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Bbe aware of the beautiful camboy. And don’t trust Murray Bartlett. These seem like important life lessons to take from Apple TV’s new 10-episode Maximum Pleasure Guaranteed and, the deeper we dive into the plot shot through with dark humor, the wiser it becomes.
The handsome Kamboy is named Trevor (Brandon Flynn), which I think explains why he’s trying to get himself noticed. She is an assistant-with-benefits, employed by a newly divorced mother Paula (Tatiana Maslany) who is alone in her house because her husband is responsible for the care of their daughter, Hazel (Nola Wallace). There are unsettled thoughts of the past and wrong behaviors. They don’t want to serve Paula well.
As Paula and Trevor are about to begin their online session, a masked man enters Trevor’s apartment and begins to beat and strangle him, only to stand and speak the code “Koh See Tee” under the mirror to Paula. With a sense of wonder, especially since she’s under her bra by now, she starts filming the crime scene, then calls the police to report the crime. A mysterious female police officer, Det Gonzales (Dolly De Leon), takes down the details and warns him that it’s a scam. “It’s confusing, but it’s not really a crime.”
Of course, Trevor, who is crying soon, needs $50,000 to pay the thief’s ransom, or he will be killed. Paula hangs up the phone and goes back to talking instead with her husband Karl (Jake Johnson) about finding a better fit for Hazel and trying to stop her from moving to Idaho with her boyfriend, Mallory (Jessy Hodges), for a new job.
Then Trevor calls her at work – on a number she never told him – and the tone changes. “We know everything,” a seemingly ally tells him. He must pay or he will ruin his life.
That’s when things really start. Faced with the indifference of the police, Paula – who is a little on the nose to present a new and strange show like this, a magazine investigator – begins to investigate Trevor himself. Using the information he shared and the background information on the crime scene, he tracks down her home address, grabs his daughter’s hockey stick and prepares to break in.
No spoilers, but the next episode begins with a jump back in time to what awaits him behind the door, and we find out where Murray Bartlett is going in the upcoming story.
Maximum Pleasure Guaranteed is a name that makes its products a treasure trove. The producers were clearly confident in their performance, and rightly so. It’s a surefire, all-you-can-eat delight with an unpredictable edge that keeps you on the edge of your seat. And to Maslany – who won an Emmy for 17 different shows Orphan Black – has the best actors to capture Paula’s mix of restlessness and focus, intelligence and determination. He’s fun to watch, and it’s great to see him given such a meaty role after surviving such a well-known role in She-Hulk: Attorney at Law. I really liked it, but it was really bad. Bartlett is well-connected as Paula’s antagonist and there is no weak link in the cast elsewhere.
You feel like you’re getting a lot of bang for your Apple buck. There’s a crime drama, with people dying in ever-increasing ways as Paula’s discoveries rise to the top of the crime scene. (The only time credibility departs from the conversation is when we find out that he has two fact-finding colleagues at work, although nothing else suggests that it is Time magazine circa 1935.) There is a merciless exploration of our growing fear of constant surveillance and an invisible force, ripe for corruption, that it represents. And there is – in the sedulous relationship between Paula and Karl, as well as the interest in the motivations and pains that have come from evil – love and compassion. More fun than you’d expect, that’s for sure.
