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Me was pulled from the show this week for being so bad. The name is objectionable, and I like my low-hanging fruit. Other notable pre-burn projects include the films The Happening and Fantastic Four, and the Oasis album Be Here Now. (No, thanks.) In my schadenfreude-soaked life, I wonder if Apple’s presentation will match them. Guaranteed More Fun (Apple TV, starting Wednesday)? Do I need a warranty?
It stars Tatiana Maslany, who also directed the excellent, if highly rated, show She Hulk: Attorney at Law. No one doubts Maslany’s chops. He won an Emmy playing 17 famous clones on the sci-fi series Orphan Black. Here she plays Paula, a divorced mother facing a custody battle. Paula ends up hooking up with an online sex worker named Trevor. Despite his name, Trevor is handsome, like Jeff Buckley. I think Jeff is not a very unusual name.
However, Paula pays Trevor to act as her doctor, and to remove her clothes to remove her, if there is time left in an hour. You could say their relationship is completely digital, in more ways than one. During one of their calls, Trevor answers a knock on the door, and is brutally beaten by a masked assailant – a crime to which Paula is the only witness. Has the Chatroulette age of the internet taught us nothing?
The police dismiss it as a hoax; Sure enough, the phone calls come. But Paula believes there is more going on and, picking up her daughter’s hockey stick, begins her investigation. He interrogates several young men and attracts the attention of a crime boss, as he is drawn into a twisted web. While there is no such thing as a perfect victim, Paula herself is far from it.
We all know thieves, but they are not shady. They arouse our feelings of revenge: why are you doing this? How can you be vulnerable? We may have some interest, even sympathy: why are you doing this? Are you in a bad mood? Movies like Punch-Drunk Love and The Beekeeper use the first instinct. This is the second most popular show.
Not that there isn’t plenty of lizard brain revenge and imaginative violence in Maximum Pleasure Guaranteed. The murders of nail guns, shotguns and automatic rifles, are the same as anything in The Wire or The Equalizer. Interestingly, the tool that shook me was the lid of a tuna can, which is placed in a person’s hand after falling into a dump. I’m approaching my renovation with trepidation now.
It’s a depressing show, but the one that made my cortisol soar was the repeated use of the we-need-to-breathe trope. It’s just a quick cut to someone’s phone ringing loudly over and over again, meaning messages are piling up, to an EDM song. Who under the age of 60 has hearing information? Why didn’t you silence them? Think about the people around you! You work in an office!
About that office – Paula works as a newspaper analyst. This paper, in fact, uses three independent researchers, which assures me that the publications are healthy. He often leaves work, to meet a prostitute in an empty house or not. Forget the police, where is the HR? Arguably Paula’s funnest mistake is opening a box of donuts labeled “reserved for web dev mtg!!” sticky note. Now that is relatable.
It’s improbable but delightfully twisted, Maslany stands out – as do his opponents. The White Lotus’s Murray Bartlett is back – hurrah! – taking us straight into No Country for Old Men territory. Jake Johnson – or Nick from New Girl as I always see him – is Paula’s ex-husband. Filipina actress Dolly de Leon plays a tough detective and an unlikely villain, who skillfully twists the profile of a misanthropic cop. “Marriage is a race.
“Good fun if you like this” may be correct, but a weak title. However, I didn’t get my schadenfreude hit. I’ll sit next to a traffic camera in Chelsea and watch Teslas get tickets instead. Well, maybe after another episode.
