly-spoken psychosis drives the state-endorsed drug push until everyone’s looped. The series has three strands – the Sacklers working out how to get rich doping the entire US, the DEA investigating the scandal, and the communities decimated by the effects of the drug. There’s a lot going on, and having a natty little rolling graphic overlay on screen telling you what year this is happening in is not a lot of help. In case you didn’t realise, it’s a true story. The Sacklers are still facing legal action taken by the families whose lives were ruined by OxyContin, which makes the whole thing even more depressing. America created a health system predicated on profit, and this is the predictable result. People die, and everyone who doesn’t, sues.
My MO with this sort of series is to watch it with one finger scrolling Wikipedia to take a shallow dive into the timeline, which is how I learned that the bitchy Perdue sales rep is played by Phillipa Soo, who also plays Eliza in Hamilton. It didn’t further my understanding of this devastating opioid crisis, but is another Fun Fact to offer you. Now, whenever I see her on screen, I hear the lyrics from ‘Helpless’: ‘Ooooooooh! I do, I do, I do, I doooooooo!’ You’re welcome to that earworm.
This series is worthy and well done, but one thing bothers me, a thing I really can’t overlook, a thing which drives me to distraction, jars me, fucks me off and stops me from being able to recommend the show. It’s the wigs. Jesus Christ, the wigs. They’re so shit. How is it, having engaged the finest actors, filmmakers, directors, and scriptwriters, the production decided to outsource the hairpieces to Yeovil’s Mad Hatter joke shop? It’s insane how bad they are – I get that all these actually-attractive-in-real-life actors had to ugly up to look real, but that just makes the obvious fakeness of their barnets even more galling. They’re diluting the authenticity of their story with their goddamn crappy syrups. Unforgiveable.
So, in conclusion, while Mrs Maisel may be a frivolous concoction, I’m going to park my arse firmly in The Wolford burlesque club and suck on a Daiquiri, because at least their wigs are covered by elegant hats and feather headdresses. And, you know, it’s just a lot more fun.
We’ve just finished Season 4 of Mrs Maisel and it was indeed marvellous. Twitter seemed to be divided between fans who were enjoying it and those who thought it had jumped the shark – but it already did that in Season 2 with the random Paris/Catskills storylines. Now it’s back where it should be, focusing on Susie, who is the beating heart of the show, and the comedy business, which is its blood and guts. It’s a one-take wonder of laser-sharp banter, wonderful costumes, dazzling set pieces and superb performances. The peerless Jane Lynch is having far too much fun as Sophie Lennon, stealing every scene she’s in – a spin-off for her, please.
That’s not to say it doesn’t have its flaws – I don’t understand why the stand-up routines aren’t funnier? It always seems to lose some of its zing when Midge is actually on-stage. Not that her delivery isn’t great, just that her material is somehow weak or off-beat. Maybe that’s a 60s thing? I listened to some archive Lenny Bruce for a bit of context and found it completely baffling. Lenny is another issue for me – I’m in lust with Luke Kirby’s portrayal of the comedy legend, but didn’t approve – spoiler alert – of him and Midge being blue in the blue room. That relationship should have remained unconsummated - it’s like Mulder and Scully getting it on, just wrong.
Midge’s ex-husband Joel, after some inconsistent characterisation in previous series, is now settled in his role as a club owner with a secret Chinese girlfriend from a gangster family, again proving the series’ strength is when it centres on the business aspect of each storyline. I want The Button Club to do a roaring trade, Rose to become a successful matchmaker, Abe to thrive as a journalist, Midge to make it as a famous comic and, ultimately, Susie to triumph as an uber-agent. Everything else is incidental.
Let’s segue to the business at the heart of Dopesick. Perky period comedy drama is my jam, whereas small-town American misery-miniseries is more my mustard (Fun Fact: I’m allergic to it). But my husband laps up that shit, never happier than when he’s watching some redneck languish in a dilapidated clapboard shack. So, I agreed to swap Midge Maisel’s show corset for Betsey Mallum’s miner overalls and almost immediately regretted it.
Dopesick has Mare of Easttown energy – everyone is poor and miserable, enduring the kind of grinding existence that can only be alleviated by the vast consumption of opiates. But the narcotics they devour are fine because they’re prescribed, and according to their maker Purdue Pharma, are non-addictive and therefore entirely safe to pop like Smarties. The drug in question, OxyContin, is aggressively sold to America by Purdue and its many employees – the Sackler family, who own the company, are a pharmaceutical version of Succession’s Roys, but less sexy and fun. The brains behind OxyContin, Richard Sackler, is channelling Mark Rylance’s character Peter Isherwell in Don’t Look Up – his softly-spoken psychosis drives the state-endorsed drug push until everyone’s looped. The series has three strands – the Sacklers working out how to get rich doping the entire US, the DEA investigating the scandal, and the communities decimated by the effects of the drug. There’s a lot going on, and having a natty little rolling graphic overlay on screen telling you what year this is happening in is not a lot of help. In case you didn’t realise, it’s a true story. The Sacklers are still facing legal action taken by the families whose lives were ruined by OxyContin, which makes the whole thing even more depressing. America created a health system predicated on profit, and this is the predictable result. People die, and everyone who doesn’t, sues.
My MO with this sort of series is to watch it with one finger scrolling Wikipedia to take a shallow dive into the timeline, which is how I learned that the bitchy Perdue sales rep is played by Phillipa Soo, who also plays Eliza in Hamilton. It didn’t further my understanding of this devastating opioid crisis, but is another Fun Fact to offer you. Now, whenever I see her on screen, I hear the lyrics from ‘Helpless’: ‘Ooooooooh! I do, I do, I do, I doooooooo!’ You’re welcome to that earworm.
This series is worthy and well done, but one thing bothers me, a thing I really can’t overlook, a thing which drives me to distraction, jars me, fucks me off and stops me from being able to recommend the show. It’s the wigs. Jesus Christ, the wigs. They’re so shit. How is it, having engaged the finest actors, filmmakers, directors, and scriptwriters, the production decided to outsource the hairpieces to Yeovil’s Mad Hatter joke shop? It’s insane how bad they are – I get that all these actually-attractive-in-real-life actors had to ugly up to look real, but that just makes the obvious fakeness of their barnets even more galling. They’re diluting the authenticity of their story with their goddamn crappy syrups. Unforgiveable.
So, in conclusion, while Mrs Maisel may be a frivolous concoction, I’m going to park my arse firmly in The Wolford burlesque club and suck on a Daiquiri, because at least their wigs are covered by elegant hats and feather headdresses. And, you know, it’s just a lot more fun.
- The Marvelous Mrs Maisel, Series 4, Amazon Prime
- Dopesick, 8 episodes, Hulu/Disney+
